Mayoral candidate David Soknacki’s campaign is calling foul after his latest attempt to communicate with the media was nearly foiled by a last-minute media event called by Mayor Rob Ford’s staff.
“The Fords seem to think it's worth trying to shut us down,” Soknacki spokesperson Supriya Dwivedi told CP24.com in an email Friday. “I guess it's too bad for them that it's not working.”
Soknacki was scheduled to unveil a plan to reform the land transfer tax at city hall at 1:30 p.m. Friday. However around noon, the mayor’s office hastily contacted media outlets to say that illusionist David Blaine would be meeting with the mayor at city hall at 12:30 p.m.
Scurrying to the event, many reporters stood waiting for the famed illusionist to appear with the mayor, but the event turned out to be a non-starter.
While the mayor’s brother, Coun. Doug Ford, told reporters Blaine had phoned him and asked to come meet with the pair at city hall, by around 2 p.m. just one member of the media reported having seen Blaine. City staff explained the magician had entered the mayor’s office through a back entrance and had left after meeting with the Fords.
Soknacki finally met with reporters to announce his plan shortly after 2 p.m.
Responding to the distraction, Soknacki’s campaign said it’s difficult not to notice that many of the Fords’ surprise announcements take place when Soknacki is scheduled to speak.
“Whether it's Doug Ford floating around the idea that he will run provincially on the day we launched our campaign, or Rob Ford scheduling his talk at the Economic Club of Canada after we had already announced David was speaking at the Toronto Board of Trade or this more recent trying to pull David Blaine out of a hat stunt- it's starting to become painstakingly clear that there is a pattern here,” Dwivedi said.
Speaking with CP24, Coun. Ford denied that the timing of the Blaine event had anything to do with Soknacki’s announcement.
Plan would reform land transfer tax
Telling reporters that Ford has failed to keep a campaign promise to kill the land transfer tax introduced by David Miller, Soknacki said he would reform the tax to make it easier for home buyers.
“As the real estate market has moved up, people who have bought starter homes are facing more taxes,” Soknacki told reporters at city hall Friday. “What we’re proposing is that as the inflation price of new home prices increases, so do the exemptions so that people buying entry-level homes will be facing less taxes than they otherwise had.”
Soknacki’s plan would peg land transfer brackets to housing price inflation to make it easier for first-time home buyers to enter the market.
“The whole idea is to help those with entry-level purchases get into the market and be fair,” he said.
Soknacki said the cost to the city would depend on housing price inflation rates.
