Tag: toronto votes

The race to become Toronto’s next mayor is grinding towards it’s inevitable conclusion on October 22nd.  The race started with dozens of candidates. That number has been whittled down to just four viable candidates.  One of the more unexpected survivors in this political deathmatch is an unassuming house mom named Sarah Climenhaga.  Sarah doesn’t have the usual political credentials of most candidates.  That’s what made her so interesting to Tim who invited her onto this week’s episode.

Sarah is a community volunteer who is busy raising her three kids.  She worked previously with the World Wildlife Fund but wasn’t particularly political.  She decided to enter the race because she was unhappy with John Tory’s absentee governance of the city.  She is a strong believer in collaboration and doesn’t subscribe to any particular party platform.  “I agree with fair wages which is an NDP focus but I also believe in wisely spending tax money which is a Conservative principal,” she says.

Sarah’s down the middle approach flies in the face of Tim’s more libertarian ideas.  Tim is a strong proponent in reducing the size of government. He also thinks Toronto business is overtaxed, a proposition that Sarah doesn’t necessarily agree with.  She does say that the pace of decision making is far too slow at city hall.   

They say that it takes as much as $2 million to run for city hall in Toronto.  Sarah is running a campaign with far less money than that. She says her biggest strength is her ability to connect with regular voters and to actually work with people of wildly different political ideas.  We’ll find out if her platform will succeed Oct 22nd.