The future of your city is in your hands today. It’s up to you. So get out and vote, would you? This has been a weird municipal election year in Toronto — kind of slow gearing up, then turned on its head by Premier Doug Ford’s eleventh-hour changes to how the whole election and city government will work, and then emerging as interesting and somewhat confusing as the campaign debate began in earnest. But now it comes to the end. You will have heard from the candidates by now about why you ought to vote for them. You may have heard from editorial boards and activists telling you who they think you should vote for. You’ve likely heard from polls and pundits who they think will win. But it ain’t over quite yet. The finish isn’t up to them — it’s up to you. Up to us. Read more: School trustees are spending your billions. Maybe you should vote for themTen (not at all) tough questions for Toronto’s mayoral contendersTory, Keesmaat put final touches on their mayoral campaigns on eve of electionQuite a lot hinges on the result. We have ongoing crises in the city: of housing affordability, of overloaded transit, of traffic congestion, of gun violence. How we tackle those problems, or how they continue to tackle us, hinges on the results of this vote. And not just the mayoral vote, but all the city council races, too. The city will be shaped by all of them working together, and a number of big-picture citywide decisions may very well come down to one councillor’s vote. In the rejigged council scheme, a lot of ward-level races today may be decided by a few hundred votes or less.Even away from the most obvious pressing issues, the city’s government is the one that determines how much of life is lived on your block and in your workplace. How your garbage gets picked up, whether the splash pad is open at your local park, whether a condo tower can be built at the end of your block, the speed limit on the street y ...
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