Keeping used needles off the streets, tackling food security, and shelving plans for bike lanes on major city roads are some of the pledges made by several Toronto mayoral hopefuls on the campaign trail on Thursday.
Mark Saunders said he will focus on street cleanliness and movability, if elected mayor, as a way to address the issue of needles in areas around supervised injection sites.
"It really is having a stronger cleaning regiment within this particular neighbourhood. Syringes are everywhere, and I'm hearing over and over people going in their backyards, in their schoolyards, in the playgrounds, seeing needles and causing people to change their behaviour because of that," Saunders said, speaking outside a downtown Toronto bistro a few metres away from the Toronto Public Health building where a supervised injection site is located.
His plan also includes adopting a zero-tolerance policy toward needle disposal outside the sites and introducing a colour-coded syringe system to enable the tracking of the source.
Saunders is also vowing to create a highly-visible option within the 311 app to report used needles and dispatch teams on an urgent and priority basis to discard them.
He noted that the issue came up when he was the chief of police but said it is not something that can be policed.
"Our city of Toronto can do better, and we will do better. And by doing better is by listening to every aspect of the discussions, and then making informed decisions and then using leadership to make sure that we do everything we can to enhance the quality of life for absolutely everybody in the city," Saunders said.
"This is a social issue. This is about people that are vulnerable."
Meanwhile, Ana Bailao began her day at the Allan Gardens Food Bank to announce how she plans to tackle food insecurity across the city and support food banks that are seeing a record number of visits due to the high cost of living.
Bailao said she will invest money into the Community Partnership and Investment Program for organizations that serve equity-deserving communities and create a new funding stream for food security and sustainability programs.
She also plans to allocate vacant city spaces for food banks, work with community partners to transform underutilized green spaces like hydro corridors into community gardens, urge national grocery chains to donate food instead of discarding them and launch an annual food drive from the Office of the Mayor.
Anthony Perruzza campaigned in the Eglinton Avenue West and Dufferin area, where he talked to shoppers about affordability.
Speaking along University Avenue, Anthony Furey announced that he will stop plans to put bike lanes on major arterial roads and remove the existing one near Hospital Row if elected mayor.
"I think people are really supportive of seeing new bike lanes on non-arterial roads moving forward," he said. "People just don't want the dedicated bike lanes on major roads anymore. That's what we have to say no to. We have to move forward in a more responsible way."
As of Thursday, there are 50 candidates registered to run for mayor, with 21 days left until nominations close.
Election day is June 26.
