With Toronto's municipal elections coming up on November 13th, the Toronto Youth Cabinet will be hosting an "all-youth" debate with the main candidates on Monday, October 23rd, 6:30pm-8:00pm, at Hart House. Here are some of the questions that I want answers to:

Preamble: We recently met with a group of youth to talk about police harassment. In this particular community, a lot of the young people had experienced harassment first-hand. One suggestion from the group was to create a community-based complaints system to receive, document, and follow-up on complaints about police behaviour.

Question #1: Would you support this initiative? What else will you do to address police harassment experienced by youth and prevent its future occurrence?

Preamble: Young people and new immigrants are often excluded from the political process. In order to address the marginalization of youth and recent immigrants, a new report from the Social Planning Council of Toronto calls for the voting age to be lowered to 16 and for all residents to be able to vote regardless of their citizenship status.

Question #2: Do you support this extension of voting rights? Will you commit to seeking the support of city councillors in asking the provincial government to extend these rights in your first year in office?

Preamble: In early 2007, Toronto City Council will be voting on whether or not it wants to implement a Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy so that all residents of Toronto can access municipal services without fear. Such a policy would also prevent municipal resources such as police from being used to do the job of federal enforcement officers.

Question #3: Will you vote in favour of implementing a Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy?

Preamble: During the past few decades, many democratic innovations have been realized around the world, yet Toronto appears to be lagging behind. Our voter turnout remains low at 38% and is even lower for youth. The people who are most affected by the issues are too often not involved in the decisions that affect their fate.

Question #4: What is your action plan for increasing civic engagement in Toronto? What specifically will you do to engage young people? How have you involved youth in leadership roles in your campaign?

Preamble: Since 2001, the Toronto Community Housing Corporation has used a participatory budgeting process to involve tenants in budget decision-making. Currently, 13% ($9 million) of the TCHC's capital budget is determined in this process.

Question #5: Do you support making the city budget process more participatory by allowing residents to set priorities and to determine where a set amount of funds should be allocated?

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