JOHN TORY: The frontrunner opens up

JOHN TORY: The frontrunner opens up

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By Rachelle Cruz

With about 30 days left to go, the battle for the mayoral seat got an upset. With Rob Ford passing the torch to his brother, this recent development might be a game-changer as Doug Ford ranks second place after John Tory. Still, between sparring numerous debates with other electoral candidates on taxes and transit, soldiering solid campaigns throughout the city with his popular SmartTrack plan and talking about “One Toronto” Youth Employment; not to mention wooing new voters in the east end, this lawyer-entrepreneur-broadcaster-turned-politician may seem to be the strongest candidate in the mix.

JOHN TORY at the Taste of Manila (PHOTO: ARIEL RAMOS)

His first foray at City Hall affairs dates back to early 1970s as a member of the City Hall Press Gallery. In politics, he served in public office as Member of Provincial Parliament, Leader of the Ontario PC Party, and Leader of the Official Opposition at Queen’s Park.

The Philippine Reporter got a chance to sit down with Mr. Tory for 20 minutes, firing him with questions on how he plans to govern the city if elected, specifically, his stance on the issues and challenges that face the Filipino communities living in Toronto. But more importantly, what he plans to do about them.

TPR: You were second placer in the 2003 Toronto mayoral election, and lost to David Miller. In 2010, there was widespread speculation that you would run for mayor again. But you didn’t. So why run now?

TORY: I think the city needs new leadership, that’s number one. I think Mr. Ford has disqualified himself from running through all his antics. I just don’t think his reputation is good for the city in an ongoing basis. The other factor was that I realized that I reached a stage in my own life where I had the opportunity, the latitude with the age of my kids, the situation in terms of my own age, to really make a contribution now, to give back, and sort of to provide a leadership that could get some transit built and take advantage of my relationships and my experience to move things forward for the city. The city needs stability right now. Competence, somebody who has relationships to help the city move forward. I just thought it’s the right place and the right time and I gained 11 years more experience than the first time around.

TPR: As you know, many educated Filipinos come to the city and work, but often not in the jobs that they were trained for back home. This leads to the deprofessionalization and deskilling of Filipino workers. As a candidate, can you offer some ideas or solutions on this age-old issue?

TORY: I wrote a whole paper on this when I was the Opposition Leader at Queen’s Park– on foreign-trained professionals and how we were letting them down badly as a country, and as a province, when we allow it takes years and years, some perhaps never that they can end up in a position that they could do what they were trained to do. And I said at that time and even today, that we have a huge obligation to put in place, what I call transitional programs. Things might be done a little bit differently here, so that maybe requires a bit of further education but we’ve proven that we can put together transition programs that can help them make that transition to the Canadian way of doing things. But the problem is that they’re small programs, they’re often under-funded relative to the number of people who could go into those programs and I still don’t think we have the whole-hearted support of the professions, in saying that it’s a priority of theirs, to get people who have come from different countries get fully accredited as soon as possible.

TPR: Temporary Foreign Worker Program, Immigration Policy and the Live-in Caregiver program fall within the Federal jurisdiction BUT with current policy changes that will greatly impact Filipinos (third largest Asian group after Indians and Chinese), where do you stand on these issues? Further, if elected mayor, how will Toronto support the outcome of these program changes?

TORY: We haven’t yet seen the exact reforms for these programs but I think we have to make sure that we don’t overreact. Filipino immigrants to Canada have been hugely important to many families, and when they say for example, we should start looking at whether it’s somebody’s brother or sister or son or daughter, is coming in as a caregiver, why is that really relevant? If they’re coming here to be a caregiver, they are going to do a good job, they have some skills and experience to show that they can do that, then to me I would say if it has the effect of reuniting that family then so be it because they are coming here to perform a role for someone who needs care. I will be able to tell you in my own case. And I am sure that many people in Toronto have the same experience. Thank goodness, there are people who come from the Philippines who are very kind, caring and professional people doing this kind of work. My father-in-law passed away last year of Alzheimer’s and all the people who helped care for him – the nurses and all the other people in the long-term care home where he went, were Filipinos. The kindest people who took the best care of him. And if they want to come into this country, and they come and do this work, and in turn get their permanent resident status, I would say, let’s not overreact and change those programs in a way that is a substantial disadvantage for people who want to come to Canada. The fact that they may be someone else’s relatives to me is irrelevant.

TPR: You mentioned transition programs. What would be a sound plan to finance these programs to ensure they carry through implementation?

TORY: The transition programs, first of all, is the responsibility of the post-secondary education system by and large, and maybe the professions a little bit ‘cause they are involved too. This is the responsibility, first and foremost of the provincial government, maybe to a lesser degree the federal government. Probably not the municipal government because often they will operate out of the post-secondary education system or as an extension to the professions and their continuing education programs. But the mayor can be an advocate, to say that look, we have to do better than this, than the thousands of people living in this city right now, who are fully qualified architects, engineers, computer programmers, doctors, nurses, and yet cannot find themselves any way to get qualified. I think the mayor can be an advocate but I don’t think the city, has either the authority, the financial resources, or the responsibility to actually make sure there’s adequate number of spots for these programs.

TPR: There’s a recent study called the Filipino Youth in Transitions in Canada (FYTC). The study was prompted by the poor completion rates/compared to that of other cultures, and the study’s objective was to find out what the reasons were for the Filipino kids’ poor performance. One cause cited was deprofessionalization and deskilling of parents (or non-recognition of their foreign trained education and professional credentials) that resulted in lower income in turn resulting in the inability of parents to send children to university, in turn affecting the children’s prospects for higher learning, discouraging them from pursuing higher education. What do you think about this? And what can be done to elevate the status of Filipino youth’s underperforming issues?

TORY: Governments – plural, all working together have an absolute obligation to try to do what they can for that group facing that problem as they do for other groups facing another problem. For example, Filipinos I find, don’t often have a language problem. They speak English very well. Whereas, there are other groups who come from other countries who have serious problems with language, well in those cases, we should be helping them every way we can. And I think with Filipino kids, if they are having issues that come from separation and so on, yes we should because our objective should be, and this is again where the mayor can take a leadership role, although not necessarily be responsible for every aspect, our responsibility should be to make sure that every kid, who’s here in Canada, we should be making sure to be doing everything possible to give them the best chance to have a most successful life and to stay and do well in school. And that the first stepping stone to a successful life is staying in school. So the answer to your question would be, yes, I think the mayor should be an advocate.

TPR: What do you say to average voters who may have labelled you as elitist? Or that you only care about big corporations and businesses?

TORY: I’d say first, check out my record as a citizen and see that I’ve devoted a huge amount of my time, I mean I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being a successful businessman but I think if they also look at how I spent my time, not what I’ve done for a living, look at my time as a volunteer, and I’ve devoted myself entirely since I was literally a late teenager, and I’m now 60, to working for organizations.

Secondly, I’ve come to know the community very well. The city that I live in. And just because you’re a businessman, and just because you’re a lawyer, or just because you’re a broadcaster, doesn’t mean you can’t come to know very well the problems that are faced by other people. It doesn’t mean that you’ve lived their life – like I can’t say I could have ever lived the life of somebody who moved here from another country because I never had that experience but I certainly spent a lot of time listening to people who had, and I think that’ s going to equip me very well, together with the very stuff that people will sort of say criticism which is what I’ve been in management, and I’ve had responsibility of getting results and for working with large organizations to get things out of them, that’s what I’m going to put to work – is that experience. Plus my compassion about other people and the city to get results. And I think that’s why people are responding well to my campaign.

TPR: You have been married to your wife Barb since 1978, and have four children, John Jr., Christopher, Susan and George, and are grandparents. What is John Tory like outside politics?

TORY: Well I’m a pretty ordinary person. I like to read, I like to be with my grandchildren, my children. I like to be with my wife and go on and spend time having dinner with friends. I’m not the kind of person who runs around making a lot of noise and I think people are looking right now, at City Hall, for somebody who is stable, competent, results-focused person. And I think as long as they think they can trust me, and what is you is what you get, then I can say to people, what you see is pretty much what you get.