EDITOR’S NOTE: Anthony Furey was previously the managing editor and a columnist for True North.
With exactly one week to go until the municipal by-election and ahead in the polls, Anthony Furey is running hard in Don Valley West with the Liberal machine in hot pursuit.
The celebrated former Toronto Sun and True North columnist and editor registered for Toronto city council on July 22 and started canvassing on July 24. With the exception of two statutory holidays, he’s been out in this suburban Toronto riding — which stretches from the Don River in the south to Hwy 401 in the north —every day.
The riding was held provincially for nearly 20 years by Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne — until her policies decimated the party in the 2018 election — and municipally by Jaye Robinson, a centrist who lost her battle with cancer in May of this year.
Furey said he’s heard repeatedly at the doors “frustration with the state of City Hall and city politics.”
He said residents “know their money is being wasted,” especially when they see traffic and safety getting far worse.
Everyone he talks to is against the renaming of Yonge-Dundas Square (to Sankofa Square), yet three-quarters of council voted for this $12-million exercise.
He said that shows how “backward the priorities are at City Hall.”
”They are not listening to the people,” he said.
He adds that people don’t understand why it’s taking three years to do a repair on the Gardiner Expressway.
He said voters are very “receptive” to his message about his practical common sense solutions.
”No one is being held to account … Instead, they keep getting raises and failing upwards.”
He adds that no bike lanes will be added in DVW under his watch.
Furey has also had to deal with smears from Progress Toronto, a third party group headed by anti-Israel activists and helped elect Mayor Olivia Chow.
On Saturday, they stuck an amateurish flyer in the doors of residents with Anthony Furey signs claiming that “Furey’s in it for himself.”
A number of Furey signs have been yanked out as well.
Speaking of failing upwards, Furey is being chased by a Liberal machine backing his key opponent, Rachel Chernos-Lin, who is on leave as chairman of the Toronto District School Board.
Chernos-Lin has been a disaster as chairman. While purporting to be Jewish (although non-practicing) and supportive of the community in this ward, she sat back and did nothing while DEI and Critical Race Theory infiltrated the board and anti-Semitism escalated in the board’s schools.
Under her leadership, anti-Semitic incidents have increased 300% since last Oct. 7 and she voted against a move by trustee Weidong Pei (who she has tried to cancel repeatedly) to keep geopolitical protests out of the classroom.
She also voted in favour of a move to include anti-Palestinian racism in the board’s hate policies, even though there is no data to show it is a problem on the board.
Members of the Save Our Schools in the TDSB say that APR includes anything and everything that disputes that Palestine exists and the “Palestinian narrative” even if anti-Semitic.
Under her watch, the board’s EQAO results have declined even further this year.
But long-time trustee Shelley Laskin, who has endorsed Chernos-Lin, claims there have been anti-Semitic smears made against her and that her preferred candidate sat on the Jewish Heritage Committee at the board.
Laskin, along with two community advocates, one of them long-time Liberal backroom insider Howard Brown, issued a statement Monday contending she will fight against anti-Semitism on council:
Still, former premier and leftist Kathleen Wynne has been working overtime to smear Furey, even placing robocalls to select residents.
Her wife Jane Rounthwaite, a Liberal consultant, runs the Chernos-Lin campaign.
Wynne has repeatedly told anyone who will listen that Furey is “Islamophobic, anti-trans and a bigot” — contentions replicated in a September hit piece by Ben Spurr of the leftist Toronto Star.
She also described True North as “very anti-woke, anti-trans and anti-gay.”
Well, you could knock me over with a feather, seeing as I — a gay woman— have been writing for True North for the past three years!
For his part, Furey says Wynne “should be ashamed of herself for her lies and smear tactics.”
”Kathleen Wynne has dragged this campaign into the gutter… she owes me an apology and she owes the residents of Toronto an apology,” said Furey.
“Kathleen Wynne, Josh Matlow and others know that if I get into City Hall I will bring common sense change and accountability measures … Why are they so afraid of that?”
They’re afraid that Furey might expose the rot that I continually brought to light as a Toronto Sun columnist — now far worse under Chow, a mayor who has allowed our streets and parks to turn into a violent mess of Jew haters and drug addicts.
I have known and worked with Anthony for more than 10 years, both at the Toronto Sun and at True North.
He is diligent, conscientious, smart, extremely decent, centred and in no way anti-gay, transphobic or Islamophobic.
The fact that Wynne, who virtually destroyed Ontario under her tenure, has made so defamatory comments about him speaks more to her lack of character than anything about him.
Furey says his team is “energized and mobilized” and have been told by many in the ward that the attacks by Wynne and Progress Toronto have turned them off Chernos-Lin and caused them to focus on him.
”They look me up and say, hey this is a reasonable guy,” he said.
