What a difference having a mayoral race under your belt makes for a hitherto unknown politico trying to knock off a two-decade incumbent.
One might say Liberal Sarah Thomson’s provincial bid in demographically shifting Trinity-Spadina against NDPer Rosario Marchese is the stuff of pure good luck. The publisher of a magazine of negligible import, with no activist base to speak of, Thomson was able to attract a few notables to her mayoralty cause last fall – and a surprising amount of press attention.
With Marchese’s lead eroded in the past two elections from 47 per cent in 2003 to 41 in 2007 (and with the Libs at about 31 per cent), Thomson is banking on her media profile, the condo invasion and the fact that older ethnic communities are giving way to gentrification.
“Rosario has been here for 21 years. That’s enough,” the articulate Thomson tells me, sitting in the Madison Pub and flashing her photogenic smile. Her pitch is more about the riding getting a fresh face than it is about any specific issue.
She is, after all, a Liberal newbie, and in public debates tends to rely on printed party material to answer questions. That doesn’t stop her from going a bit rogue from time to time.
Last week, she told a community paper that Dalton McGuinty had cut a deal for more daycare with Rob Ford, a suggestion the premier took pains to deny. And at a meeting at Trinity-St. Paul’s Church on September 14, she showed a little too much positive interest in a questioner’s call for a single publicly supported school system, a nightmare issue for McGuintyists, to be sure.
Thomson told the audience that night that she would use her “loud voice” to push her fellow Liberal MPPs for more action on issues like police accountability. “I am going to be pleading for that,” she said.
But truth to tell, while Thomson’s arguments are always reasoned, her judgment isn’t always sound. During the mayoral race, she presented herself as a fiscal conservative, opposed to property tax increases as well as the land transfer tax, a key revenue source pushed by progressives.
Pumping her experience as a businesswoman, she advocated cutting city staff and taking private sector bids on services like garbage, and using road tolls to build a pricey $6.6 billion subway system. Then there’s the matter of pasting her own mug on the cover of her Women’s Post.
At the church meeting, it was clear that the Grit and NDP reps share similar concerns about the necessity for more bike lanes, better public transit, condo regulation and opposition to Rob Ford’s service cuts. But in our Madison conversation, Thomson goes for a knockout, telling me that Marchese voted against Liberal budget legislation that included spending more for seniors’ programs and full-day kindergarten. “His record,” she said, “is actually very similar to the Conservatives’. If more people knew about the record, they might question voting for him.”
Marchese, for his part, seems unfazed by the Thomson onslaught. Still a teacher at heart after 21 years at the legislature, he puts his arms and elbows through a small workout explaining his points. Sitting in Dooney’s, his brother’s café in the Annex, he says his party couldn’t vote for the bills mentioned by Thomson because the legislation was bundled with unrelated items opposed by New Democrats. “Sadly, new candidates who don’t have a clue about how the legislature functions will just repeat [these statements], hoping they have resonance,” he says.
As education critic, Marchese has not had a particularly strong presence in the media. He has nevertheless been busy pushing for a tuition freeze and a legislated ban on junk food ads, and advocating for gay-straight alliances in separate schools. He’s also taken a strong position on a G20 public inquiry and pushed legislation to widen the ombudsman’s ability to investigate hospitals, schools and the Children’s Aid.
“I think for the first time in a long time we are trying to talk to the majority in Ontario,” he says, referring to NDP policy on cutting the HST on gas and home heating, and funding conservation, including home retrofits, by ditching the nuke expansion.
Marchese believes that despite the slow disappearance of his traditional southern European and Chinese immigrant base in the area, he is in a strong position. Certainly, the condo invasion hasn’t been a problem for Olivia Chow in the federal riding, and Marchese has been energetic in introducing a condo owners’ bill of rights – three times actually – only to be thwarted by the Liberals.
According to Ryerson politics prof Bryan Evans, it’s not a given that condofication depresses the NDP’s appeal. “There’s been a mythology that condo owners are more upwardly mobile, more affluent people who tend not to vote NDP.” But he points out that “in terms of the housing market, this is the last avenue for middle-income people for some kind of home ownership.”
While Tory contender Mike Yen will likely be a non-factor, the presence of Green party candidate Tim Grant raises other issues. Grant is promoting solar energy, tree planting and energy-efficient condos and is targeting soft NDP voters who may consider HST fuel exemptions a climate-change comedown.
“I think the NDP provincially is more conservative than the federal NDP,” says Grant, whose party took 11 per cent of the riding votes in 2007.
No question that environmentalism ranks in Trinity-Spadina. Local resident Abraham Blank, a former exec assistant to NDP politician Dan Heap, predicts the soft NDP vote will likely shift to Grant – if Marchese maintains a reasonable lead over the Libs. But if Thomson starts to come on strong, he says, those same voters will return to reinforce the NDP.
Among political observers, says Evans, “Rosario’s holding on is the favoured projection. On the other hand, I would definitely not rule out Thomson taking it.”
Trinity-Spadina by the numbers
Population 115,361 • Registered voters 96,793
Average family income $81,415 • Unemployment rate 6.7 per cent
English as mother tongue 52 per cent
Visible minorities Chinese (18 per cent)
Geography The riding includes the Toronto Islands. Its borders were changed in 2004, when the generally NDP-voting northwest corner was lost to Davenport and the mostly Liberal-voting business area between University and Yonge was added from Toronto Centre-Rosedale.
Vote breakdown in the 2007 election: NDP 41 per cent, Liberals 32 per cent, PCs 14 per cent, Greens 12 per cent
news@nowtoronto.com
