The son of former Toronto mayor Mel Lastman says he has now decided not to run for mayor in the upcoming municipal election.
On Wednesday, CP24 received confirmation that Blayne Lastman, best known for running the Bay Boy furniture empire founded by his father, intended to file nominations papers to run for mayor at city hall on Thursday.
But on Thursday morning, Rob Godfrey, the director of communications for Lastman’s campaign, said Lastman informed his team at around 3 a.m. that he would not in fact be running.
In an interview with CP24 later in the morning, Lastman said he decided not to run largely due to family reasons, but he didn’t rule out an entrance into the political realm sometime down the line.
“The last two weeks I haven’t slept much. My emotions have been like a roller coaster, up and down, up and down and it is a sad day but I had to make the right decision for my family, the City of Toronto and the business. For now,” he said.
Lastman told CP24 that he met with residents, politicians and business leaders over the last few weeks and received widespread encouragement to run.
He said that had he entered the race, he is confident he could have unseated Tory, who has enjoyed consistently high levels of support throughout his term.
“We were doing fantastic and I honestly believe we would have beat him but the decision had to be made,” he said. “I don’t feel good. I was excited. There are so many issues to tackle. The city has to get better. We need action. I would have been the action mayor and we would have made decisions every single day.”
Candidates have until 2 p.m. on Friday to register to run in October’s municipal election.
As of now, there are 24 candidates registered to run for mayor but none of them other than Tory possess a particularly high profile.
Lastman said that he would like to see a creditable challenger enter the race at the last minute but he conceded that such a development appears unlikely.
“I’d like to see a strong contender go in – they have got until tomorrow – but I don’t think it is going to happen. I really don’t. John (Tory) is going to be the mayor for the next four years and he is a really, really good guy but I hope that he is hearing that he needs to bring action. You need to make decisions. Every decision you can’t make everyone happy.”
