Former city councillor Mary Fragedakis seeks Ontario Liberal nomination in Toronto-Danforth

Thestar.com
Jan. 11, 2021
David Rider

Mary Fragedakis, a former member of Toronto city council’s unofficial NDP caucus, is seeking the Ontario Liberal nomination in Toronto-Danforth.

Fragedakis on Wednesday announced her intention to run for the Liberals in the riding held by NDP MPP Peter Tabuns since 2006. The next provincial election is scheduled for June 2022.

If she wins the nomination, Fragedakis and former council colleague Mary-Margaret McMahon, running for the Liberals in neighbouring Beaches-East York, would fight to unseat the Progressive Conservative party led by another former council colleague, Premier Doug Ford.

Fragedakis, currently executive director of the Greektown BIA merchants’ group, said she was approached in late summer by members of the local riding association asking if she was interested in the nomination.

Elected to Toronto city council in 2010, with the endorsement of then-federal NDP leader Jack Layton, she was re-elected in 2014.

In Toronto’s 2018 election, Ford’s forced reduction in the number of Toronto wards pitted Fragedakis against fellow progressive councillor Paula Fletcher.

Fletcher won with support from NDP-friendly unions but Fragedakis said that’s not why she has returned to the Liberals, noting she had been a party member before Layton’s leadership wooed her to the New Democrats.

“I’m a lifelong progressive … I think the Liberal party is the best to represent the people of Ontario,” Fragedakis said, adding another four years under Ford, given his performance during the pandemic, would be “disastrous.”

“Businesses are suffering, the elderly are dying in long-term-care homes, students are suffering -- there are a lot of long-term issues we have to deal with and COVID-19 has highlighted a lot of that,” she said.

Asked for comment, Tabuns said in an email: “My focus is on fighting Doug Ford and defeating him in the next election. I am really looking forward to the campaign.”