CP24 Live: Mississauga Votes 2024 Debate Special

[Music] good evening and welcome to together Miss Saga our city our voice some aoral debate I'm Phil Perkins thanks for joining us on this Wednesday night tonight's debate hosted by United Way Greater Toronto and is appropriately being held at the Hazel mallan Campus of Sheridan College right by Miss Saga City Hall now here's a live look right now tonight's setup the debate will begin momentarily five candidates will be taking part Brian cromby DEA damera s dasco George Tavaris and Alvin tedjo now cromi is currently the chief operating officer at real estate development company Terror cap he's also the ex-husband of former Mrs Saga mayor Bonnie cromby D merla is a Miss Saga city council right now representing w s dasal is a councelor representing Ward one Taris is a community advocate who includes engineering and political science as part of his background and tedo is the current counselor for War I now not taking part today is proceed front runner Carolyn Parish who previously announced that she would not be participating in any debates ahead of the election horrible now a new leaon strategies poll released earlier this week suggests the race is tightening as we get closer to election day with Parish still leading at 25 % support de Mera closing the Gap at 20 now tedjo is in third at 16% Steven Desco has 10% support that's followed by crownbeat with eight now this new poll found 8% of respondents are voting for someone else with 16% undecided the poll was conducted on May 24th and 25th with 97 residents surveyed it has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.22% 19 times out of 20 all right we're going to go to the debate right now with the five candidates and so uh enjoy it we'll be right back Seth I'm a journalist with over 25 years of experience I'm a Storyteller I have covered elections at all levels throughout my career and I will be your moderator this evening candidates welcome I of course would like to thank all of you for joining us here in person of course those that are watching on television as well or online and especially as I mentioned the mayor candidates who are before you today who've chosen to join in this debate tonight now as we know Mrs Saga turns 50 this year it's hard not to notice that it is not the same Miss Saga as it was 50 years ago this is a city experiencing incredible growth the city's demographics are changing it's bigger more diverse more urban more modern denser and taller it's also a city facing many critical issues from a grown growing affordable housing crisis strained Community Services Etc there are 20 candidates we know in this election that are vying to be mayor and far more than we could fit on this stage and of course that we have time however as we know we've got five candidates who are here today now to make the debate manageable we've used an average of polls in a predetermined period to select candidates polling at 5% based in voting intention on that basis we invited six candidates Ates five of them as you see before you have accepted that invitation and they are in the order as determined by a random draw we did earlier this evening so before me right now is Deepa kadala Alvin tedjo Steven dasco Brian cromby and George Taris now candidate candidate Carolyn Parish was invited however she did decline to participate in tonight's debate now these candidates here before you will feel questions coming from me as well as from members of the community with each candidate having one minute to respond there's also going to be a segment during this debate in which each candidate will have an opportunity to have a direct question to one of their opponents creating space for one-on-one engagement and the candidates have agreed to for to the format in advance of the debate and of course they know the rules we want to keep it engaging but we want to keep it clean now before we begin I would like to remind everyone that we're here of course to hear the candidates who are here campaigning for mayor hearing them out without disruption or Interruption and to hold Applause until all candidates have spoken we know that the candidates of course have participated in a number of debates they've introduced yourselves right across the city tonight's debate is critical we know that there's another debate tomorrow and then of course voters if they haven't already they're heading to the polls Advanced polling happening this weekend and of course election day is on June 10th candidates are we ready yeah yep all right we got the thumbs up ladies and Gentlemen let's begin tonight's debate let's begin with the First theme Here qualifications to lead Mrs Saga into the future and I begin with our first candidate here at dadala the question to you is why are you the right candidate to lead our modern diverse urban city into its future you have one minute thank you experience matters you I've run a small business in this city I worked in corporate banking I've served as a member of provincial Parliament had the honor of serving as a cabinet minister in Ontario and as a city councelor and all of this all of this has prepared me for today to lead Mrs Saga and be the mayor Mrs Saga needs I'm running to tackle crime and keep our property taxes affordable my commitment is a hardn to any new class of taxes this is in contrast to Carolyn Parish who's mused many times about bringing in a new Municipal land transfer tax and yes we must build more homes but that's not enough we have to build neighborhoods and we need to manage the coming growth as mayor I'm going to suggest something really radical I'll bring a practical approach and leaning to new ideas to ensure our city remains livable and affordable even as we grow thank you all right Alvin the same question to you thank you Angie I'm so excited to be here today I grew up in this neighborhood without the building behind us you could see my home uh the childhood home I lived in and grew up in and spent a lot of time here in this neighborhood around square one I was proud to be an employee of Sheridan College here for 5 Years thank you Dr Morrison for everything that you've done for this community because this is our community and I've spent years working in post-secondary education after I left Sheridan worked for Ryerson University now Toronto metropolitan University and at the ministry of training colleges and universities but the entire time I've always been an advocate been an advocate for families been an advocate for people been an advocate for students to make sure that we have a livable community that we have the best access to education that we have everything that we need to succeed as a community and I've been fighting for that and I've been fighting for our neighbors and our family and our friends to make sure that we have the most affordable City and the most livable city in Canada and I am so excited about this debate and having this discussion about how we're going to do that thank you so much Alvin thank you Stephen I'm same question over to you sure well thank you very much Angie I'm passionate about our city I'm not a career politician I ran first in 2018 I received 45% of the popular vote ran again in 2022 and I received over 70% I only say that because I work hard for everybody and I get results I'm I'm one that has a background in business and at the same time I take a common sense approach to solving problems and Building Things I have a proven track record of getting things done and one of the big things that I do is I listen I think that's one of the most important qualities that we could have in somebody that's going to lead us forward as a city of Miss aaga and as well having a vision forward for what we're going to be we know where we've been for 50 years it's where we're going for the next 50 years this is our opportunity this is our time right now thank you Stephen thank you very much Brian question over to you what if we heard already tonight we've heard a housing crisis metamorphis uh Social Service problems of funding congestion all we've heard is a bunch of negative things so far about what's happening in Mr Saga so the answer to your question is I'm not a current city counselor because in any other world given what has already been described you wouldn't be promoting someone to the senior job if they've shephered over the disaster that we've got right now and you know it's a problem we have got taxes that are going up three times inflation you need a business person to get in and understand what's going on and they're misrepresenting what those tax increases are we have got a housing affordability crisis there's going to be 1 million people that aren't going to be able to afford a home in the next 10 years in the greater Toronto area it's a disaster waiting to happen I've got 40 Years of business experience I'm the Chief Operating Officer for a $2.5 billion real estate development company I have been chairman of the the Miss Saga City Summit with Carol over there being my number two wonderful person uh my co-chair was with the uned way I've been uh president missar Ides Council I've got the Civic involvement I got the business involvement and I'm not on city council today which I think is a problem all right Brian your time's up thank you for that George hello everybody and how do you how do you how do you do that that's amazing um so anyways my name is George saris clearly uh you've never met me you don't know who I am I am of course am not on Council uh but I have worked with every level of government in Canada the US and worldwide and I'm the person that brought that is brought in to fix multi-million dollar projects on the on the brink of failure and I meant to fix it so do you like our council do you like the city of Miss aaga do you like the high taxes the crime because I can tell you right now in the world of business if you want change you can't hire within and expect positive results it doesn't happen you need change so I'm going to be really short uh but if you can jump online take a look at my website at Taris from.ca I've got a lot of ideas uh some fresh ideas some new ideas I'd like you to just give me a a quick look thank you all right thank you very much candidates one quick reminder to our audience if you do have your cell phones with you which I'm assuming you do please put them on silent and turn them off I did hear a ding earlier we want to make sure that there are no interruptions during the debate all right right so a lot we heard opening here from the candidates but of course what is so critical are you the people the residents and the voters of course and engaging their uh participation in what's happening in the city and of course what's happening in this election so Deepa over to you here's my question engaging residents in policy development decision-making empowers citizens to play an active role in shaping their communities and societies and builds trust and collaboration between government and institutions and the public in the 2023 Miss Saga satisfaction survey only 47% were satisfied with the city's engagement of residents in important issues in the last M municipal election voter turnout was only 21.84% as an increasingly diverse and Multicultural City what are your plans to lean into that strength and to meaningfully engage residents in building a vibrant and engaged City where people have access to good jobs housing feel safe connected and belong and what are you doing in this election to encourage people to head to the polls on June 10th and that also includes Youth and firsttime voters wow all in one minute yes ma'am wow you know I'm very encouraged by the advanced worde turnout it's uh been significantly higher that said I think people often don't vote or don't get engaged because they feel their voices don't matter I'm going to give you two examples recently from Miss Saga the first one is blor Street you know I've been knocking on doors and there's a real sense that their voice is not heard there's a real concern that there's going to be congestion and there's a real sense that City Hall just didn't hear them and they're perplexed because what they're saying is there is a way to keep the four car lanes and accommodate the bike Lanes when that option is there why are we taking car Lanes away why is City Hall not listening there's a real real sense of being silenced and being voiceless I'll give you another example there was an attempt to rush the fourplex decision across Miss Saga but this is a big change good or bad you need to consult with people but there was this desire to just rush it through and say no to consultation that's the problem that needs to be fixed that's your time thank you uh I'm going to repeat the question for the rest of the candidates as well just so that there's a refresher what are your plans to lean into the strength and to meaningfully engaged residents in in building a vibrant and engaged City where people have access to good jobs housing feel safe and connected and belong and what are you doing in this election to encourage people to head to the polls on June 10th and I'm also talking about first-time voters and youth Alvin absolutely we need to be engaging the current generation of people who cannot find a home to live in this city we need to give people reasons to vote give them hope that there's a chance that they to live in this city my parents came here when I was 4 years old and they came here because they saw an opportunity to start a business to get an education and to afford to buy a home my wife and I chose Mrs Saga for the same reason and we raised three beautiful kids that are 9 11 and 13 years old and right now I can't imagine a world where in 10 years when they're hopefully moving out where there's going to be a place for them in this city there isn't a place for so many people already in this city who are losing hope my brother and sister are almost 10 years younger than me and they're in their 30s and they still live with my parents and they're good professionals and there are so many Professionals in the city that don't have that chance to buy affordable housing to rent affordable housing in this city so we need to be doing much more we need to be everything that we can we need a different stream for purpose-built rental we need a different stream for affordable housing we need to do everything we can to cut the red tape and speed up those approvals and give these young people a reason to vote Stephen over to you well for me I don't have to wait for an election ction to uh to consult and activate what I think is voter participation I do that on a daily basis I always go out and I so far to date as a city counsel I've had over 500 Community consultation meetings because everybody's voice matters that's the same approach I'm going to be taking as the next mayor of Miss Saga that public engagement is so important not just as an election promiser not just at an election time you've got to do that each and every day and this is something that's my style it's to consult everybody and to make sure that that 47% number is double that of what it should be right now because everybody's vote matters and this is the most important election that the city will face because it's a significant turning point in our history we know where we've been for the past 50 it's where we're going for the next 50 and this is our time so I urge everyone to get out and please vote it's so important all right Stephen thank you Brian over to you same question let's admit it when we have a 21% turnout and statistics suggest that's 5% turnout for people under the age of 30 maybe over 30% for older people the people in Miss Saga are voting with their feet they don't think we have a functioning Municipal democracy today people UPF front and even Stephen just said we want to hear every voice the truth is the people of Miss Saga don't want to hear every voice I've been excluded from four debates tomorrow the CBC is excluding me our national publicly funded media is excluding me from a fifth debate tomorrow thank you for including George and I today I'm at according to a poll that came out two days ago at 9% I'm within the margin of error of the person that's in fourth place but CBC doesn't think that you have a right to hear what I have to say so what am I doing I'm going to argue that we need to hear everyone's voice we need to think about our democracy we need to realize that people are not being heard and they want to be heard and if all you do is elect the elite over and over and over again The Gatekeepers will not allow you to have your voice heard all right thank you for that Brian George so I'm a big fan of the two-term limit if you haven't heard that before or offsetting the uh election and right now is the perfect opportunity uh because we have uh in two years we're having another election and I would love to see it because if we did it an offset by two years uh you'd have two years for the council two years for mayor and then everybody will be heard so that's one of the opportunities that I think we're missing out on I think one of the problems that we have is Council is always at one location I would love to see them move I'd like to see them move to every Ward have one meeting in every other Ward just to make sure that their communities can be heard so you can see what's really happening and let's face it when you're at Council when you're sitting at City Hall they're elevated they're this High everybody else is really low it's intimidating for most people so I don't think anybody gets a real chance to speak when they need to the other thing I think we're we're missing out on is I think when we're doing the deputations I think Sheridan College should be using their opport their abilities to pre-record all of it so to give everybody that are too afraid George your time's up my apologies thank you and I just want to remind the candidates again you do have a minute I will keep you to time so we can get through this debate I want to shift over now to another um issue that um is Big of course in the city we're talking about support um for an adequate investment in community services is a city that is bustling and services are needed so part of an affordable livable city is not just what things cost but the amenities as well as the services that are available to all residents a study released last week highlighted that Miss Saga receives hundreds of millions of dollars Less in provincial Social Service funding compared to similar municipalities and is last in funding compared to all major cities in the province so my question to you is how will you work with the provincial government to ensure Mrs Saga receives the appro rate resources needed to make sure all people in the city can access the services they need Deepa will start with you so I have a question for the audience how many of you knew this that Peele is underfunded to the tune of $570 per capita four or five hands and that's in a very engaged crowd I bet you if you went outside would be you know just general population would be a lot less but how many of you know this that because we are underfunded but as a region we want to do the right thing we top up not fully at the margins we top up Social funding and that goes on your property tax how many of you know this just the people from metamorphosis and so that's the point right the awareness isn't there this has been an issue since I first got elected in 2011 it hasn't changed and hasn't changed because the public isn't aware we can keep writing letters to Queens Park and have one-on-one meetings with the minister but if we want real change we need the public on our side that's why I brought forward a motion that would put on the property tax and make it transparent what portion of it is paying for okay well I'll have to come back and answer it but just it gives you a flavor of where I'm going and what kind of I'm going to send it over to Alvin now absolutely we are completely underfunded when it comes to the Social Services that the province has downloaded onto the region and onto municipalities that's unacceptable having the increase go by inflation as was recently announced is a good small step forward but when the base of that funding is inadequate when you're talking about $700 a month for someone on Ontario Works and you're talking about a world where rental right now is $2,200 for per for a one bedroom there is no scenario where we we don't need to do much much more to help people now we can obviously Advocate and we will continue to do that and we will push as hard as we can but we also need to fill the Gap we also need to step up where we can because we can't just let these people suffer and so I was proud that we were able to introduce I was able to introduce a food banks motion that got us millions of dollars more to the food bank and we were able to introduce more shelters to help the people where we have 400% capacity in terms of our shelter system and so that's the kind of work that I want to continue doing to make sure that we're doing our part while continuing to push the province all right thank you Stephen over to you I think the common theme is we're not getting our fair share and this is gone on it's not the the latest report that came out from metamorphosis that just turned the light bulb on from what we really knew from back in the 90s up to now this started off with fair share for peel and quite frankly we need fair share for not just peel but also for Mrs Saga Mrs Saga for every dollar that you're paying in in taxes 35 cents actually stays in Miss aaga the rest goes off to the region and also to uh uh to our school boards uh these these formulas are Antiquated they're old we need to keep up with current times right now and think differently as well areas like Hamilton are coming up for some of their housing needs with Community bonds these are things that we should be looking at we should also look to the federal government to provide some grants for truly affordable housing and this is coming from somebody that's representing a ward that's actually building more truly affordable housing than anywhere else in Peele right now and and we need to step up thank you for that stepen Brian over to you $868 million in less funding than the median of other major Urban centers in Ontario we are dead last in urban centers according to metamorphis in the report last year has our councel been doing the job you've got to ask yourself that at some point in time you're going to have to wake up and say these people that were electing over and over again are they actually doing the job that we want Carolyn Parish who's leading in the polls has been on Council for what is it 25 years if she can't get it done in that length of time why are you going to promote her Dipa said sorry councelor deer said she it was the same when she got elected she's run provincially twice she's run municipally twice she's now running for a mayor she hasn't got it done that's the answer you need someone that's going to get it done someone that's going to go to Queens Park and demand a fair share not ask nicely for a share asking nicely doesn't work we could have the same conversation on Transit we could have the same conversation on a lot of other issues we have not had the people in our leadership that has demanded our fair share and we need to all right George I'm going to build on that it's an embarrassment it is an embarrassment that we didn't do our homework and we didn't get the money that we were allowed to have and it's an even bigger embarrassment that we had to use our resources our city resources to fund this stuff so I'm thinking we got to do a few things one is audit our process that's an important detail we have to hold the people accountable and then get them trained if they aren't trained because that's the biggest problem that I've always seen in the world they always say I didn't know any better so let's fix that and then we have to include a calculation for the increased immigration to increase funding that has to be there and if it's not there this is just going to be a roundabout whole circle all right I got you 25 seconds you're giving us a little extra time there George I don't know what to do with it I'm efficient there you go give to me I think this might be a bit of a first year all right I want to direct our candidates I want to direct the audience um over to the screen here candidates to the screen in front of you there we do have a question uh we talked about how important it is to hear from the community this question comes from Sonia Rashid Sonia lives in uh meille take a listen here like many people in Miss swaga we immigrated here to make a new home when we came we knew that building a new life would be hard work and we take that on every day but there are also many barriers in the way that hard work won't fix uh there is a terrible shortage of household affordable housing and my husband and I want to have a family but there are a lot of weight lists for child care so what my biggest concern is as mayor what would you do to ensure that newcomers like us would have the best support and services we need to stay and thrive in Mrs all right Deepa you've got your minute so you know setting up new immigrants for success is absolutely fundamental for the progress of any City and that includes Miss Saga so I embrace that challenge it's a joint provincial Federal and Municipal responsibility we all have our roles and I do believe that we do a good job and we can continue to do a better job one of the things that I do want to uh talk about is the fact that housing you know one one thing that we really need to work on is affordable housing so that young families like the one she spoke about can afford to buy a home because that is the Immigrant dream and that's one of the reasons it is a really really bad idea to think about a municipal land transfer tax because what th will do is increase the cost of buying a house it's going to make it harder to buy a house it's going to make it harder to sell a house so it's really important that as we go forward we're very careful in the policy choices we make as a city to ensure our city is livable and affordable and immigrants are set up for success thank you Deepa uh Alvin same question of course to you thank you to Sonia uh it's incredibly you know troubling to hear that story because that's the same story my parents had except you know life was more affordable back then we need to be helping the newcomers who are coming here immigrants who are coming to our country and finding them a place to live and place to belong we also need to help the people who are here seniors who want to downsize growing families but the newcomers and students who need to live near campus we need to address all these issues comprehensively with a real housing plan that engages with Builders and finds ways to get more building done faster and I've experienced working with child care I was the vice president of the Ontario Coalition for better child care to get better Child Care here in Ontario and when I was leading the fight for Parental leave I got more parental leave from the federal government and here in the city I led the way on for plexes with the federal government working with them in The Minister's office to ensure that we had $113 million in funding to build more affordable housing in this city and I'm proud of that and that's the type of movement that we need to keep going Alvin thank you uh over to you Stephen well we've been having this conversation for decades and decades and decades and nothing's getting any better when my grandfather first came over he was looking for for work and he used to go on a rail car right across Canada for places that he could first find work and send money back home and you know we're at a point right now where we should be learning from our past and moving forward my the the the type of leader that I am is I'm a connector of people I like bring people I like bringing people together we have the most Cosmopolitan City when it comes to having the entire Globe right here Under One Roof here in miss aaga this is our opportunity to really push forward integrate and and tie in to to Peele and also our other our upper upper levels of government to get some meaningful welcoming change done and have housing of all types that's available because this is really the opportunity to be doing this right this very moment Mo moving forward it's not looking back it's it's looking forward and getting it done thank you Stephen thank you Brian over to you I've got more bad news for you we are in a per capita GDP recession right now the only thing that means that we're not in a recession overall is because we're adding people but if you actually did the analysis on per capita we're in a recession number two the housing business has slowed down to almost a complete stop there's 28 months of condominium inventory right now almost every project is stopping the projections are there's going to be 5,000 of people out of work in the construction business in the next couple of months excavators are not working at all youth unemployment is 177% 50% of all the people that have to renew their mortgages are renewing them in the next 2 years at a 30 to 40% higher mortgage rate what Sonia was talking about you're going to be hearing a lot more about we have got a jewel in Miss Saga we've got the second largest employment Zone in all of Canada between uh airport and pill Hill it is a high-tech biotech AI Powerhouse Brian we don't promote it you there it's got to be the colonel that creates those high paying jobs your minute is up I'm going to send it over to George and George reminder you do have a minute I'll take it so let's talk about newcom support because that was the question uh this needs to be constantly reviewed it can't be just a oneandone document it needs to be reviewed almost annually because things change as an example we have refugees from a warn torn country and the original idea was the war is only going to be about a year a year and a half not a chance so all of the all of our documentation all of the calculations they were all done with this perception that it was going to be a short time but we had two more issues throughout the world where we brought in more immigration we haven't modified the document we haven't looked at that we haven't done anything to change that and that needs to be changed immediately if we want to get anything better good got it it's yours you still got 18 seconds I can hum well well maybe maybe we'll do that after the debate do that after so we've talked about of course uh necessary services and supports for newcomers but when we talk about Services I want to broaden out the question uh a bit more and go into Transit and connectivity we know that that is a huge issue for any City like Miss Saga of course that continues to grow so the question here is to all of you highquality reliable accessible and affordable Transit allows a city to grow without slowing down residents of Miss use many platforms to get around the city to access jobs and of course essential services and everything in between cars bikes public transit E Scooters too often Transit policies spoken about using buzzwords or highlevel talking points so please speak in concrete terms to the details of your plan to keep Mrs Saga moving with the full range of Transportation options that are needed by residents DEA over to you you know um it is folly to divorce land youth planning from transit but we are doing that and I want to stop that we are intensifying without building Transit that is wrong we're removing car Lanes without giving people more Transit options that is wrong so I have put forward a practical proposal the Practical proposal is we don't take car Lanes away without providing drivers with real Transit Alternatives and the second is we need to have greater ambition when it comes to building out our Transit I've put forward a robust Transit plan I it builds on ideas that are already there at Metro links and at the city of Miss Saga so it's not just sort of uh you know made up I build on it but we need to Fast Track that no more 10 years to build an LRT we really need to FASTT track that if we are going to have a livable city so we need cars and Transit and bike lanes and micr mobility and all those not we're going to move on as we move on to this uh theme of Transit here and moving thank you DEA Alvin over to you we need to fix a 40-year mistake 40 years ago the city of Miss Saga was offered a Subway extension from Kipling down into the core where we are right now and we said no to that we actually said no to it twice so we need to find a way to undo that mistake and work with the government to find ways to fund more rapid transit across the city of Miss Saga but we need to have that connection we need to upgrade the brt along Dundas to an LRT so that you can have a one bum ride from Toronto right here into the core where everybody is and then we need to build a minimum viable network of bus Rapid Transit across the city of Moga along the north on Derry along the east along uh Dixie along the west and AR Mills and Winston Churchill because we need a rapid connection for people to get around this city so that they can rely on a system that works for them one that doesn't have to take 45 minutes in between buses and then we need to build a minimum viable Network for cycling and for multi-use Trails so that people can safely get around this city once we do that we will be that modern city Alvin thank you okay on Transit Stephen over to you well if we're looking to take a lot more density which we're being told that we have to do and we're looking to become that next step of city that we all want to be we have to have worldclass Transit and really what that is is taking the light rapid rail that we have that's going up up and down the Hazel mallion line the downtown Loop is certainly one but that makes no sense as far as I'm concerned if you don't have your East West fixed a bus Rapid Transit that's going along uh Dundas that should be used right now as a down payment for us to put in a Subway from Kipling Station right along Dundas that goes to the the light Rapid Transit at here Ontario that makes sense and as well for the density that we're going to be getting along Dundas right now for every floor that goes above what they're allowed right now to be able to take a uh a levy that would go into sinking that into uh into building that Subway it's the uh the cut and cover approach which is 50% cheaper than boring it's realistic it's it's it's this is the way of the future to be able to do things thank you for your comments on that Brian over to you I'm currently chair of the GTA wide Civic advocacy organization called Transit Alliance the most transformational thing that could happen in Miss Saga is all day two-way go frequent service on the Milton Miss Saga line it's been talked about for 25 years and it's got to come uh brts lrts are between uh 50 and 500 capacity depending on how many uh cars there are uh go trains are 5,000 that's the kind of service that we need uh it's been talked about for 25 years you've got to ask yourself why did V get a Subway extended to the Von Metro Center why did Richmond Hill uh get a Subway extended to Steels and then to Richmond Hill why did Markham get all day two-way go to a downtown Markham because they had leaders that did a quit proquo we'll build density if you bring the transit we've been talking about all day two-way frequent go Trin service which would transform because it would be a surface Subway I'd add a a station at cthra and maybe another one it would transform and no one's going to take a Subway from here Ontario to a job downtown 25 stops it's not going to happen go that's the way to do it that is your time Brian George so I'd like you to jump on online at Taris from.ca and scroll down to where I explain my new system uh to use the existing transit system and the bus management system and combine them together to create a virtual bus transit system we'll use the transponders to gauge the timing to get the timing of the uh buses on time properly this works in uh China uh Brazil and a few other places and at at all of these locations will have uh all of the bus stops will have um terminal the terminal will tell you whether the bus is on time whether the bus is late uh whether the bus is at holiday services or how full the bus is so that you can identify whether you got to wait for the next bus and then maybe think of some of the other alternative travels I also have one that's a bike and bus for free initiative so you take your bike to the bus stop you get on the bus you ride for free this way we can get um people to go at further distances in Miss Saga and you can get the data to identify where you need bike Lanes you don't just put them where you think they might go so you actually have great data I have two more but I'm running George there's your time there's your time thank you okay we go from connectivity um now over to we want to talk about the use of employment lands this has been a big issue of course we know in the city of M Saga once again I want to draw your attention to the screen above the candidates over here candidates to the screen in front of you uh this is a question coming from Anthony Puchi with Palma pasta let's take a listen here hello my name is Anthony petruci I'm a lifelong uh resident of Miss Saga and business owner my question to all candidates while there is a need to build more housing to address the housing crisis there is also a need to preserve employment lands indeed employment lands are crucial to the Future economic growth of the city of missa what are your plans regarding employment lands all right Deepa over to you you know as mayor I will bring a judicious lens to this I think there could be times where if if employment lands are underused maybe there's an opportunity but I want to be very very clear we have to generally protect employment lands that is crucial and I'll tell you why you know if it's office space you can coexist you can have office at the bottom you can have office four five floors and then you can have residential on top especially if office uh usage is declining industry is a bit different it can be nois it can be smelly so it's not that easy to have land use compatibility so if you're going to start rezoning employment lands willy-nilly two things are going to happen one is the first thing is as soon as you reson it to housing the value of the land shoots up and when that happens small business now cannot afford to rent or own in those employment lands so we have to be very very careful generally I would want to prot employment lands there's your Alvin question same question over to you it's good seeing Anthony a Palma pasta I just bought my kid some there for for dinner the other day and it's amazing so you should go check it out but Anthony RIS is a really good point because we absolutely need more more housing we need to make sure it's in the right places so there's some opportunities for conversion when you look at the H inario Corridor on the LRT near the North End there's a lot of industrial land there's a lot of employment land there that's not really being used for that there's an opportunity there but in my neighborhood around the Clarkson Village there is important employment lens that we're going to save because we absolutely need that industry which is leading in the world around the country and we need to secure that to make sure that they can continue leading the way on that research and development but in and around there's Pockets where we have major transit station areas that we can convert and make sure that we are creating livable walkable neighborhoods this is the job of the city is how do we find and find that balance to make sure that we are providing the jobs and the space for people to succeed in this city and that's what we're going to do all right Alvin thank you for that Steven over to you currently Mrs S is the second largest employer in in the province of Ontario this is something that we build on we have zoning in place and quite frankly this is a competitive advantage that we have we have the airport everybody calls it the Toronto Pearson Airport we all know it's the Miss Saga Pearson Airport and on top of that we have the 400 series highways we have rail we have a multicultural base here we have skilled labor we have all the ingredients right here for Success it's setting up that further stage for people to want to come here and having a mayor that's going to go out and sell Mrs Saga to let everybody in the world know that this is the best place in the planet to do business and if you want to do it we'll say yes and we'll figure out how to make it happen after but this is the type of approach that we need to take and right now we've actually got an innovation Corridor down towards the Waterfront that is going to employ 9,000 people in science and technology jobs these are the types of things that we need to forge forward on and this is our opportunity right now to be able to do that Stephen thank you for this Brian this is outmoded thinking I could show you a report that came out just today from a major property development company uh brokerage uh that says that the the business of City development has changed dramatically it used to be that employees had to locate where companies were but now it's turned on its head because primarily Millennials the companies have to go where employees want to be and employees want to be particularly young people in mixed use Dynamic vibrant Urban or semi-urban environments uh Sheridan Research Park you know what the biggest failure there is you couldn't even put a coffee shop you couldn't put a restaurant it was zoned so rigorously that you had to only have office or industrial use what you want is mixed use development you know what most cities are doing right now they're actually having seminars and conferences on how to turn office into residential we should be allowing mixed use development that's what people want they want to live they want to work they want to thrive in one area and so this is outmoded thinking but we do have an incredible Secret in that uh uh airport corporate Zone it needs a connection to downtown Toronto you can't have two employment zones that aren't connected by transit thank you for that and George so Ontario created a reduce the red tape act and one of them was to uh change the zoning so this is coming wherever there's parking wherever there's uh industry uh that's fertile ground for development so we know what's coming so the real question is what are we going to do to to protect uh the businesses that are out there now we already know that they're going to be removing the parking minimums in certain locations I think this is an opportunity to make a little bit of uh Headway here and I think we should do some tax reform for the businesses that are in close proximity to the condos with limited parking and this gives the smaller businesses an opportunity to have uh greater greater people to sell to uh better opportunities and it's going to be cheaper for them to maintain their businesses now this is a short-term uh solution for a a big big problem that we're going to have but we definitely need more we need definitely need more businesses in here with better income because we can't afford to live in our city and I I find it very um disconcerning that students are working here living somewhere else so we've got to fix that George thank you for that all right that's sort of the first part of this debate we're going to move over to the second part in which candidates have an opportunity now of course to pose a question to each other the way it's going to work just to remind our candidates once again as well as the audience here uh the first candidate it will be Thea we'll start with deas we're going to continue in order as we have done so we'll give 30 seconds to pose a question to an opposing candidate that candidate will have one minute to respond there will then be a one minute cross-examination and then that candidate who was answering the question will have 30 seconds to uh close to respond to that so I'm going to hand it over to DEA and Away you go so Alvin I know you've talked about uh introducing new taxes so my question to you is uh would you introduce the new a new Municipal land transfer tax okay Alan begin and we've got a little there we go we'll start with our one minute now go ahead thank you DEA uh no absolutely not I would not introduce a municipal land transfer tax and I think we've both seen that uh councelor Parish has said that she is very interested in doing that and has said so on a number of occasions over over the last several years we've been talking about how do we freeze taxes I've been talking about how we freeze taxes and I'm the only candidate talking about that because of how important I believe it is to make sure that we are doing everything that we can to help the people in this city liveing in a more affordable City we can't control the price of gasoline we can't control the price of groceries as a city but this is the one tool that we have in our toolkit where we can actually help people save hundreds of dollars a year and I'm proud to stand behind that because we can do it in a fair and Equitable way we can do a way that is responsible and that doesn't jeopardize our future Investments and that's what I'm plan on doing but no I do not plan on introducing a a municipal land transfer tax but how we can also pay for it would be to continue exploring as we have been doing at the region appeal a bacon homes tax which allows us to expand the amount of housing in our city all right now you've got a minute Deepa for cross-examination so Alvin I heard you say earlier that you know at the regional peill we must do our part we must fill the gap up the province is not funding us so the region of Peele should step up so are you still planning to freeze taxes at the region of Peele So the plan is that we're freezing taxes at the city of Miss aaga where we know that we can control and that the mayor would have the opportunity to put forward the budget and that's my plan for the city of missa at the region not at the region we're talking about City residential property taxes and then lowering them for businesses small businesses in Miss Saga by 15% so that they can continue serving these great people in the city of Miss Saga we have 100,000 businesses and we need to support them and we need to support the low-income seniors as well these are programs that we have these are the tools that we have available in our toolkit in order to help people save money and continue to live in the city you've got 30 seconds now for closing Elvin I think what I heard was you're going to freeze taxes and increase services and give tax cuts as well if you believe that I've got some swamp land for you thank you okay so well now Alvin I'm going to give you 20 seconds for a last response here yeah the plan is fully costed it's been vetted by previous budget Chiefs in the city of Toronto and in the in the province of Ontario it's fully costed it's available on our website check it out okay Alvin I now give you the opportunity to ask another candidate a question so I'm going to take this approach because I think this is really important and I'm going to talk directly to the camera because this candidate isn't here but Carolyn Parish I believe owes the people of Miss Saga an explanation this job of Mayor is not one you can do in retirement on the side of your desk this is incredibly important we have 800,000 people here who deserve to know what your plans are who deserve to be able to ask you questions and an absentee candidate and an absentee mayor is completely unacceptable for our city do you have a question for any of the candidates here uh Miss parish as we know cannot respond to that question um she was invited to the debate unfortun was not able to attend and declined but with the time we have right now see my time yeah all right Stephen over to you yeah well thank you very much and um you know I always like to do uh things a little bit differently but unfortunately I can't H this particular case because as I've mentioned before this is our most important election we have we need a mayor that's going to go out there and represent every single person in the city of Miss Saga that's living here and also that wants to live here and that wants to set up a business here but the only way that you can do it is if you show up and again I'll say the same thing is Carolyn Parish honestly where are you we want to see a leader that is in the city of Miss Saga that's going to build communities that's going to represent communities and you can only do that by showing up and being out visible in the community I have a track record of doing that as a ward counselor right now I'm each every out each and every day and night to make sure that our local businesses are represented our Charities are represented so I ask where and when will we see Carolyn Parish coming forward to be the mayor that she says that she wants to be because we don't see that right now and I think the city deserves better and I know I should be asking that with somebody else okay so this is fair this is fair where where where you know candidates given the opportunity to pose the questions that they want to go to however um we do have this time allotted and I'm going to present it to you again Stephen as well Alvin you've chose to uh to to push over your time but I'm gonna is there a candidate here that you would like to ask a question to keeping in mind we do have an audience not just live but televised and online as well that perhaps is looking for a little bit more rather than the push to a candidate who's not here who can't respond no I'll concede my time at this point thank you Brian then over to you I'd ask uh councelor deia who uh has on numerous occasions uh bragged about her executive experience as uh minister of long term care I think the biggest tragedy during Co was long-term care I interviewed on my nightly radio show numerous different people that said after SARS we actually did judicial inquiries about what went wrong in SARS and we came up with a whole program for what had to change and they said repeatedly every single person conservative and liberal that was in charge of long-term care should get fired because we didn't do the job we should have done long-term care was a tragedy Brian I'm just gonna what is the question to councelor Dema was that do you think you did a good job as minister of long-term care when you created such a tragedy you know one of the most uh I I want to say one of the most uh the privilege that I had of serving as both minister of seniors and Min and the associates Minister responsible for long-term care is an absolute privilege that I still treasure and I want to say I'm very proud of my record when I became the associate minister of responsible for long-term care what I found out was that although on the books mandatory inspections were on the books they were not being done and I made that happen I brought it forward and I said this is not acceptable it's on the books and we have to start the mandatory inspections we hired hundreds of new inspectors and we started that the second thing I did was I increased funding unfortunately the government that succeeded ours stopped the mandatory inspections and we know what happened so yes I am proud of my record all right we'll have a cross-examination Brian over to you directed at councelor dla you were a provincial MPP uh then you lost and you became a board counselor then you didn't uh resign but you ran provincially again and then you didn't win so you came back to be a provincial counselor and now you're a municipal counselor and you didn't resign but you're running for eror are you going to run provincially again in the next election no is your commitment to miss Saga my commitment has always been to miss Saga whether I've run as a member of provincial Parliament whether I've served in cabinet whether I've been a city counselor whether I'm running here as mayor you know Mr Saga is the city that I love and I always like to say h when I came to Canada I came here with Big Dreams and no plan but an unshakable faith that this country would give me opportunity and it did and I'm forever grateful to the city of Miss Saga because it allowed me to raise my daughter and build a better life for myself and my family I'm loyal to the city and I make no apologies for being an MPP and a counselor we got about 30 seconds left Brian if you want to pose another question here if you have more to say no I just think that uh we have to think about who uh we want to lead a city that has a billion doll Enterprise 5,000 uh people and you know I think one of the best prime ministers we had was Brian morone who came in from the outside one of the best Ministers of Finance was Paul Martin who came in from the outside Hazen mallion was a business person until she was 55 with all due respect to these people they're nice people I don't think they have the business experience and I don't think they've proven it in their last terms on councils and one of the ones who's not here in her 40 years in political life 25 years on Council that they can actually do the job that we need done in this almost desperate situation where I think it's potentially going to get worse all right thank you George over to you and which candidate would you like to pose a question to well originally I wanted to ask Mitch McAn but he's not here so I'm gonna ask Brian Brian cromby uh Brian do you think our city would benefit from a new mayor who isn't uh on the council and why it's like one of my questions over to you Brian I do I think I I think we've got to have a ser serious conversation about the lack of democracy that we've got and the lack of uh you know voter participation and so I'm going to present to you an idea you know I think that we've had this distraction for the last two years about this separation of Miss Saga from Peele uh and and once we did the economic analysis I think everyone came to the conclusion that it made no sense I think what would be really interesting I wouldn't want to decide I'd want the people decide but I think it'd be interesting to actually study whether amalgamation makes sense because happened to believe uh 25 years ago there were 800 cities in Ontario today there's 400 there's been a 50% reduction in the cities in 1996 the GTA task force recommended the amalgamation of Peele the amalgamation of hton the amalgamation of York the amalgamation of Durham and five cities together forming a new GTA because they said we're going to be a $1 million metropolis and we've got to start thinking like a $10 million Metropolis rather than all these little tiny things so I'd like to have a referendum in two years I'd like to have economic analyses done do separation makes sense or does amalgamation make sense or do you want to stay the same and I tell you if you actually had the economic analysis done you had all these people have the best turnout we've ever had so to get back to that amalgamation it was actually one of the options when they were talking about it in 2019 ernston young uh documentation we had three options it was separation Asis and amalgamation so I can send you the document it's got some really good information in there I think you'd really enjoy it but my follow-up question of course I'm going to give you one uh so what are you going to say to people that say uh only City members City Council Members have the motive the opportunity the abilities and the work work ethic they're they're the only ones that can run from aor what would you say well regrettably that's what uh CBC is saying um CBC is saying exactly that uh in regards to their uh their criteria for tomorrow night and who's going to have in the debate only City counselors are going to be invited to the debate tomorrow and I'm I'm going to say that's the problem that's why why people don't get involved that's why we've got a 21% turnout you have a referendum on four plexes you have a referendum in two years on should we amalgamate or should we separate or should we stay the same you would have the best turnout you know what the 1988 free trade election we had one of the best turnouts we've ever had why because Brian morone and John Turner talked about something that was really critically important to all of us and we all got interested in it you both have something forward put something forward to the people and let the people side for once just everybody knows I also did not get the CBC invite for the debate just so you know but thank you all right no further questions we have about about four minutes left in this section and I'm kind of going to go a little bit off script here to give our candidates an opportunity to remind them as well that this is the one of two debates that are left until you the voters head to the polls perhaps this weekend if not then uh several days from now uh on election day so I'm going to open it up one more time again to all of you C all of them all all five of you is there a candidate that you have a question to uh in which you want to engage in some cross-examination Deepa well I have a question for Brian uh oh so Brian you say you're a land developer don't you think there's a conflict of interest running for mayor when you're in the development business no uh because I think that if I got elected I would have to give up my job uh unlike you guys who keep your jobs while you're running I'd have to give up my job so I I happen I happen to believe that someone in business that understands what the problems are could actually you know what have an interesting point of view and could actually move the the debate forward you know one of the debates uh uh that I was invited to I was uninvited to five I was invited to four so uh you know it's getting there is two of you talked about a Subway uh to Dixie and you started bragging about how that might uh be something you could have happened why did V get a Subway they got 50 story Towers why is Steels getting a Subway they've got 50 towers and and sorry Toronto's got 50 story Towers Von's competing with 60 story Towers downtown markham's got 50 do you know what your Council has as the limit at Dixie 12 and 25 you know what you're not going to get ever is a Subway to Dixie when they are 12 and 25 when V is 50 when when Richmond Hill is 50 and 60 when Mark every other mayor in every other city is getting on the game here they understand what's happening density Transit notes and you're going to get 12 stories nothing's going to happen at Dixie I'm sorry Brian you need to do your homework the first thing is you know you've said that I don't have private sector experience I worked in corporate banking I have an MBA from the University of Toronto rotman School of Management so you're way off base when you think you're the only one with private sector experience we also know that you've been banned for life from being a director on private on in any publicly uh held company here in Canada so I think you know you need to be fair you keep you've been pushing us and pushing us and saying you've got experience and we don't we all have pluses and minuses let's just respect each other on that what you just said I got 30 seconds to answer here what you just said is a lie I have not been banned for life I settled and agreed that for eight years I would not and I settled and my boss who was a co- accused fought against the government and won in the era that you're talking about the OC said was not material and we did not break a lot and people like you that that say that I did anything illegal that say that I was banned that said that I was criminal which one of you actually has said on several occasions are lying I settled I agreed because of the benefit no one wins against the osc except a billionaire a billionaire fought and he won saying nothing material and no laws were broken Brian your time is up we have about about about a minute and a half or about 2 minutes left in this Alvin you're putting your hand up here go ahead thank you Angie and I know we've had some Lively debates and we're not always going to agree on everything and that's okay and so Council DEA I know we've sparred a little bit around the idea around freezing taxes which in my mind is the best tool that we have in our toolkit in order to help people in terms of not raising their costs of living in the city so I want to give you the chance because you know I'm trying to freeze them and help people as much as possible what is your plan and why do you believe that raising taxes is important my plan's very simple I'm going to keep property taxes at or below the rate of inflation and the reason I say that is 70% of a municipality's expenses are wages wages have to keep up with inflation we have unions we need to negotiate with them how are you going to pay for those increases if you're going to freeze taxes only one way you got to cut services or Raid reserves or any number of combinations but sooner or later it comes back to haunt you so what I'm saying is a responsible commitment yes there's an affordability crisis but the city has its obligation so I'm going to keep property taxes to at or below the rate of inflation my question to you is why are you picking and choosing why do you think it's okay to freeze taxes at the city of Miss Saga but not at the region of Peele I'm going to give Alvin 30 seconds here and then we're going to move on Alvin absolutely we need to find more ways ways to get more savings at the region of appeal but we don't control the region appeal as a council in Miss Saga so that's why we're focused on Miss Saga we're going to find some savings to do through the downloading of services that we're getting but the rate of inflation was 6.8% 2 years ago so I know you think it's important and you need to raise taxes in order to pay for those things I disagree respectfully and I think the voters will have a choice in terms of what they want to do with that all right candidates thank you very much do have time I can give you like 15 seconds well the rate of inflation now is under 3% so let's just be real here okay candidates thank you very much for that I'm going to move on now to the last portion of this debate um a combination of questions from me and we will have a video question as well the the first part here we're talking about the theme is affordable housing we know we've already touched on that from all of the candidates here's your question now we've spoken about the city's rapid growth that has been very clear with significant new development projects that are underway we're seeing it all the highrises that are going up how will you ensure that this growth is inclusive providing affordable housing options and preventing the displacement of long-term residents due to gentrification adding to this I'd like you to please tell us how you intend to work with other levels of government to grow the full spectrum of housing needed in the city particularly affordable housing and deeply affordable housing and secondly what will you do as mayor within your own mandate to be moving this issue forward DEA so as May one of the first things that I will do is wave development charges for purpose-built rentals because that's the one area that we absolutely critically need developers to start building and no one is building we need rental so that's what I'm going to do by removing the development charges you take a chunk of the cost out because what developers are saying is that the cost of construction is here and people's ability to buy is here and as a result by giving this relief on development charges I'm hoping to incent the construction of rental buildings for deeply affordable housing or social housing I think as mayor you know the cities do have a role to play it needs to be a partnership the federal government needs to be at the table but as a city the one thing we can do is find Surplus land and that is something I'm going to commit to doing I'm just going to very quickly share an example of a missed opportunity uh we're building a fire station we should have been building uh affordable housing on top of it the region and the city didn't talk so it didn't happen as mayor my commitment is something like that will never ever happen again in Miss EPA thank you very much for that Alvin over to you thank you Angie you know I respect council dea's plan but it is three bullet points on her website I have a real plan this 10-page plan that you can look up right now Alvin t/ housing that's been supported and endorsed by Jennifer keizman who said this is the most comprehensive and detail specific plan that she has ever seen in municipal government in terms of how we're actually going to build how are you going to find more Pathways to get affordable housing done how are we going to build more Supportive Housing don't take my word for it take hers take hers and every other developer and every other consultant that talked about how we are going to build and The Advocates that have been talking about how we are going to get these spaces built in our city and I'm incredibly impr proud of that plan but to me this is the first step the first step in terms of how we change the culture in our city that will allow more density along Transit lines that allows more missing middle and and uh density in existing neighborhoods to ensure that everyone has got the chance to find a place in the city cuz we need more housing of every kind thank you Alvin thank you very much for that Steph same question to you well thank you Angie and this is something that I live every day I've got over 40% of all the development down in my particular Ward for the whole city right now and also I read my reports uh for example if we're going through to build a fire hall I make sure I go through it with our fire department and at the time that they're planning it that if you want to put housing on it that's your time to do it not when they start sticking a shovel in the ground and you know what we need to focus on right now is actually building that rental housing this is where we start because that's where the need is the greatest right now do we also work on our development charges we sure do but at the same time the cities can't do it on their own because we're the lowest and we're the lowest part with the ability to raise funds to be able to get that job done but right now you need to have a use it or lose it approach and how that happens it's not by by beating up on a developer it's working with them and other levels of government to saying you want the houses we have 80,000 approved units right now how do we get those shovels in the ground right away and this is what we need to do because the clock is ticking and it's not just for an election time it's all the time we need to get the job done and that's what I do thank you Stephen thank you very much Brian use it or lose it regulations are a disaster uh developers need to sell 50 to 70% or have a performa that they can show a banker that they're going to have an absorption if it's a rental property and they use it or lose it they've had in BC they're going to get rid of it because what they found is that developers wrote there were selling 40% and they had a month to go before they got finished and they got their approvals yanked and they had to start from uh scratch again no amount of bullying from City councilors with use it or lose it is going to get a developer to go out and put a 100 million dollars of equity on the table to build uh something what would happen is a reduction in development fees for below a certain figure call it 400 to 500 or purpose Bill rental I think that is actually a good idea uh increasing the density every architect I've talked to says that people don't recognize density about six stories they don't know whether it's six or eight or 10 so I would immediately give people 20 to 30% increase in density around Transit nodes if half of it was affordable and you give that kind of an incentive to someone that's already got the uh number of condo sold or the rental and you give them the more density you take away the development fees 30% ta thank you for this Bri thank you George I like the term deeply affordable I think that was the most important uh comment out of the entire thing so I think if you go on my website to.ca I've got a couple of ideas in there uh I can't do it justice I just can't but I came up with a different thing we need to create a better classification of housing we need to have because in my day we had some some sort of graduate housing you started off with a a basement apartment then you graduated to a top and then you you saved up enough money and there was enough money at the end of the month to to save and today we have more money we have less money at the end of the month than we have ever had before so I came up with this idea that maybe we can come up with some graduate housing so you have low income high density and then you can graduate into something bigger and this is a social program that I think we need to create uh or at least come up with a better idea of what because our current system sucks it's not a very good system so I also think in order to create better development for purpose-built rentals we have to do things like cut the feed permit fees with incentives to finish easy quicker faster and and get the shovels in the ground and we should create better incentives for the nextor yes thank you sir for your time thank you all right I want to come back to uh newcomers that is a really important element of course as we know in the buildup of Mrs Saga matching newcomer skills and labor market needs uh this question uh is this next question of course is um to our candidates so newcomers to Mrs Saga support our local economy and contribute to our community's diversity as we heard earlier they face many challenges related to the cost of living housing and income in income security as well as information and orientation needs for themselves as well as for their family members employment is an important area of interest for both employers as well as for these newcomers particularly matching skills with labor Market needs as mayor what is your plan to help connect and match newcomers skills previous training and experience with employment needs theepa so you know we had Anthony petrii ask a question I had a really great conversation with him and he said that when his dad came here uh Came From Italy he started this uh restaurant business which we all know Palma pasta and he said that you know his dad was very successful he didn't speak English English was a second language but he was able to start the business and he said to me he doesn't think that if his dad fast forward was to immigrate now and didn't speak English he just doesn't think he would be able to open a business as easily because we have created so many Hoops so you know that story really really resonated with me think about that so as mayor one of my commitment is to make it easier for entrepreneurs no matter where they're from every Entre want to just make it easier for them to start business in Miss Saga that's the best thing we can do to support uh and you know I've been a small business owner and I can tell you the biggest job generator is small business so that would be my commitment to make sure that can start a business easily thank you very much thank you very much for that DEA Alvin you know I spent a lot of time thinking about this question because my dad immigrated uh from Indonesia and he had a a dental degree back home and he came here 45 years ago and they didn't recognize it not one year not one credit not one course and may me think would I do that same thing would I make that same sacrifice and so many thousands and thousands of newcomers have the same issue they' got phds they've got doctoral degrees they're working driving Ubers we need to find a better way we need to find a better way and I think we're exactly in the place we need to be Sheridan College has done some amazing things to support newcomers to find programs to transition their existing skills to what we need in the Canadian labor market and so we need to continue partnering with postsecondary institutions we need to continue partnering with the professional colleges and we need to demand that we find ways to accelerate the recognition of these skills so that we can get the skilled labor that we absolutely need today Alvin thank you very much for that Stephen yeah well first of all looking after everybody is I think think inum incumbent upon what we're supposed to do um as as leaders and also as representing people and right now we have two different issues we have people that are right on the margins that are quite frankly living out on the streets and at the same time we also have a refugee issue um both are coming into the same intake in a lot of cases and this is where having uh those Partnerships with the federal government and also the provincial government it it makes it big big difference when you can work to get some truly good funding Arrangements solved on the refugee side that's of course on the federal end of things to make sure that people are looked after and again that's working collaboratively it's not trying to you know shame anybody or anything like that it's we have an issue that's going on right now people are hurting and suffering right now we need to make sure that not only are they looked after but they have that lifeline and then they plug into a network to know that they've got a place that they can call home in Miss Saga with opportunity and that's the other one where there that we set the landscape for opportunity ahead for all of us thank you thank you for this Stephen Brian over to you I'm a firm believer that the best social program is a great high-paying job we have got a jewel in Miss Saga that we have not promoted we haven't incubated we haven't we haven't developed that we need to the airport corporate Zone from Pearson to pill Hill is the second largest employment Zone in all of Canada it's bigger than Vancouver it's bigger than Montreal the only one that's bigger is downtown Toronto if this was in Kitchener waterl we'd have Federal Government funding a uh a super cluster if it was in Atlantic Canada a super cluster Vancouver a super cluster for some reason Miss Saga doesn't count um the neptus foundation did a big report that said every city in the world that has two clusters has to have a Transit connection they talked about LA defas and shant Li they talked about Manhattan New Jersey do you know how long it takes to get from medeville to downtown Toronto if you're invited to a a lunch at uh at the Board of Trade over an hour you're not going to do it we have not developed promoted incubator I'm doing my doctorate in business right now on economic development and clusters we've got to treat it like the jewel that it is and promote it and you go there you know what it's it's the United Nations for people working in Laboratories and it and high-tech and and it's the leading Aeronautics place but we don't promote it the way that we could and should Brian thank you very much for that so I think we're missing an opportunity yep so I think we're missing an opportunity uh especially in the schools like this where we can create curriculums uh that will match skill for skill uh to FastTrack everybody to uh be able to get the degrees and the recognizable diplomas and the recognizable skill set because that's a really uh important detail uh because there's nothing better than going coming at home from A Hard Day's work and you know what you're doing and and you're making a good income which is really important um I also think we need to develop an entrepreneurial ship uh idea uh to create so when people come over uh they can create newer jobs or maybe work from home some other ideas that maybe they didn't have available at their uh in the country that they uh left so that's another opportunity that I think we need to do I also believe that we uh we missing out on a city sponsored app uh for employment to uh like for like skill set um I think that's an important one for for specifically for immigrants or people that were having some diff difficulties finding job uh because language is a huge barrier that we can recognize and I think we need to find a way to overcome that and I think with the app would be able to do something like that George thank you very much uh I'm going to go to our next question this is going to be our last video question we've talked about the importance of Voters we've talked to the importance about engaging youth so what better than to have to hear from one of our youth this one is a uh student from Sheridan College uh Felipe D Silva if I could have the candidates direct their attention to the screen in front ladies and gentlemen to the screen up ahead let's take a listen greetings Maro candidates my name is Filipe DOA this is a great City and I'm proud to call it home but many students in the city are struggling with growing unaffordability lack of Transit option and storing RADS so as I think about my future after graduation I am worried that I will not be able to afford a place of my own in Miss Saga and whether I'll be able to stay here build my career and live out on my own so I want to know if you are elected as the next mayor of Miss Saga how are you going to address this affordability challenge and ensure that my generation will be able to stay here to live work and contribute to this great City for years to come all right DEA so this is a story that really resonates with me because a very close family member uh they've been trying to buy a house for four years now and I've seen them put in bid after bid and not be able to buy and in these four years they've been able to get married they just had a baby girl in March they're still living with Dad that's because they can't afford a house and they've got two well-paying jobs so this is priority number one you know what one of my commitments is I want Mr Saga to be that City where young people can once again afford to buy a home because what's a City without young people and so my housing plan you know I I have a number of things to remove the cost including as I said I want to wave uh development charges approve modular construction I have a plan to speed up approvals at the city of Miss Saga but the one thing we must not do is bring in new taxes like the municipal land transfer tax because that'll just add thousands and thousands of dollars Thea cost of a house thank you Alvin FIP is right this is one of the most unaffordable cities to live in in Canada we have one of the highest Municipal tax rates in the GTA and it's getting worse before it's getting better and so we need to do much more we need to change course in terms of what we're doing here at the city of missa in terms of how we approach and improve housing how do we approach and improve more Transit projects lrts are great but LRT we were in the government I was in the government 12 years ago when we approved the LRT and announced it and it's still not done yet the englon cross Down's taking forever and so bus Rapid Transit gets us there in years not decades a proving affordable housing and tying that affordable housing to those approvals along major Transit lines is how we build more housing otherwise we're going to lose Felipe we're going to lose him and so many others that we've continued to lose already where we've missing a generation of people who are now moving to Hamilton kitchen or water anywhere else they can afford a place to live and that's going to affect our success as a city Alvin thank you stepen over to you yeah well Felipe I think a lot of what happens is you come in you get your your your um your education and you think you're off to a good start and then at the end of it all you're abandoned nobody's there to Mentor you nobody's there to take you in and say how can we get things done first of all we have to look at building more affordable rental units to start giving people a place that they can get a foothold in the marketplace as well like Filipe that's coming out of school and also somebody that's going to be there to help mentor and and bring somebody along in the system as well and provide more opportunities for employment and that's really what we're talking about now is what are those opportunities you can't just be there saying we're going to do these things and not deliver we have to deliver this is the time to do it and we have great opportunities right now here up at City Center we have a community investment program in place that we need to take better advantage of and also down on the waterfront we have another one for that Innovation quarter I had mentioned earlier for another 9,000 jobs these are things that we need to do to give people hope to let them know that young people this is this is your home as much as anybody else and your opportunities are the skies limit thank you for that Brian we need to take a really serious look at ourselves 177% youth unemployment highest public debt in history highest debt per capita highest private debt most unaffordable housing high taxes twice what you get in Toronto Transit that we're not doing we've not done a good job and think about these guys not only do they have all that but then they've got people telling them to AI is going to take away their jobs you know what it's going to be pretty tough what do we got to do three things number one we got to have a dramatic not a small but a dramatic increase in housing and that's only going to come at scale in density at Transit nodes with height you may not like it but it's got to come with height we're not going to do it with a basement apartment here and there number two it's going to be a dramatic Improvement in transit we've got to get people back and forth to where they're going to be working and living and enjoying life and number three and most importantly it's high paying good jobs we've got to take that airport Corporate Center and the other Industries and we've got to cradle it like it's the jewel that it is and we got to demand the money from the federal government for a super cluster and the and the provincial government we've got to develop those great jobs so that all those people can go to those jobs and and pay their mortgages thank you Brian your time is up working on his comments which were great uh deeply affordable accommodations we talked about that briefly we only touched upon it we need more we definitely need more and I I do believe that the graduate housing idea has some options uh has a has some Merit I also believe that we need to change the firsttime home buyers program I think we need to have a specific one for student first-time home buyers for students specifically because I know that they're the ones that going to hurt the most and if we want to keep them in our city we need to keep them another thing we have to have is a curriculum that's based for the industry inside of the city of Miss aaga I know Koga College had changed a lot of their curriculum to make sure that it matched like for like the technology bases around there so that when students graduated they had a job less than a kilometer away from from the school which I think is really important we should look at that as an opportunity the other thing that we need to do as council is we need to hold the property tax at a reasonable level that's important we need to get back the money that was owed to us as the metaphores group had pointed out that we lost that on we need to readjust why we're losing that kind of money and we have to look a little further ahead where we're going to lose money things like the LRT LRT cost overruns which will eventually cost us money we know that the government said we're putting in an LRT they also said that they were going to pay for it but then they pulled back and said the cost overruns are going to be on our shoulders and unless we get that in writing which I'm asking everybody to do regardless of if I win or lose to put that in writing that the interial government will pay for it so we don't have to uh do the cost overruns George thank you thank you thank you very much for that and before I get to our last theme our last sort of main question here I want to have a little bit of fun with our candidates there if they will uh if they will allow me to do so we've got a couple of extra minutes here wrestling I'm going to ask each of you uh a question here just a one-word answer yes or no and first couple of questions here DEA the first question here to you is there a scenario in which you would use the strong mayor power to pass a bylaw with less than a majority of city council support yes or no no Alvin yes Stephen no Brian referendum George no okay next question car bike walk transit in one word how do you personally most often travel to work Thea car Alvin car Steven car Brian car George car all right and finally this last question here listen intently here this one's a good one sum up what you would love about Mrs Saga in six words or less University the world lives here and it's so green and it's so livable Alvin great place to raise kids Stephen diversity opportunity incredible people and really a bright future that's more than six words Stephen but I'll let you hold on to that Brian uh Waterfront uh Parks uh great business opportunities and wonderful ful friends and finally George a a a parade for the Toronto map Leafs down Long dund Street after winning the Stanley Cup I think anyone any anyone who can guarantee the Leafs are going to win is is is certainly going to get a vote here all right our last question here uh the theme being planning for a Miss Saga for the future of everyone here is your question this one last one minute answer here is an opportunity for all of our candidates to now impress Upon Our viewers here at home online to the voters who you are as leader and how you intend to shape the future of our city so as we look to the next 50 years the city is grappling with a critical question what is the vision of a missaka we want to share with Ontario Canada and the world how does City Hall meet the moment and make sure that the next version of our city is a Miss Saga for everyone you know as we look at the next 50 years this is a pivotal election and you have a clear choice in this race between Carolyn parish and me and we couldn't be more different I will build an inclusive Miss Saga I said this earlier and I'm going to say this again you know when I moved to Canada I really came here with Big Dreams and really no plan but this unshakable belief that this country would come through for me and I want that for everybody for all the young people here for my daughter and for your children and so what I want to build is a Miss Saga brimming with opportunity for people to get ahead because I believe that the best cities the greatest cities are not the ones with the tallest buildings or the best museums there are cities where ordinary people believe that they can work hard and build a better life for themselves and their children and that's my aspiration for Miss Saga that's why I'm running to be mayor on June 10th I ask thank you for this Alan thank you Angie and thank you everyone for coming out today because this is an incredibly important election where we have an opportunity to change the direction of the future of our city we are talking about building the future we're talking about families who are living in the city who can't afford to stay in the city right now about seniors who need to leave because they can't afford the property taxes for families that can't find the space to grow we're losing jobs we're losing those people but we have hope because I'm ambitious ious for our city CU I love this city I want to do everything we can to make sure that our seniors can continue to live in this community to make sure that my kids have a place to live to make sure that we make this most affordable the most livable the most walkable community that we've seen in Canada we can do that we deserve that we deserve these good things for our community because it's ours and I've lived here my entire life and I want to see that for you and I want to see that for all of us so take that vote to heart and understand the choice that you're going to make on June 10th and I ask for it thank you so much Alvin thank you Stephen I want a city with a worldclass waterfront a world class downtown these are right within our grasp right now same thing when we have our Transit this is what we're really looking to do to move forward to have a city that's fiscally responsible and that's sustainable and that's going to have more opportunities for everybody and to have a arts and culture that we really get ourselves put on the world map this is an opportunity to be an inclusive City and to one that really Forge our future together and go forward we're not living as a bedroom community anymore we're becoming more of a Cosmopolitan City an inclusive City and one that's got an identity around the world here is our opportunity to do it this is what June 10th is coming into it's our next chapter of who we are as a the city of Miss Saga and I ask on June 10th that you vote for me Steven dasco to be our next mayor of Miss Saga to lead us all forward together thank you Stephen thank you very much Brian I have news for councilor demilia the election campaign is not over yet there's still two weeks to go I've only heard this comment once before that was 2011 Michael ignatov said it's between me and step Harper and you know what happened he went down to the biggest defeat the liberal party has ever suffered and Jack Leighton jumped on top and and be form the official opposition uh so you know beware in uh in 2010 2 weeks before election day nchi I think one of the most transfor transformational Mayors in Canadian history was at 8% in the polls two two weeks later he won uh and the existing counselors that said you're not invited to debates you're not allowed to come actually went down to defeat he was in third place at 8% and he won two weeks later I got to tell you in September of 2014 the candidates for mayor were neck and neck and mayor Hazen mcallion heard that there was a debate that was she thought undemocratic she got upset she flew back from uh Brazil she called me three times on the Friday that Friday night she was so incensed that it was undemocratic that she went and endorsed one candidate and that candidate won by 30% if someone stands up for democracy can change Carolyn Paris not showing up is wrong and Deepa saying she's the only candate time is up the podium is now with George all right so for the next 50 years I I think Miss Saga will be in a position where we'll have great Transit it'll be on time fast uh with great technology to keep going I think we're going to have great tra uh great uh or sorry less traffic uh better options for whether you want a bike Walk Drive micr Mobility whatever you like there will be environmental sustainability with dog parks per uh permeable driveways more Parks more green space and the most important thing that we'll have is we'll have hope we'll have hope but that comes to this moment right here where who we are going to challenge the next 50 years of Mrs Saga will be determined by the mayor the mayor that we are going to determine is one of us no there's 20 more sorry there's 20 in total and we haven't got a chance to actually hear all of them so please go to miss sagav votes.com double check everybody double George thank you George I have to keep the time here thank you and of course thank you to all of the candidates I want to thank the organizers uh the the host organizers as well of course ladies and gentlemen this does bring this to the end of our debate um it has been quite an engaging evening and again thank you all candidates for coming out and giving us your views and your opinions we thank the audience as well remember June 10th uh is voting day advanced polls are open open once again this weekend uh thank you all for joining us here we want to thank our audience both uh the televised audience as well as those online as well ladies and gentlemen have yourself a wonderful evening good night thank you Andie [Music]