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Josh Matlow confirms he’s running for mayor

“We have to get real with Torontonians about the fact-based ways to reverse the decline in services, to improve our infrastructure, and to return to a city that works and that will paying for the things that we that we need,” Matlow said.

Thestar.com
March 20, 2023
David Rider

Coun. Josh Matlow is confirming he will seek to become Toronto’s next mayor, with a platform that will include a special tax hike to improve deteriorating city services and infrastructure.

“I’m running to be the next mayor of Toronto,” the veteran Toronto-St. Paul’s representative said Monday in an exclusive interview. “I have the support of my family and I’ve also received a lot of support from Torontonians who want to see us returning to a city that works.”

Calling himself a “pragmatic progressive,” Matlow said as mayor he would end the city’s 12-year fixation on low property taxes under the administrations of former mayor John Tory, who quit last month, and Tory’s predecessor Rob Ford.

Matlow is proposing for 2024, and beyond, a two-per cent annual “city works fund” charge on top of the regular annual property tax hike set by council and the existing 1.5 per cent city building fund levy. The new surcharge would be aimed specifically at services and infrastructure that need improving.

“I want to see a city that can clear the snow with much higher standards, so that parents with strollers and people with mobility challenges aren’t stuck inside after a storm,” he said. “So many of us are fed up with not being able to get our kid get a spot in a recreation program at our local community centre. So many people are stuck waiting too long for the bus …

“We have to get real with Torontonians about the fact-based ways to reverse the decline in services, to improve our infrastructure, and to return to a city that works and that will be paying for the things that we need.”

The surcharge would generate $78 million a year, or an average of about $67 per household or $5.55 per month -- “the price of a sandwich,” he added.

Under Tory, city council last month raised property taxes by a total of seven per cent -- $233 for the average homeowner, the biggest hike since amalgamation.

Matlow wouldn’t set a target for next year’s base hike but vowed that the total, including the city works fund, would not be “a shock or massive” hike for homeowners.

For potential savings, Matlow wants city council to consider reversing its plan to rebuild and relocate the crumbling elevated east Gardiner Expressway. He wants council to take another look at replacing it with a dramatically less expensive at-grade boulevard.

He called a recent pledge by former councillor Ana Bailão to lobby the provincial government to upload the city-owned Gardiner and Don Valley Expressway, should she be elected mayor, unrealistic.

Neither the Premier Doug Ford government nor the federal government has signalled any willingness to fill the massive pandemic hole in Toronto’s budget, Matlow said, so Toronto needs to work on fixing its own finances while advocating for a new long-term fiscal framework with the other governments.

A city report released Monday underlined Toronto’s financial crisis. It says the city faces $46.5 billion in pressure over the next decade, while having just $290 million in emergency reserves.

“Without meaningful action to address and reduce the $46.5 billion pressure, the future of Toronto as a great place to live, visit, and do business could be at risk,” the report states. “Service levels and capital assets could deteriorate over time and the city might be unable to realize the projects and commitments that speak to its ambition to be a vibrant, equitable, and inclusive world-class city.”

As mayor, Matlow would put council’s plan to rename Dundas Street on the back burner. Although he voted for renaming in 2021, he now says that, with all the issues facing Toronto, the exercise -- triggered by arguments the street’s Scottish namesake helped delay the end of the slave trade -- is not an urgent priority.

City council will, later this week, receive an integrity commissioner report into Matlow’s comments about city staff, including his contention that some lied to him about park washrooms being open last spring.

Council in 2018 reprimanded Matlow for questioning the objectivity of city staff in public comments he made about a briefing note about progress on the Scarborough subway extension -- a project that Matlow fiercely opposed but now says is too far advanced to replace with a light rail line.

On Monday Matlow said the vast majority of city staff do their job with integrity and, as mayor, he would introduce a new culture at city hall that allows them to “speak truth to power” rather than bend to the will of the mayor’s office.

He made no apologies for his park washroom remarks, and said he’d call out any future staff misconduct.

“When staff lie or collude with one member of council to support a political objective, that should be called out and challenged,” he said.

“And I’ll continue doing that.”

Starting April 3, candidates can register for the June 26 byelection to replace Tory for the remainder of the council term that ends in November 2026.