The Daily Commercial News examines the Toronto mayoral byelection through the lens of the city’s construction sector, with our final profile before election day on candidate Anthony Furey.
With less than a week to go before Toronto votes in a new mayor, broadcaster Anthony Furey has emerged as a top-tier candidate after launching his campaign months ago off the radar.
A poll released by Forum Research June 19 found Olivia Chow remains the frontrunner at 31 per cent with Mark Saunders a distant second at 15 per cent.
Furey is now the favourite of 13 per cent of voters, tied with Ana Bailao. The election to replace former mayor John Tory takes place June 26.
A month ago, Furey was not in the top six. The former Toronto Sun columnist, who disparages bike lanes as unpopular and says he communicates well with the development community, called Chow the only other candidate in the top seven besides himself who has a “principled vision” and is running an authentic campaign.
But, said Furey recently, Chow’s plan to create a new agency to build housing is not the way to get affordable units built.
“We need to empower the private sector to do what they do best and we need to listen to them,” he said. “I’ve got to tell you, speaking with developers, builders, they’re not asking for special treatment. They’re not asking for handouts. They’re just asking for a system that works.
“The fact that it can take well over two years for development to be approved is unacceptable.”
Lengthy project approvals add to the cost of housing said Furey.
“As mayor, if a development project is not approved within six months of landing on the desk of city hall, it will be auto-approved. Yes, it still has to follow all of the rules and regulations and bylaw standards, but it will be approved to proceed because time is money.”
Other elements of his Building Housing Now Action Plan include using market solutions to speed up homebuilding and eliminating the municipal land transfer tax for first-time buyers to assist with housing affordability.
Many of Furey’s campaign planks address livability issues in the city. He began his campaign saying he would replace drug injection sites with treatment centres, and he would attempt to make streets safer by putting 500 more police officers on transit and the beat.
Other headline policies include phasing out the land transfer tax, pledging no new taxes and road tolls, slashing red tape and stopping the installation of bike lanes on major roads.
“Fringe” community activists with “pet projects” have a disproportionate influence at city hall, he said, as do activist bureaucrats.
“I believe that planning happens relatively organically. Where you get into problems is when a bureaucrat thinks they’re able to put an agenda on people and box them in on their choices and box them in on their lifestyle. That is wrong.”
The father of small children believes his role as mayor will be to create the conditions for the streets to be vibrant and for the city to thrive. He intends to be a “pro-economy” mayor with various incentives to attract investment that will lead to economic development and create good jobs.
“I’m the only candidate who talks about the mayoral race from an economic development perspective,” he said. “We don’t just talk about shaking down people for more tax dollars, shaking down more businesses. That’s a zero-sum game. I want to grow the pie.”
Furey said he would take the province’s final plan for Ontario Place and consult with Torontonians to ensure their views are heard. He would prefer to develop a consensus on major issues in front of council instead of using strong mayor’s powers, but “if something is a clear priority to help the folks of Toronto, I’ll do whatever I’ve got to do to stand up to folks.”
Addressing collective agreements that bind the city to major building trades unions for city construction projects, Furey said he is open to “creatively” exploring more open tendering options to get work done faster, but he said, “I would like to work with city staff and I’d like to work productively with the unions who play a role in building this great city.”
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