Q&A with Toronto mayoral candidate Gil Penalosa
Posted October 20, 2022 4:16 pm.
Last Updated October 20, 2022 7:09 pm.
Gil Penalosa, an urbanist, and the creator of 8-80 cities, is hoping to unseat incumbent John Tory and with just days left before Torontonians head to the polls, he made his final pitch to voters.
Penalosa sat down with CityNews’ Mark McAllister for a one-on-one interview ahead of the municipal election on Oct. 24
Note: The interview has been condensed and edited for clarity
MM: Parks, walking communities, public space is a lot of what you’ve based your career on to this point as well. What makes you think that resonates with everyone in the city enough to get their vote?
GP: An ideal city is where people will be able to walk safely on the sidewalks and in the crosswalks. They will go to the parks and they are open and there’s water and they don’t have the washrooms closed for eight months of the year.
I think that’s why it resonates. I think that public space, infrastructure creates culture. As an example, I go to Rexdale and I go to Rosedale and the only thing they have in common is the R, otherwise it’s like it was two different continents.
There’s nothing in common. And when you look at the public space and the sidewalks in one, they are totally run down and in the other, they are perfect. The trees in one, there might be five per cent tree canopy and then the other one, it’s over 50 per cent tree canopy. I go to the parks and in one, there’s no activity, in the other one, it’s full of activities.
I think we need to have one Toronto. We cannot have one. two or three tiers of Toronto. And that’s why I think it needs to be a top priority.
MM: How do you pay for all the changes that you’re talking about?
GP: First, everything that I have spoken about is doable. And it’s doable in one term. I have not said anything that’s pie in the sky. Nothing. Almost everything is relatively low cost. But the problem is with Tory, after eight years, we have set the bar so low that people think things cannot happen.
Do we think that only people that live in these fancy neighbourhoods want to have safe streets? And want to be able to walk? No, I think that is everybody so that is not about the money.
The overwhelming majority of ideas that I actually have suggested are not expensive. And they’re totally doable. And doable in the short term.
MM: When we do talk about the city’s budget, we are reaching a point where the deficit is almost $1 billion in the city. How do you close that gap and is it a matter of raising taxes in your opinion?
GP: I’m going to do a zero budget. A zero budget is to start from scratch and everything has to be justified. And we need to evaluate everything. So I think that we’re going to have a lot of savings. Also, we might need to move some things.
When you need to cut out expenses, there may be some things that you might have to eliminate completely while others you might have to double or triple where you have priorities.
On the other hand, the province has announced that they have over $2.5 billion surplus. The federals have over $10 billion surplus. Well, the three million people that live in Toronto are not only Torontonians, we’re also Ontarians and we’re also Canadians. So we need to go to the province and we need to go to the federal rules and ask them to help us cover that deficit because the reality is when Toronto works, the province and Canada works.
MM: It has always been the case of Toronto constantly going to other levels of government and looking for that assistance and hoping that they will come through to make sure that the city balances its budget. Do you think you can work with the leaders in those positions now?
GP: I think I can work much better than Tory because what Tory has done, he has abdicated the city to the province. So, we have like a super mayor at the province level.
I think I will get along very well with Ford. And I think I would get along very well with the Prime Minister Trudeau. But in a respectful way. I am going to fight for Toronto’s benefits. Not for Premier Ford or for Trudeau’s.
MM: You’ve criticized the mayor for not getting any shovels into the ground over the last eight years. How can you guarantee that what you’re proposing at this point is going to make things faster?
GP:I have three buckets. First bucket is the “renovation revolution.” We’re going to end exclusionary zoning citywide. Anyone will be able to subdivide so all the owners are going to benefit. Who’s going to do those renovations? Small contractors and medium-size contractors, so thousands and thousands of jobs. Who’s going to benefit? The people that are renting that are now going to have possibilities to rent units all over the city
Second bucket is, as of right now, all of the arterials where there is public transit, people are going to be able to build up. Developers are going to be very happy because they’re going to save three or four years of negotiations of legal fees of all kinds of things. Now, you can jump those for years and go directly with the design. It’s going to be pre-approved. Citywide. All of them.
And the third is wherever the city owns the land we are going to do 100% affordable or deep affordable housing.
MM: How do you convince people that don’t want that development to take place in their community that it’s doable or why it should be done?
GP: Because I’m going to be honest. And I’m going to be transparent. And I’m going to have a plan. I think that most of the nimbus, they hate the uncertainty that all of a sudden, they say this is a neighbourhood of houses and then they say, ‘Oh it’s approved at eight stories or 10 stories.’ I’m going to say whatever we have for housing; it’s only going to be three or four stories.
I can guarantee that more than 90 per cent of the city councillors could not live in the house that they live today with a councillor’s salary and a councillor salary is very good, more than six times the average of a medium salary in Toronto but even they couldn’t afford in the house. We have a huge housing crisis.
We need to build a neighbourhood city. We need to build us a Toronto for people. We need to have a city where everyone will be able to walk to all of their basic needs. Their library, their park, transit, grocery store, restaurants and so on. What I’m saying is radically different from what he has done in the last eight years.
MM: Is this a time where you invoke some of those strong mayor powers that we’ve been talking about from the province?
The strong mayor powers are a distraction. Tory and Ford realized that he had done nothing in the last eight years. There is not one significant project that has been done. Affordable housing has been a huge failure and this is a distraction. And by the way if they wanted to change the mayoral powers, they could’ve done it for years ago or three or two or they could’ve waited six months from now.
The reality is that everything that Tory has wanted in the last eight years has been approved. There’s nothing significant that has not been approved.
MM: John Tory’s campaign has been based on :experienced leadership.” You have said, on multiple occasions most recently, that you have more experience than John Tory. How can people believe you when you say that you have more?
GP: I have an MBA from one of the top 20 schools. I have an honorary doctorate in urban planning from a prestigious Swedish university. I have had success in the public sector. I built over 200 parks before coming to Canada.
In Canada I created a not-for-profit called 8/80 cities that is a simple but powerful concept. What if everything we did in Toronto, the sidewalks, the crosswalks, the library, the buildings, the restaurants, everything had to be great for an eight-year-old and for an 80-year-old as an indicator then it would be good for all.
I have worked in over 350 cities and over all continents. And most of them I’ve worked with mayors and governors. For example in the US I have worked in over 22 states. I have worked on issues like age friendly communities.
MM: One of the more recent polls, from Forum Research, has put you at 20 per cent and the mayor at over 50 per cent. At this point, which is days to go before election day, what makes you think that people will change their minds and vote for you?
Because it’s not too late. We’re talking about our daily quality of life. Also, last weekend in Vancouver and Surrey, the two largest cities in B.C., the candidates beat the incumbents.
Some people think that [Tory]’s a nice person. But I say if you put all of your life savings into a restaurant and you need to hire a chef, do you hire a chef who seems like a nice person or do you hire a chef that knows how to cook? I think that I am a chef that knows what are the ingredients to get a city for everyone.
