Where Howard Stands on the Big Issues Facing Toronto:
1. What are your thoughts on Transit City?
"NYC and Montreal are light-years ahead of us. In twenty years we've only added four stations in this city, that's nuts. We're better than this. Every form of transit needs to be electrified and we need to be building more subways."
2. Bike lanes have become a heated topic during this campaign. Where do you stand on the issue?
"I look at the struggles between cars and bikes. It's a war out there, you have a bike lane that lasts two blocks and then war breaks out! We're better than that. We know other cities have adopted better approaches, we need to that. We just need to take something beautiful off the shelf from NYC, or Amsterdam, that's what we need to do."
3. How do you feel about the idea of charging road tolls?
"There has to be a pay as you go approach, I am in favour of road tolls."
4. What "big idea" do you have that will be part of your platform?
"We need to find new revenue. This city is the most multicultural in the world. Mayors of the world should send their staff here and we shall teach the people of the world how to build a great city, that's a cash-cow. We'll build the world's municipal university and each year tens of thousands shall send their civic workers here to learn how to build a great city."
5. How do you feel about the crime level in Toronto? How do you plan on addressing it?
"My job is about empowerment, everyone who lives here is my family, even the junkies, I have to care about them. We keep throwing money at the courts and police to a system that doesn't work, the current system is broken. It would be cheaper to send kids to college than prison."
6. What are your plans for the city's budget including property taxes?
"I think we should be making a profit, we should be calling on the entrepreneurial genius of this city. We're better than the debt we carry. We should be making a profit."
