No sign in sight

Travelling from the downtown core to Scarborough before Nov. 13? Take note. The amount of mayoral candidate signs dwindles significantly when you reach Kingston Road and Birchmount.

It’s almost like Scarborough is as non-existent as Narnia to mayoral hopefuls Jane Pitfield and David Miller

Sure, both candidates talk about including the strip-mall ’burb in their vision for the city but really, no Scarborough-related issues have scratched the surface of the issues deemed important to Toronto this time around.

Take for example, the St. Clair right-of-way streetcar debate. The issue would make any “Scarberian” yawn. Corso Italia residents should be happy they even have a streetcar running through their neighbourhood.

Residents along Kingston Rd. or Eglinton Ave. only dream of having such “luxury” public transit. Instead, commuters are forced to cram into buses, which come infrequently, to make the trek back home.

Bike lanes in Scarborough? Maybe Ward 38 councillor Glen De Baeremaeker would like some, (he bikes to City Hall every day) but the rest of Scarborough prefers to commute via transit. Although, bike lanes may be faster than taking the overpacked TTC.

Bike lanes for the city of Toronto just aren’t a pressing campaign issue for Toronto’s east end dwellers.

So why don’t the two most popular mayoral candidates feel Scarborough is important enough to devote their time and energy in campaigning? Perhaps it’s because only 38 per cent of Torontonians headed to the polls during the last municipal election in 2003.

 Why waste your time and gas money commuting to the suburbs when candidates aren’t guaranteed a high voter turnout? Plus, Scarborough is a suburb. It’s hard to gather a high concentration of people in one area.

Or, maybe it’s Scarborough’s high immigrant population. As reported earlier in the year, new Canadians are less likely to vote in municipal elections then other Canadians.

Whatever the reason is, Pitfield and Miller have failed miserably in rallying the suburban vote.

On election day, Scarberians have the choice between apathy or defeat.

For more information visit:
http://www.spacing.ca/votes/
http://www.toronto.ca/elections/

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Posted: Nov 12 2006 12:00 pm
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Filed under: News