I'm going to run for office.

Yeah, it's a valid concern and you do have to have a lot of guts and courage to run for public office because you're under the public spotlight, you're under scrutiny.

But if you're willing to take that leap of faith, it's very rewarding because you have the ability to affect positive change in your city.

And I think more and more people are starting to realize that we need high caliber people with good pedigree to run for municipal government.

And that's why this year, actually, we do have a lot of great candidates who have shifted from the private sector into the public sector.

And this is a good trend.

That's what you did, isn't

it? Yeah, I'm convinced we've handed the keys, the master keys of City Hall to bad faith actors.

I've heard that from people across Ontario and indeed in other provinces where there are elections that people are starting to realize that the mayor and councillors have more impact on their life than perhaps the premier or the prime minister.

Yeah, that's spot on.

Municipal government is the most tangible, most palpable government that affects your day-to-day life of the city.

The quality of your streets that you drive on or you ride your bicycle on, the sidewalks, your transit system, that is all directly related related to municipal government and so it is very important that people get out to vote but also don't forget that your local government are also your interface to other orders of government.

They represent you when they're talking to the province or the feds and so it's crucial that people get out to vote here in the upcoming election.

Even though there's a commissioner out there, you ran integrity TO, people are still doing it.

People are really waking up to the fact that there is deep endemic corruption.

Well, of course, at all levels of government, but municipal government has kind of flown under the radar for a long period of time.

How have you been received in parts of the ward that I'm sure default to voting left?

Well, the thing is, even people who are historically liberal or consider themselves left of the center, even they are having a tough time reconciling the state of the ward under what is supposedly left wing, you know, sort of far to the left liberal governance.

Because regardless of where you stand on the political spectrum, if you don't feel safe outside, or if you don't want to take the TTC for various reasons, or there's vagrants and violent drug addicts in your parks, that no longer becomes a political...

It's not about the political stripe.

That becomes a human issue.

It transcends political ideology.

And a lot of people are coming to grips with that.

It's hard to walk off.

And I think he's just going to come up through the middle of all that.

Yeah, that's a really viable path for me.

But I think what we're seeing here is a come to Jesus moment for the progressive left here in Toronto Centre.

People are now basically seeing for themselves what over a decade of progressive left policies and ideology and ultra-tolerant policies pertaining to drug use and harm reduction and various other things.

The chickens are coming home to roost now because regardless of where you are on the political spectrum, you just need to go for a walk around over the last three, four years to see that there's misery on our streets.

Things are dirty.

Things are in disrepair.

And I'm wondering, is that a cohesive vote that you see in your area?

Where it's all ideology.

Yeah, and it's disturbing.

Um, the City Hall, local government, is about what Karen says, delivering critical services and infrastructure that are part of the portfolio of what municipal government delivers.

But over the last several years, it has become an ideology camp, uh, where people are getting hired, activists are getting hired, and with that, you have a ton of corruption, uh, and, and nepotism, and things like that.

And that's why you have such a deep distrust of City Hall these days.

And, and this is very harmful for Toronto, and for our future, and for our growth.

And so yeah, I fully agree.

When you see that story of all this taxpayer money going to projects, and there's just no validation for what the money was for, that's probably the stuff that grinds your gears.

equally if not more important what would you want to see done about this like where's the solution because it's so easy to showcase the problems and it's so easy to say we don't want this but what do you think is the solution to it

well first and foremost when people see that they need to understand that he is threatening and harming the just by virtue of the act of feeling so emboldened that you can smoke crack or meth or fent or whatever, schedule one narcotic on the TTC.

That's not only harmful to yourself, it's harmful to the people around you, and it's harmful to society because it sends a message that...

This type of behavior, criminal behavior, terrible behavior is tolerable, is acceptable by the authorities.

And we can't live in a world like that.

We can't live in a society where that type of behavior becomes normalized.

Because if we do, then society will decline.

Like, As city councilor, what do you do to help? And I appreciate there is no quick fix here, but where do you think the solution lies?

give me a surprising issue that you're hearing about and you're like i now need to think more of this or this is a bigger issue than i that i may have foresaw among the electorate that they want fixed or they want changed

I've heard at the door a lot of people who are very concerned with construction projects that just seem to take forever and cause absolute madness on the streets and gridlock.

And oftentimes the city is supposed to be doing a job.

There should be a schedule, yet the schedule gets overrun and then all the equipment and pylons are just left on the street for an indefinite amount of time.

And I've actually heard this at several different locations throughout the ward.

And that's something I would upon being elected immediately look into is like if it's transportation services, who, by the way, is a half billion dollar division, they must respect the schedules.

Right.

And this is where we're at.

Give me a surprising issue that you're hearing about and you're like, I now need to think more of this or this is a bigger issue than I than I may have foresaw among the electorate that they want fixed or they want changed.

I've heard at the door a lot of people who are very concerned with construction projects that just seem to take forever and cause absolute madness on the streets and gridlock.

And oftentimes the city is supposed to be doing a job.

There should be a schedule, yet the schedule gets overrun and then all the equipment and pylons are just left on the street for an indefinite amount of time.

And I've actually heard this at several different locations throughout the ward.

And that's something I would upon being elected immediately look into is like if it's transportation services, who, by the way, is a half billion dollar division, they must respect the schedules.

Right.

And this is where we're at.

So what are you finding door to door? I mean, that's quite a mess in your ward.

Yeah, we have a lot of cooks in the kitchen.

We have 11 candidates, and that goes to show how many people are completely disillusioned with the current leadership.

So everyone's throwing their name into the ring to try to win.

But we have an incredible amount of momentum.

My campaign is really generating a lot of energy at the doors.

And it's the same message.

I

Like, how would you deal with that?

Okay, well, the first thing I would do is take a deep look at what's called delegated authority.

In 2017, under John Tory, they decided that they're going to give staff in Upper Brass complete freedom to make decisions on, you know, $8, $9, $10 million real estate deals and other deals.

And you basically transferred a massive amount of autonomy and decision-making to upper bureaucrats, which basically sidelined city councillors and the general public.

Because it basically meant this delegated authority is that we don't have to do public consultation.

We don't even have to let the city councillors know what's going on.

The upper bureaucrats and the brass are doing it.

So how are you going to deal? I'm imagining it's only, if anything, going to get worse.

What's your pitch?

pitch?Uh, my pitch is that we need to bring common sense back to City Hall.

Common sense, uh, has exited stage left for at least the last four years in our city.

Um, we need to make, uh, bring respect back to the taxpayer, and public money, which is being pilfered left, right, and center by, uh, you know, scam artists and contractors.

W- uh, there's a lot of, uh, graft and fraud happening on the procurement side.

S- you know, all these single-source contracts, millions of dollars being handed out.

Um, we need to reign all that in.

It costs money

But do you tr- do you have a, a conscious, um, strategy to make this about policy and leave the personal stuff more to the side? Or, or do you wanna point out, this is, this is who's representing our ward, and, and I don't think he's acted appropriately in many, many occasions?

Well, I think the electorate and the voter should be aware of all the information.

They should understand the nature of the current incumbent, and if they ask about his track record, I need to be in a position where I can speak on his track record.

Uh, at the same time, I do wanna let people know what I bring to the table and the value that I can offer being a leader of this, uh, of this ward.

So you gotta sort of, um, you know, play, play both sides of the line.

I'm generally a positive, optimistic person, so I'd like to talk about what I can bring to the table and my skill set.

But people need to understand that they do have, in my view, a failed leader.

The entire process of let's, let's agree to disagree sometimes just doesn't seem to be a valid one, and that's why a lot, a lot of stuff that could get done doesn't get done at Toronto City Council.

And the irony here, Daniel, is that drivers of vehicles observe the 20 kilometer an hour speed limit, whereas professional cyclists don't.

Yeah, it's completely ludicrous.

In my view, what you have here is a city councillor, Gord Perks, who completely capitulated to the cycling lobby at the expense of practically everybody else who needs to access the park with their vehicle for various reasons.

And what was supposed to be just a...

A short thing during COVID, you know, this was the social distancing era.

So they have to block parks.

You know, we remember the craziness of that time.

And Daniel, really, it's only a matter of time, and I hate to even say it, before somebody is injured by one of these cyclists going 50, 60 miles an hour.

So tell me, what have you and your team seen that is just the latest in our garbage bin problems?

Yeah, so it looks like all this messaging about the importance of recycling is actually not the case.

A couple days ago, I had somebody send me a message over social media.

It was a video, and they were documenting the City of Toronto garbage worker coming to one of those outdoor garbage receptacles that has the litter and the recycling in different departments.

And he was watching them, and he was recording, and he was shocked to see with his own eyes that the worker emptied the garbage bin directly into the recycle bin and then took all that mixed up refuse and threw it into the garbage truck, into one bin.

And that really shocked the guy who was recording.

And when he sent it to me, I was also really surprised because I was always under the impression that we were told that garbage and recycling must always be separate to save the planet.

So how widespread is this? I mean, did we just have a garbage collector who was being lazy or is this actually what's happening on our streets?

A lot of people run for-

Yeah.

And m- most of them don't, uh, don't register in terms of, of capturing people's opinion.

Uh, but it does feel like there will be fewer people on the center, center right this time, uh, than last time.

This, and Karen Stintz, by the way, formerly of, of city council, I mean, she, she had something to say about this Chris Moyes legal fee nonsense.

For, for Rob Ford, there was like 1,000 little things that culminated into the gravy train that actually captured the public's attention to say, "There is something really, really wrong with City Hall." And if they pass this bill, I really hope this becomes that mark, that line in the sand where the public s- starts paying attention to what's going on down there, 'cause there's something really wrong.

And putting sort of... people responsible for it on the TTC with no power to do anything, but just point out the bad behavior is not a solution.

Yeah, I agree.

It's the Wild West right now on the TTC.

Integrity TO gets videos and photos from people every day, and it's a horror show.

You have a climate of impunity down there in the underground.

You have people who are completely in a fent or meth-induced stupor, acting like the subway is their personal playground, treating it like a trash can, like a toilet.

And this is happening with...

If that's what they're there for, then they're not serving a purpose.

How come?

Well, number one, her tax and spend policies tell everybody, including myself, that there is basically a war on the middle class.

We are being taxed beyond belief.

We've never ever seen in the history of this city 24, 25 percent property tax increases over the last three years.

So there's a huge squeeze on property owners, a huge squeeze on the middle class.

She's adding more taxes through other means, such as the speed camera program, which has taken another $75 million out of our pockets.

And we're not talking about egregious speeding here.

What's the most ridiculous thing you've seen them spend a bunch of time on when, you know, as the city burns outside, for lack of a better phrase?