No Love Lost Between Vaughan Mayoral Candidates
Posted November 2, 2006 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Check out the one going on in Vaughan.
The two front runners don’t like each other very much.
Incumbent Michael Di Biase and councillor Linda Jackson are going tooth and nail right down to the wire as both vie for control of the city above Toronto.
But both have basically the same platform.
Each accuses the other of copying their ideas.
And both are tied together through a chain of memories that are close to each of them.
Linda Jackson is the daughter of Lorna Jackson, the much admired former mayor, who died in office in 2002. Di Biase was influenced by the late politician and credits her with teaching him much of what he knows about running a city.
“My mum was a wonderful influence in my life,” Jackson reveals. “She was my inspiration.”
“She provided me with a lot of advice,” echoes Di Biase. “I never, you know, would have dared to challenge the former late mayor because she was a good lady.”
But with so much in common, why do these two seem to dislike each other so intensely?
Jackson accused Di Biase of dirty tricks, and wonders about an instance when copies of her private email were left on his front door step.
Di Biase claims Jackson isn’t ready for the office and that he has all the experience.
The main issues in Vaughan are transit and gridlock, the extension of the 407 by 2007, money that goes to Toronto coffers instead of the 905, and most importantly, the search for a hospital for the growing region.
The candidates are adamant that the other guy is stealing their ideas and presenting it as their own.
“These are initiatives that I started,” Di Biase contends. “I’m going to carry on with them. Now some people are copying them or just changing them slightly. But that’s fine.”
“My issues on bringing forward the 427 and ’07, that platform is something that I believe that Mr. Di Biase has copied from me because I’ve said those statements publicly,” Jackson counters. “He now seems to be taking credit for it.”
With the issues so similar, in the end it may all come down to personality and who voters believe actually got there first.
