Report on May 18th All Candidates Meeting – Toronto Centre 2022

By -

In Regent Park, a community that is in the process of a massive transformation, from Canada's largest social housing complex to a mixed income/mixed use neighbourhood, the outcome of elections, be they Municipal, Provincial, or Federal is of profound interest to area residents.

The Community Civic Engagement Collaborative (CCEC) is a grassroots collective of agencies and residents in Regent Park, Moss Park, St. James Town and Corktown neighbourhoods, working to increase civic engagement in elections and beyond, through non-partisan community organizing.

On Wednesday May 18, 2022, the CCEC organized and hosted an all-candidates meeting (held at the Daniels Spectrum, 585 Dundas St E, Toronto) and invited candidates to share their respective party's platforms regarding the key issues facing the Toronto Centre riding, which includes Moss Park, Regent Park, Cabbage Town, Church Wellesley Village, and St. Jamestown.


 The meeting was moderated by Ina Labuschgne and Walied Khogali. The three parties were represented by Nicki Ward (Green Party), David Morris (Liberal Party) and Kristyn Wong-Tam (NDP). The Conservative Party candidate did not attend.

Candidates were asked to respond four major themes, Employment, Housing, Environment, and Income Security.

On the issue of Employment, the central concerns are better working conditions, as in the 10 permanent days of employer paid sick days, the $20.00 per hour minimum wage, changing laws to ensure worker rights are protected in areas such as misclassification, firing, wage parity between contracts, part-time and full-time or other areas.

In the riding of Toronto Centre where many residents identify as low income, housing is a vital concern. Candidates were asked what they would do to provide safe, affordable, and stable housing for people who live at various income levels, including the lowest income? Additionally, and more specifically, area residents are interested in rent geared to income (RGI), portable housing benefits, and rent-to-own models?

On the subject of the environment, candidates responded more on what their parties planned to do in a general sense and less at what the parties planned to do locally.

The final question to the candidates was, “what will you and your party do to ensure all Ontarians have income security, such as the $500.00 weekly minimum benefit for all, including the recipients of the Ontario Works and Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP), Universal Basic Income, better support for seniors and other programs that indirectly improve Ontarians income security?”

See what each candidate has to say to these questions by viewing the RPTV coverage of the event https://youtu.be/-PHx9JHNNuo .

For more information about the CCEC visit their website at www.downtowneastvotes.ca.


Written by
Dimitrije Martinovic

Journalist
FOCUS Media Arts Centre


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Regent Park Portrayed in Film and Television

By -
Image
Toronto has a rich history of being a go-to shooting location for many television and film production companies. Some notable films shot here over the years include Good Will Hunting (1997), Billy Madison (1998), American Psycho (2000), and X-Men (2000). Regent Park has also had its share of showcases in film. This article aims to review the general content of movie dramas and televisions shows shot in Regent and explore their relationship to the community. Clement Virgo is a director, producer, and writer from Montego Bay, Jamaica. He was born in 1966 and moved to the Regent Park area in Toronto in 1977. During this time Regent Park was generally populated by low-income families and as a hot spot for drugs. Virgo is most recently known for his roles in Greenleaf (2016-2018), The Book of Negroes (2015), and The Wire (2002) as Director and/or Producer. His first feature-length film, however, was Rude (1995), which was filmed almost entirely in the old Regent Park. “The film told
Read more

Meet Your Neighbourhood Police Officers – PC Mircea Biga and PC Farzad Ghotbi

By -
Image
Community-based policing is a proactive law enforcement strategy that focuses on building ties and working closely with a community’s members to create partnerships and plans for preventing and reducing crime. While community policing will look differently depending on the community it serves, a central feature is that the same officer patrols and works in the same area on a permanent basis. Currently there are 17 community-based police programs in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), but what most people don’t know is that Toronto’s community policing started in Regent Park in May of 2017. We know this because the original officers involved in setting up the Regent Park community policing program continue to work here today. The officers are PC Mircea Biga, PC Farzad Ghotbi, and PC Edward Parks; the newest officer assigned to the Regent Park community is PC Nigel Thomas (who is replacing PC Melissa Huntley while she is on maternity leave). Symptomatic of the increasing diversity of
Read more

WHY RENAME DUNDAS STREET IN TORONTO – what’s in a name?

By -
Image
July 14th, 2021: After a lengthy debate on Wednesday, council voted 17 to 7 in favour of a motion put forward by Mayor John Tory and city staff to change the name of Dundas Street. Dundas Street cuts across an immense swath of neighbourhoods including the community of Regent Park, as it circumnavigates the eastern and western boundaries of Toronto. Beginning in the east end at Kingston Rd. and working its way westward, Dundas Street travels through The Beach, Leslieville, Riverside, Regent Park, Cabbagetown South, ChinaTown, Alexandra Park, Trinity Bellwoods, Little Portugal, Brockton Village, the Junction Triangle, Lambton, Chestnut Hills, Islington, Summerville, Appelwood Heights, Mississauga Valley, and to Erindale at its western edge where it becomes Hwy 5. Each of these neighbourhoods has a distinct cultural vibe and demographic make-up, urban, residential, commercial, suburban and in some case semi-industrial, each locale a mix of rich identities and histories that begs out to
Read more