May 15, 2023
By Jane Brown
Monday night’s Toronto mayoral debate is timely as a new Forum Research poll finds housing affordability and the cost of living are the top issues for voters in this city.
The debate is hosted by The Daily Bread Food Bank, with a focus on affordability and food insecurity, as the percentage of people using food banks has quadrupled largely due to inflation.
Candidates taking part are Ana Bailao, Brad Bradford, Olivia Chow, Mitzie Hunter and Josh Matlow. Mark Saunders originally agreed to be part of the debate but has since pulled out.
According to the Forum poll, 20-percent of Toronto voters remain undecided ahead of byelection day, Monday June 26th, which is in six weeks.
The survey puts Olivia Chow in first place among decided voters, up 3-percent in the last week with 36-percent support.
She is followed by Mark Saunders up 4-percent at 18-percent support.
Forum President Lorne Bozinoff says people are now trying to make a solid decision.
“And I think people are sort of coming home to where they’re from originally, so the left has got their candidate, Olivia Chow, clearly from the left. I think she’s going to start sucking up the left vote. And then we’ve got Mark Saunders on the right. He’s starting to attract the vote from the right, so we see the consolidation. It’s going to come down to, it looks like right now, these two candidates and it’s one from the right and one from the right, which is very common in Toronto politics at the end of the day,” Bozinoff explained to CP24.
Josh Matlow and Mitzie Hunter are tied at 10-percent support of decided voters, Ana Bailao at 7-percent and Brad Bradford at 6-percent.
Fourteen percent are supporting another of the 102 candidates running for the Toronto’s next mayor.
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