2 weeks Ago By [email protected] (Ben Cohen)
Behind-the-scenes efforts to consolidate the left-leaning vote against a controversial conservative vying for a city council seat have failed. , none of the three Liberal-linked candidates in the upcoming Ward 15 Don Valley West byelection have ended their campaigns to avoid splitting the vote. Kathleen Wynne and John Tory are two of the big names involved in the attempts to head off vote The deadline to withdraw passed Thursday afternoon, meaning all three will be on the ballot competing against each other in the Nov.
4 vote. The conservative-leaning opponent, Anthony Furey, has had better luck on this front. The sole withdrawal in the race was little-known candidate Angela Lindow, who dropped out last week to endorse Furey.
Furey is a former Toronto Sun columnist and is on leave as editorial director of the True North Centre for Public Policy, a far-right think tank that runs a digital media site. He’s faced . If elected, he would represent a ward where .
Furey has called allegations against him “out-of-context smears.” In an email to the Star Thursday, Furey said he is running a “big tent campaign” where everyone is welcome. Furey’s progressive opponents told the Star they didn’t drop out because each of them feels they are uniquely suited to take the reins in Ward 15.
Wynne’s pick is Toronto District School Board chair Rachel Chernos Lin. The ex-premier, who represented the ward provincially for two decades, officially endorsed Chernos Lin less than an hour after the withdrawal deadline passed. In an interview with the Star Thursday, Wynne lamented that the crowded electoral field will make defeating Furey more of a challenge.
Furey, she said, “doesn’t know the community’s issues” and, she believes, will abandon it to run for mayor in 2026. Furey, who placed a distant fourth in last year’s mayoral byelection, . Regardless, he has said, his focus for now is on Don Valley West.
All told there are 16 candidates running in the race to elect a successor for longtime councillor Jaye Robinson, who died from cancer in May. The other prominent candidates with Liberal connections are Dhruv Jain, who worked as executive assistant to Stephanie Bowman, the Liberal MPP for the riding, and Evan Sambasivam, who recently left his job as a federal Liberal government staffer. Chernos Lin, Wynne said, wants to “solve problems,” and that her experience as a TDSB trustee in the area for six years means she knows what problems to focus on.
Chernos Lin has also received the endorsement of Bowman, local Liberal MP Rob Oliphant and city councillors Jennifer McKelvie, Mike Colle and Shelley Carroll. “I am the only candidate in this race who has experience in an elected position,” said Chernos Lin in a statement to the Star on Thursday. Her platform includes making the ward safer and more walkable.
Jain, who is on leave from the office of the TTC chair, where he worked as director of transit policy, said his “experience working at city hall and a grassroots campaign team” makes him “the best positioned candidate to defeat Furey.” If he wins, Jain wants to promote family-sized housing options and improve public safety. Jain’s campaign that Wynne had asked their candidate not to run in the byelection.
Wynne said this was an “overstatement,” and that she merely stressed the importance of uniting against Furey. Sambasivam said he did not even consider dropping out to endorse another candidate. Sambasivam, 28, said he is younger and more progressive than Jain and Chernos Lin.
He said he has experience going “toe-to-toe with Doug Ford,” which he said he wants to leverage to make the province reverse course on closing the Ontario Science Centre. By virtue of his age and status as a renter, he said he would bring a unique perspective to council. “The race is not about left versus right,” said Sambasivam.
“It’s about change versus status quo.” Other candidates on the ballot include architect and environmental advocate Sheena Sharp, food and lifestyle educator Lesley Stoyan and international development consultant Habiba Desai..
