According to a recent Forum Research poll, Trinity-Spadina hopeful Joe Cressy is the candidate to beat.
The moment the clock struck 12:01 a.m. Thursday, Joe Cressy and his team of volunteers hit the pavement, campaign signs and wooden stakes in tow.
Council candidates were officially permitted to start erecting signs after midnight and in Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina, the front-runner wasted no time.
"You have to campaign like you're 20 points behind," said Mr. Cressy, a former Stephen Lewis Foundation outreach director who joined the council race in July after losing as the NDP candidate in a federal by-election to Ward 20's previous councillor, Adam Vaughan. Olivia Chow left her long-held Trinity-Spadina federal seat to run for mayor of Toronto. Mr. Vaughan vacated his council seat to run to replace her, leaving council to appoint Ceta Ramkhalawansingh to hold down the fort until the new council is sworn in in December.
Without an incumbent in the race, Trinity-Spadina has attracted a lengthy list of 22 candidates, including known names including Mr. Cressy, former mayoral Sarah Thomson and NoJetsTO chair Anshul Kapoor, as well as the less known former Queen's Park staffer Charles MacDonald.
It's a traditionally progressive ward. The left-leaning Mr. Vaughan, a councillor for eight years, got residents' associations involved in city planning discussions, particularly as downtown Toronto saw huge growth in condominium developments. About 90 per cent of residents live in apartment buildings and Ward 20 residents' median age of 33 is five years younger than the Toronto average, according to Statistics Canada census data compiled by the city.
Key issues affecting Trinity-Spadina, which encompasses several Toronto universities and colleges, waterfront developments and affluent neighbourhoods such as the Annex, include the proposed expansion of Billy Bishop island airport to accommodate jets and the need for better infrastructure and community services to address an influx of new residents in the freshly built condominiums.
According to a recent Forum Research poll, Mr. Cressy is the candidate to beat. The "interactive voice response" telephone poll of 292 random voters in early September found 47 per cent planned to vote for him, while Ms. Thomson, in second-place, polled far behind at 7 per cent and Mr. Kapoor at 3 per cent. About a quarter of respondents were undecided. The poll is considered accurate within six percentage points 19 times out of 20.
When asked why he thought he lost the recent by-election, he put it down to Mr. Vaughan's prominence in the Ward. "I had no idea I was going to be up against a friend of mine in Adam Vaughan. He was a very good city councillor," he said. "It made it difficult."
Despite his NDP ties, Mr. Cressy said he's an independent candidate who will seek to ensure new developments take into account issues of infrastructure and green space. "We need to make sure we're building neighbourhoods, not just building buildings."
Mr. Cressy's platform stresses the need for "progressive and fair" taxes to invest in community programs, services and infrastructure. He recently penned a Now Magazine piece arguing that instead of shying away from the word "taxes," the city should ensure the best use of its resources to improve Torontonians' quality of life.
Mr. Cressy, like Mr. Vaughan before him, also does not support jets at the island airport.
Former chair of the Toronto Transit Alliance, Ms. Thomson is running on a campaign for dedicated transit funding.
"I know the issues and I've fought for a lot of the issues at city hall," she said. She dropped out of the mayoral race in September to run in Ward 20 after pulling such stunts as once arriving at City Hall in a horse-drawn carriage. Ms. Thomson said she was making the point that it's faster getting around on a horse without more transit investment.
"Every major city has had to implement tools," Ms. Thomson said, proposing tolls for drivers from the 905 to fund Toronto transit. "Toronto's eventually going to have to do it. I was saying let's just do it now."
As Ms. Thomson faces off against Mr. Cressy, Mr. MacDonald identified Mr. Kapoor as his main rival. Mr. Kapoor led the movement against expanding Billy Bishop Airport. Mr. MacDonald supports the addition of Porter's so-called whisper jets.
"I want San Francisco to walk off the plane into Ward 20, our hotels, our shops, our restaurants," said Mr. MacDonald. "I want to bring that investment, those tourism dollars … to Ward 20."
He called himself a "proven fighter" for surviving third degree burns to 80 per cent of his body as a 16-year-old in 1990 when his car exploded following an accident. Doctors doubted he'd make it, but 65 surgeries later, Mr. MacDonald survived and is now preparing to fight for residents at city hall.
Meanwhile, Mr. Kapoor, who proposes to hold quarterly accountability meetings with residents' associations to set out mutual goals and expectations, sees Mr. MacDonald as just another one of the 22 candidates, a handful of whom also support airport expansion.
"It's not a matter of whether you are pro-expansion or you're not [for] expansion, what you need to look at is aptitude and experience," Mr. Kapoor said, adding his lobbying efforts at council demonstrate he can get his points across. "Even if councillors did not agree with me, they listened to me."
Though he polled low in the Forum survey, the news wasn't all bad for Mr. Kapoor. Fifteen per cent of voters were aware of him, but he had an approval rating of 44 per cent among that group.
"We did not run (NoJetsTO) as a political step for me…The reason people don't know my name is that that was not the mandate," Mr. Kapoor said, adding the goal now is to get his face and ideas out to as many Ward 20 residents as possible.