New boundaries leave like-minded city councillors at odds in Toronto--St. Paul’s

TheStar.com
October 11, 2018
Jennifer Pagliaro

The Star identified several “Wards to Watch” in a 47-ward election. Now that new legislation has made it a 25-ward election, we have determined all of the wards are worth watching. This is one in a series of articles. The election is Oct. 22. Advance voting begins Oct. 10.

Josh Matlow is sprinting full tilt down the hallway of a Brentwood Towers highrise apartment building near Davisville station.

He stops on a dime outside an open door and tells the resident, one of dozens he’s shaken hands with this unseasonably warm night, that he hopes he has earned their support.

Many behind the doors on the more than 80 floors his small team will canvas in just under three hours --including an enthusiastic and patriotic shirtless man playing “O Canada” on violin --say they appreciate Matlow’s work as a tenants’ issues advocate and as their current midtown councillor.

“I love how you stand up for tenants,” one resident tells him.

Several note with sadness how difficult it must be in running against a council colleague they see as another decent candidate.

One the other side of the new Ward 12 Toronto—St. Paul’s, in Oakwood Village, incumbent Joe Mihevc is knocking on doors too in an area where he grew up and got his start delivering newspapers. The council veteran goes at a less breakneck pace in the hot October sun, stopping to observe the injury of a resident undergoing cancer treatment. In between houses, he fields phone calls about an incident of anti-Semitic graffiti.

WARD WATCH
Ward 12 Toronto-St. Paul’s

BOUNDARIES

Eglinton Ave. E. to the north; Mount Pleasant Rd., the Don River Tributary and Yonge St. to the east; CPR rail to the south; Dufferin St., Winona Dr. and Ossington Ave. to the west.

DEMOGRAPHICS

There are 107,900 people with an average age of 43. The average household size is two people with a median household income of $70,655. The percentage of visible minorities in the ward is 28 per cent.

OTHER REPRESENTATIVES

MPP Jill Andrew (NDP) and MP Carolyn Bennett (Liberal).

“Didn’t you used to be on the other side?” asks one confused man in a part of the city currently represented by Councillor Josh Colle, but which has been shifted into Ward 12 after the province imposed larger wards. Others, in parts of the street littered with his lime green lawn signs, say their support for Mihevc is assured.

The two popular councillors, who both crushed their competition in the 2014 election, the are now running against each other for the same seat. The ward is home to large number of seniors and tenants and also contains the fastest growing part of the Yonge-Eglinton area, as well as established neighbourhoods such Forest Hill, Wychwood, and a large strip of the St. Clair West community.

In a detailed platform, Matlow has promised to push for policy that includes doubling the number of city-run youth spaces to address the roots of violence, implementing a senior’s strategy and creating new green spaces.

Mihevc, by contrast, has several guiding but more general policy statements on his website about support for increased access to transit, food and city services.

Both Mihevc, first elected in 1991 in a pre-amalgamated Toronto, and Matlow, elected in 2010 at the same time Rob Ford became mayor, are considered progressive, left-leaning councillors.

Joe Mihevc, left, is also considered a left-leaning councillor. He is pictured here recently meeting residents in Oakwood Village.

In order to understand the differences between the two, the Star analyzed their voting history for this entire four-year term and how it compared to that of the right-leaning Mayor John Tory.

The Star found that Matlow and Mihevc only differed on 13.3 per cent of all votes analyzed. And both voted about the same amount with Tory --Matlow differing with Tory on 16.4 per cent of the votes, while Mihevc voted with Tory a bit more frequently, differing 15.9 per cent of the time.

The records, kept by the city clerk’s office, only show votes that are officially recorded, meaning some votes on less consequential issues taken by a simple show of hands are not counted. In doing the analysis, the Star sifted out any votes where one of the people being compared was absent and also left out any votes that have little consequence in terms of actual policy or community issues (such as votes to adopt a schedule of how the meeting will proceed).

There are some key votes where Matlow and Mihevc differed.

For example, Mihevc, freshly-minted by Tory as the city’s poverty reduction advocate, put forward a plan devised with the mayor’s office in December 2017 to create hundreds of new shelter beds while rejecting a push from Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam to immediately open 1,000 new emergency shelter beds in the midst of a capacity crisis and use the federally-run armouries as temporary shelter space.

That was a flip for Mihevc from his own motion at committee just weeks earlier to open 1,000 beds and his support of a motion from Wong-Tam to request use of the armouries. That was in spite of a tearful plea from Wong-Tam on the council floor about people suffering out in the cold and shouted criticism from front line workers. Matlow supported Wong-Tam’s push for 1,000 beds and opening the armouries.

In an interview this week, Mihevc said the armouries were not an ideal location and weren’t preferred by city staff. He said he was guided by information by city staff.

“I’ve been working on housing and homeless issues my entire political career,” he said, adding that the fight over the armouries became an unfair litmus test. “It wasn’t about me selling out. It was about me recognizing what was doable at that time.”

Just over a month after the vote, Tory relented and signed a letter committing to looking at opening 1,000 new shelter beds and also announcing the city would look at using the Moss Park armoury, which eventually opened as temporary shelter.

Matlow often votes against motions to significantly increase property tax rates, such as a motion from left-leaning Councillor Gord Perks to increase the residential rate by 4 per cent in 2018, which Mihevc supported. Perks and others have consistently criticized Tory and councillors unwilling to increase the city’s relatively low property taxes to pay for city services, saying it disadvantages the most vulnerable.

During the same debate, however, Matlow, along with Mihevc, did support a motion from Councillor Mike Layton for a 2.9-per cent residential property tax hike (which failed) and in 2016 Matlow moved a successful motion asking the province to look at allowing the city to collect its own sales tax to fund transit and housing, saying that added tax would be “necessary to move our city forward, to build the infrastructure that our residents want and deserve.”

Toronto—St. Paul’s candidates: Elizabeth Cook, Artur Langu, Ian Lipton, Josh Matlow (councillor), Joe Mihevc (councillor) and Bob Murphy.