TORONTO – She said it before running as a candidate and reiterated it on Monday evening, during a meeting with NEPMCC, the National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada: in the next few hours, Mitzie Hunter will resign as MPP of Ontario to being able to devote herself even more intensely to the electoral campaign that sees her engaged in the race for the office of Mayor of Toronto.

“This is a serious matter, a mission to which I must give all my energies” said Hunter, thus confirming what she had declared to the CBC on March 30, just days before running for mayor of Toronto: “This election is a turning point for Toronto. We have the choice to either rise to the next level or go off a cliff. I will be the champion that Toronto needs so we can rise to the next level” Mitzie said on that occasion, announcing at the same time her resignation from Queen’s Park.

Hardly a politician renounces the “armchair” (Hunter does not necessarily become Mayor, so she risks remaining politically “out”) and rarely a politician keeps the promises he/she makes, but Mitzie seems to deny both customs, despite being a professional politician: she has been Deputy Minister of Finance and Minister of Education of Ontario and she’s a (Liberal) MPP since 2013. Until tomorrow or, at the latest, the day after tomorrow, when she will resign after ten years of uninterrupted presence. Will the other candidates for mayor who are holding political office do the same? This is the case of Brad Bradford, Josh Matlow and Anthony Perruzza, who are city councilors but did not announce their resignations when they took to the track for the mayoral seat. We’ll see what they do now.

Meanwhile, the electoral campaign of the various candidates continues. Hunter herself today unveiled her Toronto Affordable Housing Plan, nearly 22,700 new units will be built over six years to provide housing for some 53,650 people, using public lands. “There is no higher priority than leveraging the city’s properties to develop as much affordable housing as possible” Hunter said.

Mark Saunders confirmed what he anticipated to Corriere Canadese in recent days: immediate suspension of all bike lane expansions, removal of bike lanes on University Avenue and deprioritization of the Bloor Street West bike lane expansion.

Still on the subject of traffic, Ana Bailao announced a crackdown on those who block traffic, announcing fines and tow trucks for vehicles caught blocking lanes or parking illegally: “99% of Torontonians follow the rules but remain ‘trapped’ because some drivers refuse to follow them”.

In the meantime, the list of aspiring first citizens continues to grow: today at noon there were 77 candidates for the office of mayor of Toronto: and it may not have ended here, given that there is time to apply until 12 May.

In the pic above, Mitzie Hunter, running for Mayor of Toronto, in a photo taken from her website www.mitzieformayor.ca