Members of Toronto city council's so-called "mighty middle" are holding a brain-storming session on Thursday afternoon to toss around ideas on how to improve the city.
The meeting, which has been organized by a group of nine city councillors who neither align themselves with Mayor Rob Ford nor outright oppose him, began at around 4 p.m. and is not open to the media.
Attendees include councillors Josh Matlow, Karen Stintz, Ana Bailao, Chin Lee, Gloria Lindsay Luby, James Pasternak, Josh Colle, Mary-Margaret McMahon and John Parker.
"What we are trying to discuss are big city issues that we need to move forward," Ward 18 Coun. Ana Bailao told CP24. "For example I have been working on a lot of housing, other people are working on TTC, other people have certain other issues. We want to see how we can put these issues at the table over the next two years."
Though rumours have been circulating that the councillors will discuss charging non-Torontonians a toll to drive on the Don Valley Parkway and Gardiner Expressway, Coun. Karen Stintz told CP24 that tolls are a provincial matter and therefore will be left off the agenda.
"What we are going to focus on in our meeting are things we can do as a city and road tolls are really not within our power," Stintz said.
Stintz went on to say that councillors will discuss "fiscally sustainable" and "customer-focused" priorities.
"That's the kind of framework that we want to work within and really, we are just looking at all kinds of ideas," Stintz said.
The nine councilors meeting today helped replace Ford's subway building plan with a more cost-effective light-rail transit plan in February and in many ways hold the balance of power on a council filled with Ford supporters and left-of-centre councillors who often vote as a block.
Coun. Josh Matlow, however, dismissed a suggestion the councillors would try to use their power to dictate council's agenda.
"We often in different groupings get together and brain-storm and blue sky, and discuss different priorities we hear from our constituents and this is yet another example of that," he said in an interview with CP24. "The common denominator here is that we don't want to continue seeing divisive issues coming up. We want to find common issues that we can work on together."
