Ward 38 (Scarborough Centre) Issue Profile

If you don’t know who to vote for locally in Ward 38, you can turn to the mayor’s race for guidance.
Incumbent Glenn De Baeremaeker is supporting mayoral candidate Joe Pantalone; De Baeremaeker’s main opponent Glenn Middleton, who is among a field of four challengers, supports Rob Ford for mayor.

“People want change. They’re fed up with their tax dollars being wasted,” Middleton said. “All discretionary spending in my view needs to be suspended, hopefully only temporarily, until we can get a budget plan that actually works and makes sense because the spending frenzy has just gone on unchecked.”

But De Baeremaeker said city politicians’ spending is not out of control. “I’m in charge of the works department. There’s nothing I would love to do more than find a million dollars a year of waste or inefficiencies so I can spend a million dollars more a year fixing potholes.”

Middleton has also taken issue with De Baeremaeker, a Toronto Zoo Board member, giving away hundreds of zoo passes. “That’s unacceptable…There’s no control over them (passes),” Middleton said.

De Baeremaeker said the passes were raffled away at events in the riding. “What would be wrong with it?” he said. “These aren’t people who would normally go to the zoo, so it’s just like all attractions give out free samples.”

Asked if the freebees give him an unfair advantage in the election, De Baeremaeker said the passes were given to less than one per cent of his constituents. “So anybody who says that you haven’t given zoo passes to 99.5 per cent of the people who live in your ward but you have an advantage, I would laugh at them and say that’s foolishness.”

Ward 38 (Scarborough Centre) has a population of 64,940 and an average family income of $54,727. The riding is roughly bounded by Hwy. 401 to the north, Brimley Road to the west, Eglinton Avenue to the south and Markham and Scarborough Golf Club roads to the east.

De Baeremaeker was easily elected to a second term as councillor in the 2006 election, garnering 8,585 votes to second place finisher Tushar Shah’s 1,330. Shah is running again this year as is Kirk Jensen, who received 399 votes in 2006.

Based on feedback from constituents, De Baeremaeker said the top issue is customer service at city hall followed by road work and taxes.

“When they (constituents) phone city hall with a problem like a pot hole or garbage left out in a park, they want action and good courteous service.”

On transit, De Baeremaeker said he will continue to fight for a Brimley RT station. “It was a mistake 25 years ago not to put it in and now that we’re building a new LRT line it would be a mistake not to put it in now.”

The councillor said he’s “extremely proud” of initiating a two-year revitalization study for the Markham and Ellesmere roads area. The city recently approved the plan.

“When I was elected to office seven years ago, we had developers walking in randomly asking for all sorts of outrageous densities and proposals that did not fit with our local community,” De Baeremaeker said. “Ellesmere and Markham is going to change but we have to make sure the change has a net positive impact on our local community.”

Middleton, a professional accountant, said residents are “very concerned about traffic and gridlock” in the area and “haven’t been consulted effectively.”

He said the key issue is “returning competent fiscal management” to city hall. “This city does not have a revenue problem, it’s got a spending problem.”

Middleton’s campaign literature noted the incumbent voted to increase taxes by 3.75 per cent in 2008.

De Baeremaeker defended his vote. “Tax increases I have supported because that tax revenue goes to pay the police officers who protect us and the firefighters who will put the fires out at our house, so I think that’s a responsible thing to do.”

De Baeremaeker said he voted against two pay increases for councillors. “When council voted anyway to do it, I froze my own salary because I want taxpayers to know that I’m aware that times are tough.”
Middleton, a member of the unofficial Toronto Party, favours party politics at the municipal level.

“We already have it, and it’s the NDP that has managed to do it on the quiet,” he said. “They occupy 25 to 30 seats on council, but they do so without a banner.”

The Toronto Party was formed in 2006 on complaints of higher taxes and declining services and is fielding a dozen candidates for council.

Middleton also favours cancelling the $60 vehicle registration fee and the land transfer tax, reducing council from 44 to 22 members and eliminating all perks for councillors.

Shah is making a second run in the ward. The mechanical engineer and immigration consultant said he wants to help new immigrants and foreign students settle in Scarborough.

“Lots of students are coming from India. They are having a hard time finding a place to live,” he said, adding college residences don’t have enough space.

Shah moved to Toronto from India in 1996. He said he “faced lots of trouble” settling in Toronto and had a hard time finding a job.

“I want to help the community to settle over here,” Shah said. “If they have the proper shelter, proper food, then Scarborough will be a better Scarborough.”

Shah volunteered for De Baeremaeker’s 2003 campaign and said the councillor is doing a “good, excellent” job. Shah said he is supporting George Smitherman for mayor in this campaign.

Jensen finished in sixth place in 2006 but vows he’s running a more serious campaign this time. He said he didn’t agree with campaign contributions four years ago and didn’t post any signs.

“I found out the hard way…that without any signage there is no chance that anybody would ever win,” Jensen said. “Campaign contributions are a fact of life, unfortunately, and that is something that I have to drum up and put signs up accordingly.”

Jensen, the past president of Caravan, said he favours subways in Scarborough, scrapping the vehicle registration fee and scaling back some programs.

“People are just sick and tired of being nickeled and dimed. It seems that they’re getting taxed here, taxed there, taxed everywhere.”

Jensen said he would bring more transparency to city government by publicizing every vote a councillor makes and making councillors’ expenses “more easily attainable.”

He said people are “incredibly disgruntled with city hall and with the incumbent.”

Jensen said he does not support any of the mayoral candidates.

Pizza shop owner Sandip Vora said he favours abolishing the land transfer tax and the vehicle registration fee, freezing property taxes, contracting out garbage collection, making the TTC an essential service and extending the subway to the University of Toronto Scarborough. Vora did not want to publicy endorse a mayoral candidate.

He also said there aren’t enough community centres in the ward. “Facilities are not increasing according to the population.”

Vora, who came to Scarborough from India seven years ago, said he would fight on behalf of people living in rental apartments and work with local businesses to create more jobs. “We need more job fairs in Scarborough,” he noted.

The municipal election is on Oct. 25.

- Andrew Palamarchuk

Posted in School board