Mayoral candidate cries foul after he’s kicked off Nathan Phillips Square during his press conference

Gil Penalosa said it is unfair that the current mayor is allowed to hold events in front of city hall but his rivals are not.

Thestar.com
Sept. 15, 2022
Ben Spurr

A mayoral candidate is complaining about what he says is an election rule double standard, after he was kicked out of the public square in front of city hall Wednesday morning while trying to hold a press conference.

Gil Penalosa was in Nathan Phillips Square making a housing policy announcement when a pair of security guards stepped in and told his campaign team he had to move off city property.

When he agreed and set up on the edge of the square, the guards intervened again and told him to move farther away. According to his campaign, at one point they threatened to call the police.

“I was doing a press conference in front of the Toronto sign, and we were kicked out,” Penalosa said in an interview. “We were on the sidewalk and again we were kicked out to somewhere else. Why? The sidewalk is public space.”

According to Toronto chief communications officer Brad Ross, city security guards confronted the group because the press conference contravened municipal policy on the use of city property during an election. He cited a rule that states while candidates are allowed to take questions from media in Nathan Phillips Square and other municipal facilities, events that make use of amplified sound aren’t permitted.

Before security stepped in, Penalosa spent about 10 minutes speaking through a microphone, while members of his campaign team held up large letters next to the square’s famous sign to spell out “GIL 4 TORONTO.”

“While informal media scrums are permitted on public squares, formal events such as what was observed today, are not,” Ross said. He said the policy “is not new” and the rules are “are communicated with all candidates widely.”

But Penalosa, who is Mayor John Tory’s highest-profile challenger in the Oct. 24 election, said it’s not fair for him to be booted from the square “when I see the mayor doing press conferences in front of city hall all the time.”

Most recently Tory took part in a Sept. 7 press conference about a city campaign to combat antisemitism, which was staged in Nathan Phillips Square just steps from where Penalosa later held his event.

Although the announcement last week wasn’t directly related to Tory’s campaign, Penalosa and others argue that holding such events during a campaign period gives favourable media coverage to office-holders seeking re-election, and amounts to an unfair advantage to incumbents.

Candidate registrations for the municipal election closed Aug. 19, and campaign season typically enters full swing after Labour Day.

In a statement, Janessa Crognali, director of communications for the Tory campaign, defended the mayor’s participation in city media events while the election is ongoing. She said his term lasts until Nov. 15, and until then Tory “is doing the job he was elected to do.”

Crognali said the Sept. 7 event was one of several announcements he has made for the city’s anti-discrimination initiative during his tenure, and his “mayoral commitments ... are separate from his campaign events.”

Myer Siemiatycki, a professor emeritus of politics and public administration at Toronto Metropolitan University, says Penalosa has a point.

“The mayor is making announcements regarding initiatives that he is currently rolling out in his capacity as mayor. And in that respect he is taking advantage of the current office he holds ... to get media attention” and improve his election chances, Siemiatycki said. Candidates who aren’t incumbents don’t have the same opportunity.

Siemiatycki noted municipal elections contrast with those at the federal and provincial levels, where convention puts a freeze on government events during a campaign.