NEWS

Tory pitches to Rotarians

Mayoral candidate John Tory spoke to a gathering of local Rotarians Aug. 28, giving his pitch for why he should be the city’s leader.

In his address to a crowd of about 50 from Toronto Eglinton and Toronto Forest Hill Rotary Clubs at Hazelton Place on Avenue Road, Tory touted his plans for transit, congestion and traffic-calming measures.

He also took swipes at incumbent mayor Rob Ford.

“We see in one of these cynical acts that he does at the end of a four-year term, Mayor Ford coming forward and saying I move a motion to really speed up the synchronization of traffic signals in Toronto,” Tory said. “And my response to that was, where has he been the last four years?

“He’s been the mayor and could’ve brought that motion forward in the first week of his mandate and
had traffic lights all synchronized by now. Instead, he waited for me to put it in my platform.”

Tory went on to say he would implement traffic light synchronization, while referring to it as “the irony of ironies” and “typical of us as Canadians” that the technology was developed at the University of Toronto, used globally but never implemented in Toronto.

Traffic-calming measures were also a key point in the mayoral campaign of Ward 16 councillor Karen Stintz, who dropped out of the mayor’s race on Aug. 21.

Speaking to the Town Crier afterward, Tory said that while polls don’t always tell where voters are going after their candidate drops out, he thinks those who were backing Stintz could be headed his way.

“I think a lot of the things I talk about are a lot of the things she talked about … so I like to think a good number of her supporters will come my way,” he said.