wow

I know, I know! It is not travel related but we have had a lot of debate around here about the new mayor. Just curious: Who do you think will be Toronto's new mayor??

ron

There may be a lot of debate around your "here", but I can assure you for the 99.99% of the world's population (those that do not live within 15 km of the CN tower), there is little awareness and absolutely no interest in the subject.

You mean John Sewell is no longer mayor?

BAK

In fact, the election of the mayor is very travel-related.

A huge part of the Toronto economy is based on travel and tourism, some business related and much pleasure related.

The hotels and many of the restaurants survive on tourism, and a major part of the job of the mayor is to promote the city, nationally and internationally. the theatres and art galleries and museums that make Toronto great are all travel-related.

The government of the city has to make efforts internally to make Toronto attractive to tourists from outside, and -- often forgotten -- tourists from inside. i.e. Toronto poeple need to visit their own city.

The mayor, and city council, need to get Torontontonians out of their homes and into the public spaces, attending the theatre and going to museums, and inviting friends to come to the city, too.

The new mayor, by a 35,000 vote margin (285,000 compared to second place 250,000) is David Miller. Part of his campaign was devoted to killing the downtown airport, so that it is less convenient for tourists to come to the city.

But, that aside, he's a bright guy, noticably on the left, which will likely mean decent support for culture, and he is personable, and not nuts, which was a problem with the previous mayor.

And, leftish as he is, he's not so far left that he can't get along with business people and negotiate travel packages, etc. He'll support the new opera house, showup at literary readings, ...

He was my second choice, but not so far second that I'm saddened or distressed.

John Tory, a businessman who was in the background of politics, came in a strong second, and Barbara Hall, who was mayor of the central part of the city a few years ago and was the front-runner at the start of the campaign, fell far, far behind, at less than a quarter of the votes of the winner.

39 per cent of eligible voters bothered to vote.

Anyway, politics and tourism are closely linked, and this guy will be OK at this part of his job.

BAK

Borealis

Thanks for the info on your new mayor BAK.
Hopefully he will be an improvement on Lastman, who was an embarassment to the country during the SARS crisis.
By the "downtown" airport, do you mean the one on the island??

JMM

Since Miller has some brains and a sense of appropriate public behaviour, I am sure he will be better than Mel Lastman (Although one should bear in mind that Mr Lastman was not a well man - which I hope was at least partly resonsible for some of his more ridiculous public statements.)
BTW - BAK means the island airport (which is not much used by tourists anyway - a friend of mine used to use it for business commutes from Ottawa and she said she encountered very few tourists).