This race will be a good one too. There are a lot of people in this riding that are just simply not happy with Furious George. And seeing as how his face has been front and centre at a lot of these “policy/pre-election spending” announcements, he won’t be able to escape that.

Liberals and Smitherman will have an easy hold here but it does beg the question – why isn’t NDP more competitive here.

This is the only constituency that they need to have a lock on the central waterfront!

George Smitherman has worked hard as Minister of Health introducing much needed reforms to the health system and creating more stability rather than the chaos of the previous government. With his high energy, he still manages to find time to know all areas of his constituency and serve us well whatever the issue.

George Smitherman is an irresponsible MP that represents an irresponsible government. The people of Toronto Centre are too intelligent to give him a free pass to Queens Park. Unfortunately, he uses his sexuality as an advantage to win votes; a low-brow tactic at best. Here’s hoping that the voters in Toronto Centre look at his dismal political record and history of being obnoxious and send this McGuinty lieutenant packing.

Few like Smitherman personally, but this riding is very safe for the Liberals as they are competitive all over the riding. The Conservatives do fairly well in Rosedale and the NDP has support in Pam McConnell’s ward.

“Few like Smitherman personally, but this riding is very safe for the Liberals…”.

I would suggest to ‘King of Kensington’ above that this is the problem with our first-past-the-post electoral system.

The Liberals get oodles of default votes that they likely don’t even have to canvass and hustle for simply because they’ve been in power mostly and people don’t know the NDP. And then, when it’s over they win the riding and go back to their arrogant elitist policies, incompetent governance, and then when the next election comes everyone complains about their horrible record and then guess what?? Yep, everyone votes for the Liberals again, or else the Conservatives get in with a Minority. And so on, and so on, the cycle keeps repeating like an endless tumbling of the laundry dryer machine.

The NDP should have this riding as their social equity platform helps nearly all the constituents in this riding – ironically, the poor and disaffected immigrant population which continues to vote for Liberals every election in droves. I just wish people would judge governments on their record during tenure, not on the fact that Pierre Trudeau was a great Prime Minister and that he was in power when some immigration official stamped some family member’s passport in 1974.

The NDP canvasses tirelessly with virtually no budget, volunteers, and probably in a ratio of 5-1 that Smitherman’s camp does. This is also partly because of the inequities of the funding of campaigns and the fact that the Tories and the Liberals have corporate donations, paid staffers, and much more efficiency since they also don’t have to hustle to ‘get the vote out’ on Election Day.

Personally, I’m voting for Sandra Gonzalez (NDP), many of my neighbours agree with their platform, and we all await the day if/when the new MMP (Mixed-Member Proportional) Representation electoral voting system becomes law.

Betty-Anne.

Smitherman’s idea of “community” is to dump methadone clinics in one area where he refused to listen to residents appeal not to cluster these clinics. My vote is for Sandra Gonzalez….she is fresh, she understands issues of working, survival and success. Smitherman does not care about working, living and beautifying a neighbourhood – except his own. He can have the downtown core closed for exhibitionism galore but cannot, will not see beyond gender and economics.