Toronto Star: New political advocacy group launched Tuesday vows to counter progressive voices at city hall

A new advocacy group that says it wants to bring “common sense” to city hall hit Toronto’s political scene on Tuesday. 

A Better City (ABC) Toronto intends to find the “middle ground” to solve major problems facing the city, according to executive director Ariella Kimmel, and serve as a counterbalance to the Progress Toronto group that in recent years has helped elect a slew left-leaning candidates to municipal office, including Mayor Olivia Chow.

At the group’s launch event Tuesday evening at Revival on College Street, Kimmel told the packed crowd that Toronto is “facing mounting challenges” of rapid growth, rising costs, and “political inertia.”

She said her organization would be a “common sense coalition” to address those problems and combat the “loud ideological voices” that have left “many reasonable people feeling unrepresented.”

Among the hundreds of attendees were the Liberal MP for Eglinton-Lawrence Marco Mendicino, former Toronto deputy mayor Denzil Minnan-Wong, and current and former city hall staffers.

Although Kimmel is a communications executive who has worked in federal and provincial Conservative governments, in an interview with the Star she described ABC Toronto as “centrist,” and said members of its board include people with Liberal and Tory backgrounds. 

She said the organization will focus on issues of congestion, public safety and affordability. Petitions posted to its website call on residents to oppose Chow’s “massive” 6.9 per cent property tax increase in the 2025 budget, protect places of worship from “hateful protests” and get rid of bike lanes on major streets. 

Asked who is funding the group, Kimmel said it’s receiving support from people “who have the same concerns as we do regarding the key issues in the city,” but declined to say who.

“This is a brand new organization already gathering support from thousands of people across the city,” she said.

Saman Tabasinejad, executive director of Progress Toronto, said she considers the advent of ABC Toronto as “a compliment” to the success of her organization. 

But she said she has questions about the rival group’s financial backers, and speculated whether it was “just another organization … funded by lobbyists and Bay Street.” (Progress Toronto says it is 70 per cent funded by small individual donations and 30 per cent through “sponsorships for events.”)  

Tabasinejad rejected the idea that ABC Toronto would give a voice to groups that haven’t had a say at city hall.

“We’ve had conservative and ‘middle of the road’ mayors dominate city hall for the last 10 years,” she said, a reference to Chow’s predecessors John Tory and Rob Ford. She argued the result has been higher housing costs, declining city services and crumbling infrastructure, and voters elected Chow to reverse that trend.

“Are they just offering an alternative that we’ve already seen and most people didn’t like?” asked Tabasinejad.

Since it was founded in 2018, Progress Toronto has taken a direct role in municipal elections by registering as a third-party advertiser, a status that allows groups to campaign for or against candidates.

In 2022, five of the nine candidates the group backed won a council seat. It organized for Chow in the 2023 mayoral byelection and afterward its former executive director, Michal Hay, served as Chow’s chief of staff. More recently, it was credited with helping defeat controversial conservative candidate Anthony Furey in November’s Don Valley West council race.  

Kimmel said ABC Toronto hasn’t decided yet whether it will sign up as a third-party advertiser for municipal elections scheduled for 2026, but “the door is open” to that option. For now it will use advocacy campaigns, op-eds, and events to push its message.

Among the participants at the group’s launch event was Coun. Brad Bradford (Ward 19, Beaches-East York), Chow’s most vocal critic on council. He took part part in a panel that also to included More Neighbours Toronto founder Eric Lombardi, venture capitalist Janet Bannister and Matrix Mortgage Global founder Shawn Allen. 

Bradford said he welcomed the launch of the new group. He asserted that for too long politics at city hall have been “dominated by the NDP coalition under the banner of Progress Toronto,” and “it’s healthy for democracy to have a counterbalance and different views and perspectives.”  

Myer Siemiatycki, professor emeritus of politics and Toronto Metropolitan University, predicted having more political groups vying for influence at city hall could be good for local democracy.

Because there are no political parties at the municipal level, it’s difficult for the average voters in local elections to know all the candidates’ views, he said. But if rival groups with declared positions endorsed competing politicians,  “it would be much clearer for voters…what the candidates stand for.” 

That could increase voter turnout and ensure incumbents don’t coast to victory on name recognition alone, Siemiatycki said. 

Asked about the new group, a spokesperson for Chow said the mayor “is committed to opening up city hall and welcomes a diversity of perspectives.”

Originally published by the Toronto Star: https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/new-political-advocacy-group-launched-tuesday-vows-to-counter-progressive-voices-at-city-hall/article_30181a0a-dd88-11ef-a78b-0b3ed81d6827.html