Incumbent councillor, Vincent Crisanti is trying to hold onto his ward but is facing strong competition from young progressive candidates like Chloe Brown and Ala’a Adib.
Crisanti represented Etobicoke as deputy mayor in 1995 and was city councillor from 2010 to 2018, and Adib and Brown say what is familiar is not what is best for residents.
Ala’a Adib, founder of community programming non-profit Smile For Sache, which provides youth workshops in Toronto, said if everything were to go to plan, in four years Etobicoke North wouldn’t look like a stop on a highway.
She said it would be a vibrant community with festivals, local and age-appropriate jobs for youth, newdevelopments, and schools with extended hours and more staff to provide space for communityprograms.
Adib said she wants to work more with the provincial and federal government to fund affordablehousing developments. Tenants need to be represented and protected, and as councillor, she said. Adib said she would be accessible to the community, maintaining an open line of communication between city councillors and tenants. She said she would make sure there is enforcement and accountability with landlords to respond quickly to maintenance requests.
Adib said her top priority on day one would be to meet with the constituents and understand what the community wants and how best to implement the ideas to make change. She said she wants to get more local jobs for youth, make sure Ward 1 has reliable, sustainable transit, and the wholecommunity has access to resources.
Adib said Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow created a food program for schools that Crisanti voted against.
He argued in an article to The Toronto Sun increase to property tax to fund the food programs would “worsen affordability.”
She said that, as someone who has made and distributed over 40,000 meals to the community, she wouldsupport food programs.
“We need to make sure youth are not going to school hungry,” Adib said. “And we need to make sure we are taking the burden off of parents and allowing everybody to have the same opportunity,doesn’t matter what your postal code is.”
A lot of the workers in Ward 1 are service workers who rely on transit to get to the airport, hospital, or are staffing buses, she said. Adib said Ward 1 needs reliable transit and would push for enddates on projects like the Woodbine Go station.
“I want to make sure that I’m the one that’s being accountable and following up with these projects thatare happening within our area,” she said.
Adib said she likes Crisanti’s support with the senior population and would like to build on that work.
Chloe Brown, former mayoral candidate and policy analyst, told Humber Et Cetera that local malls are at 40 per cent occupancy, and she wants to work with landlords and property managers to turn the mall spaces into community hubs.
She said that, using the business tax sub-class available to Toronto, she is open to being more flexible about how commercial rates can create community benefit in the available space.
Brown said, “There is $5 million available through the Woodbine Community Benefits Agreement that is currently on the casino redevelopment.”
She said she would like to bring $10-a-day daycare to the mall, subsidized by the Woodbine Community Benefits Agreement and commercial property taxes. Brown said that money would also lower rent costs for small business owners.
As part of the community hubs, she said she would like to instill Crisis Services that use social medicine. Brown said she did a study on social medicine with her co-operative this past year that looked at the types of activities that contribute to reducing physical harm and improving mental health.
“When you have these social checkpoints, you now have this social system around people that helps them before they enter into the worst parts of their life where they start spiralling,” she said.
Brown said having spaces for art will help with emotional expression and socializing.
North Etobicoke has a lot of old zoning laws imposed on it because of its proximity to the airport, she said. Brown said spaces need to offer a mix of commercial, mixed-use and residential, with communityservices around them.
When malls apply to rezone commercial space to residential space for condos, she said she wants to ensure they also create community spaces near the housing and within the mall.
Brown said local government could work more directly with commercial landlords to consider the long-term viability of the consumers they want to attract. Albion, Rexdale and Woodbine malls are inworking-class areas, she said, and they have lost sight of how to cater to their consumers.
Sears and Hudson’s Bay were consumed by private equity, Brown said. If the local government wants Canadian-owned and operated shops to survive, it needs to be in conversation with commercial landlords about changing commercial property taxes, she said.
Brown said her area is highly conservative and there is an idea that business will regulate itself.
“But we’re at the end of that policy experiment,” she said. “And I think it’s time to actually have councillorsgetting more involved in community planning if we plan to restore social and economic mobility for theresidents that live here.”
Brown said on the first day in office she would set up a dashboard so residents can keep her accountable for her 100-day promises. The first of those promises she said would be tackling youth employment.
Brown said she wants to connect with Humber to get students jobs that help reduce their student fees as they work toward full-time careers. She wants Humber students involved in the redesign of Etobicoke because there is nothing to anchor students in Etobicoke North.
After four years in office, should everything go to plan, Brown said Ward 1 would have an arts andentertainment district. She said new developments would be flexible, with rent-to-own or housing co-opoptions. Brown said there would be a mobility district because of the Etobicoke North Go coming andthe addition of more transit connecting to Pearson Airport. Parks would have new amenities to furtherappeal to residents, she said. There would be more vibrancy between generations, Brown said, because people would participate in community programs and spend more time outside.
She said she has a background in grant writing and plans to share that skill with the community through workshops so small business owners can better apply for grants.
“There’s tons of government contracts available; they’re just being eaten up by larger corporations because small businesses don’t have a lobbyist,” Brown said.
However, councillors can act as government affairs representatives if they bring the right people together.
Vincent Crisanti’s and his team did not respond to interview requests. He is the incumbent city councillor who served the last term, was elected in 2022, and has also served as city councillor in 1995, 2010, and 2018. Crisanti is considered politically allied with Doug Ford.
