Toronto election: Mark Saunders says the city needs ‘discipline’ in Global News interview – Toronto | 24CA News

Global News is holding one-on-one interviews with the highest seven polling candidates vying to turn out to be Toronto’s subsequent mayor on June 26. Candidates have been requested to decide on an interview location to speak about their insurance policies and marketing campaign guarantees. Links to every of the interviews may be discovered beneath as they’re printed. Here is extra from Mark Saunders in dialogue with Global News Anchor Alan Carter.

Although Mark Saunders is now not a police officer, his decades-long profession in legislation enforcement could make an interview with him appear a little bit like studying from a police press launch.

He peppers his solutions with phrases like “on the go-forward” when speaking of restoring belief with the homosexual group following the Bruce McArthur investigation, or discovering “the unknown unknowns” with a pilot challenge earlier than approving consuming in metropolis parks, or promising to save cash with “sustainable solutions.”

But the general message of Mark Saunders’s marketing campaign is unmistakable: Toronto is much less protected and it wants a agency chief to show issues round.

“Toronto needs discipline,” he says as we sit down for an interview at a restaurant in Regent Park.

When requested what meaning, Saunders continues, “We have to have prioritization of what needs to be done.”

Saunders would triple the variety of public security officers on public transit, set up extra safety cameras and ban panhandling on the system.

At a latest marketing campaign cease, Saunders opened his remarks with “Toronto has a serious crime issue and it’s getting out of control.”

Saunders, who stepped down as Toronto police chief in 2020, rejects the concept that he bears some accountability if town is much less protected.

“People say they don’t feel safer now than when I was chief,” he says, “but this isn’t about pointing fingers, it’s about dealing with the issue right now.”

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who pledged to stay impartial within the race, has spoken warmly of Saunders, and talked of how the subsequent mayor must have expertise coping with crime.

Has the notion of being Doug Ford’s alternative within the race helped or harm Saunders? He dodges the query twice, ultimately touchdown on “I don’t know. When I’m knocking on doors people like what I have to say.”

Not everybody likes what Saunders has to say, although, about bike lanes, claiming they add to congestion and make no sense on main roads. He would take away present lanes on University Avenue and freeze the extension of the community. His proposals have drawn the ire of biking advocates.

While different candidates have vowed to battle the relocation of the Ontario Science Centre to Ontario Place, Saunders says the province has the ability to do it. So, the query is what to construct there subsequent, whereas wrestling concession for Toronto residents to the brand new Ontario Place, like decrease ticket costs to the deliberate non-public spa.

His central pitch although stays legislation and order and a promise to “keep Toronto safe.”

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