Carroll opts not to run for mayor
admin | Tuesday, January 12th, 2010 | No Comments »
Shelley Carroll ended months of speculation that she might run for the mayoralty Tuesday, Jan. 12, filing nomination papers for her current seat in Ward 33 (Don Valley East) and vowing to spend the first part of the year on the task at hand: crafting a balanced operating budget for 2010.
“I can’t responsibly step away from that obligation to campaign for the office of mayor because of the time that would require,” she told reporters outside Toronto City Hall’s elections office. “My love of the city draws me to that campaign, there’s no question, but the obligation I have before the city really prevents me from pursuing it.”
Carroll, a David Miller loyalist, had been touted by his supporters as a possible successor from the day that Miller announced he would not seek re-election. For the past three years, the councillor from North York has chaired the city’s budget committee and functioned as a key part of the mayor’s inner circle.
Supporters of a Carroll campaign said she could make the most appealing candidate among Miller’s other supporters. Unlike Miller, who comes from High Park, her roots are in the inner suburbs that make up the majority of Toronto. She is an active member of the Liberal Party, and not – as Miller was before he was elected mayor – a New Democrat.
And she would have been the only woman so far among the registered and likely candidates.
Carroll said the absence of a strong female candidate in the race shouldn’t be a cause for concern.
“I think what’s important is that we’re looking at the issues,” she said. “I hope that in the City of Toronto that we’ve been enough of a model that gender is not what matters in a candidacy.”
Carroll had kind words for her supporters.
“I want to thank each and every one who stepped up immediately with their support should I seek the office of mayor,” she said. “The numbers were overwhelming – I’m all choked up. A special team, and they know who they are, came forward to help me prepare. But throughout this I’ve always maintained that we had to keep an eye on the budget.”
Carroll maintained that her decision had nothing to do with feeling crowded out by two other prominent Liberals – former Deputy Premier George Smitherman, and Liberal back-room operative Rocco Rossi.
“That’s not been a part of my decision because of the overwhelming support I’ve received,” she said, adding that she hadn’t spoken with any registered candidates before she made her decision.
She also said she wasn’t endorsing any candidates – at least not so far. “It’s a very early stage, and we don’t even know who all the candidates are yet,” she said.
But she did make it clear she’d be watching – and commenting on – the mayoralty race as it unfolded.
“The election can’t just be about personality, positioning and ambition,” she said.
“It must be about the people of Toronto – all of them in every neighbourhood. Finally when the voting is done in October, we must open up the decision-making process. In the last term we’ve done a lot to close the back door, to open up the sense that politics was for insiders only. But in the next four years, people from all over the city, people who live in the inner suburbs where I represent, need to know their central role in the future of the city.”
– David Nickle
