Peter D'Gama for Ward 1, Toronto -- A socialist campaign to get behind

From the D'Gama election website

Recently I took a look at the Toronto municipal campaigns of Saron Gebresellassi for Mayor and Walied Khogali Ali for Ward 13. These are two exciting campaigns that leftists should be getting behind both with their time and their donations.

They buck the deadening trend of the "say little do even less" approach of most of the milquetoast "progressives" endorsed by the Labour Council or backed by the NDP or Liberal establishments.

In Ward 1 -- one of the incumbents for which is Michael Ford, the nephew of Conservative Premier Doug Ford -- Peter D' Gama is running on an overtly and avowedly leftist platform that takes many of the positions that others should be across the city.

A member of Socialist Action and a community activist D'Gama rather stirringly asks us to "Imagine what we could accomplish by taxing the rich and giant corporations to fund programs such as free and accessible public transit, building and home retrofits, and a green economy creating jobs with a living wage."

His municipal platform includes calls for a mansion tax, making property taxes more progressive, fighting for a rent freeze and the creation of affordable housing, inclusionary zoning, decreasing the bloated police budget, $10 a day child care, working towards free transit, and much more.

You can read it in full on his website: Peter D'Gama for Ward 1

There are very few candidates that have campaigned on as comprehensive a socialist agenda for the city in the last few elections. The addition of a voice like D'Gama's to City Council would do a great deal to shift the debate in Toronto and to help to start the hard work of changing the city's direction politically as has happened in places like Seattle with the election of Kshama Sawant.

See also: Saron Gebresellassi and Walied Khogali Ali: Two Toronto Candidates to Get Excited About