Adam Smith

The Mayor and City Council

As councillor I will always represent residents and be available to residents, and do my best to give them their own voice at city hall. I have a long history of serving the public already and would continue to do so, for example 14 years of Meals on Wheels, 11 years at the Beach Community Edible Garden growing for our local food bank, and 6 years on the Beach BIA helping small businesses.

Housing

We need more public housing, and to wrest control from the province so we can return to fulsome rent controls and inclusionary zoning. If legally possible, we should expropriate buildings from inadequate landlords, for example 500 Dawes Rd. We need to work with encampments to ensure they are organized and safe and do not prevent others from using parks. Toronto needs to improve TCHC stock, not sell it off.

Cost of Living

We need to take a closer look at budget priorities and ensure what we are spending money on is what is most necessary right now, with a view to ensuring the budget does not expand and therefore does not require property tax increases. We should be increasing parking fees in order to reduce transit fares. We need to increase the vacant homes tax to at least 10% to drive investors to sell or rent for a lower price. We need to expand food gardens in parks to supply food banks with fresh produce.

Safety in Public Spaces

As mentioned, we need to work with encampments so they are organized and safe and not ad hoc and do not infringe on the public's ability to use the parks. We need TTC enforcement on trains where the problems actually occur, not on platforms where they can only react after the fact. Ultimately, we need safe consumption sites back and more funding for mental health, especially for addicts.

Getting Around the City

I have designed the Ward 19 Transportation Network (transportation systems are a hobby of mine). We can improve the streets for ALL modes of transportation to move more safely and efficiently, the problem is city staff don't take a holistic network approach, they mostly only look at intersections in isolation. We need to complete the bike network, unify parking restrictions, think outside the box on transit (like crowd-sourced express routes), and remove conflict zones with pedestrians.

Confronting Hateful and Hostile Behaviour

We need more block parties and local celebrations, to bring neighbourhoods together more. And more awareness of/exposure to the lived experiences of marginalized/vulnerable groups, and more education on the supports (or lack thereof) such groups receive from different levels of government.