For those who want to be mayor, listening to seniors may be wise.

CARP, a group representing older persons, says 70 per cent of Canadian citizens older than 65 “vote regularly,” while general turnout in Toronto’s last municipal election was 39 per cent.

And in 20 years, a quarter of the city’s population will be seniors.

But at a debate CARP held Wednesday, Aug. 11 at Ryerson University to highlight seniors’ issues five mayoral contenders stuck mostly to their usual pitches and steered around questions posed on video by former mayor David Crombie, community advocate Zanana Akande and radio host John Tory.

Candidates talked passionately about seniors who are family: Rocco Rossi said he saw his aging grandparents struggle, so he understands the need for automatic doors.

Sarah Thomson recalled walks with her ailing father, who was trailing an oxygen tank and needed to rest. “We have to remember the little things” when it comes to making Toronto friendlier to seniors, she said.

“We can’t take out the park benches just because there’s people sleeping on them now and then.”

George Smitherman – who arguably has done more than anyone to shape conditions for Toronto seniors because he was Ontario’s health minister for four years – is pledging to have them ride free on the TTC from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., “because we have the capacity and because we know an active senior is a happy senior.”

Joe Pantalone, also the city’s deputy mayor, said he would put a permanent seniors’ advocate at City Hall, build two outdoor parks designed for senior exercise needs and freeze property taxes for senior families if they make less than $50,000 a year.

But Thomson said freezing taxes isn’t enough. Seniors need ways of retrofitting homes so they can stay in them, she said.

Rossi said property taxes forcing seniors from their homes must be reduced, and Pantalone, when asked about elder abuse – which Akande said few public agencies in Toronto seem ready to address – called gentrification that produces fears in seniors of losing their home “a form of abuse.”

Rob Ford said his own 75-year-old mother told him, “I can’t afford to live in this city” because of taxes and wasteful “gravy train” spending at City Hall – the very issues Ford likes to discuss.

That gravy train, which has to stop, but “seniors have to come first,” the Etobicoke councillor added.

Pantalone, however, said Ford, who often questions or opposes grants to community groups at Toronto Council, voted against funds for a Meals on Wheels Program.

Smitherman recalled Ford also voted, in an unsuccessful bid to save $13.4 million, to get rid of snow-clearing on some streets.

“A lot of people said, Rob, we don’t want the little dead-end streets snow-plowed,” Ford responded, saying he was trying to return service to past levels.

Ford said he’d hold town hall meetings in every ward where police would warn seniors how to spot fraudsters, install motion detectors, and take other precautions for safety.

Crombie said older Torontonians need to feel secure about where they’re going to live and want to remain “useful” to society. “They need people to be creative about how they can participate in the well-being of this city,” he said.

At the end of the event, which packed a 300-seat auditorium in mid-afternoon, moderator Susan Eng asked the candidates to sign a pledge that included making Toronto “the model age-friendly city,” naming an “age-friendly champion” on council and setting a standard of universal accessibility in public buildings and spaces.

Greeting people outside the auditorium, Mark State, another mayoral candidate, said he’d establish an independent seniors’ commission, a corporation with a board like Toronto Hydro’s, to handle services for seniors and be their voice on council and in the city.

Standing nearby, Dewitt Lee, also running for mayor, said he’d give “red carpet” service to seniors, directing their calls or City Hall visits to the office of a senior’s advocate so they would not have to stay on the phone or in line for very long.

He also pledged to record the life stories of all interested Toronto seniors and make them publicly available in archives. “The history lessons that are embedded inside the minds of our seniors are being lost,” Lee said.

~ Mike Adler

Posted in Mayoral race, News