Is crime top issue in mayoral race?

It’s been a violent few days in Toronto.

A 16-year-old boy was stabbed to death inside the Keele subway station. A day later a man was stabbed on a TTC bus. There was yet another stabbing in Allan Gardens in the downtown area. One person was in hospital after gunshots were reported in the Yonge and Sheppard area.

Across Toronto these days, crime and public safety are on voters’ minds. Residents are nervous about travelling on public transit, sending their kids to school and walking and playing in city parks.

Hardly a day passes anymore without shocking news about a violent crime somewhere in the city, from murders on subways to gunfire in crowded shopping malls, security “lockdowns” in high schools, knife fights in public parks, gangrelated beatings and more.

Suddenly, crime and public safety have become top issues in the Toronto mayoral race.

And just as suddenly all the expected candidates — most of whom have totally ignored the issue since declaring their intentions to run — are starting to pay attention.

Importantly, former Toronto police chief Mark Saunders, who has based his campaign largely on the need to deal with crime, could emerge as the leading candidate for mayor if crime and public safety remain top of mind for voters right up to voting day on June 26.

It’s a dramatic shift from just a few days ago when most of the likely candidates were focusing their early campaign rhetoric on issues such as affordable housing, cost of living, city infrastructure and services, poverty, traffic congestion and tearing down the Gardiner Expressway.

They will also be key issues during coming mayoral debates, including one co-hosted by United Way Greater Toronto, Toronto Metropolitan University and the Toronto Star on May 31.

Until now, voters have also been giving those topics top priority. A poll conducted recently by Forum Research found that cost of living and inflation, housing affordability, city infrastructure and taxes were the most important issues for voters ahead of the official April 3 start of the byelection. Crime and gun violence was down the list with just 14 per cent of those polled seeing it as the top issue.

Crime was deemed one of the two most important issues by voters in Scarborough, York and East York as well as with residents in categories in which voter turnout historically is highest, namely those over the age of 45 and those with incomes of more than $100,000.

Significantly, the poll found Saunders led in popular support over all his potential opponents in every one of these categories.

Also helping Saunders at this moment is the thinly-veiled support he is getting from Premier Doug Ford. Saunders was a losing Conservative candidate in last June’s provincial election.

Earlier this week Ford urged Toronto residents not to vote for any candidate who wants to defund the police. “The people that voted for defund the police, don’t vote for them. Simple as that,” Ford said. “We can’t have anarchy in our cities. People have been scared to get on our subway, go walk down the street. If there’s more than one or two candidates who support our police, then vote for them.”

His comments were clearly aimed at city councillors Josh Matlow and Brad Bradford. Back in 2020, Matlow tried, unsuccessfully, to cut at least 10 per cent cut from the police budget, a move backed at the time by Bradford.

True, public perceptions of crime don’t always square up with reality, and the question of whether crime in Toronto is “up” or down” varies a lot.

But just as the issue of crime and voters’ fears have dominated local elections this year across the United States, the violence erupting now in Toronto could easily become the top issue in the current election — and be the deciding factor in who becomes Toronto’s next mayor.