During and after the election of David Miller as Mayor of the City of Toronto, he has repeatedly promised an open and transparent system of government at City Hall.
When it comes to election campaign contributors, this certainly has not happened.
Prior to the amalgamation of 7 municipalities into the City of Toronto on January 1, 1998, mayoral, city councillor and school trustee election campaign contributors of $100 and over were publicly available on the internet on the Commission for Election Finances site. šSince, it has only been available by visiting City Hall and paying 50 cents per page, for which of the hundreds pages of election finance documents, you want copies of.
One exception was made in 2001 when the city provided an electronic copy on compact disc of the 2000 contributors to the Toronto Star.
We have tried to obtain similar information for the 2003 election contributors from the City of Toronto, but to no avail.
The City Hall elections office has claimed this was done in the public interest as a cost savings measure. If this is so then why is it the only cost saving measure we have heard out of City Hall?
did contact Mayor Miller's office, but he declined to respond.
As long as residents of Toronto have no easy access to who supported and funded the election campaigns of these politicians, many people may wonder if our representatives' votes have been bought, and if so, then by whom.
If Mayor Miller truly believes in making Toronto City Hall open and transparent, then providing easy access to information on who made election contributions to all candidates for public office, would be a good start. If not, does Mayor Miller and City Council have something to hide? Warning: include(): http:// wrapper is disabled in the server configuration by allow_url_include=0 in /www/eh8133/public_html/2005/toronto040605a.htm on line 56 Warning: include(http://www.canadafreepress.com/includes/toronto.php): failed to open stream: no suitable wrapper could be found in /www/eh8133/public_html/2005/toronto040605a.htm on line 56 Warning: include(): Failed opening 'http://www.canadafreepress.com/includes/toronto.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/share/php:/usr/share/pear') in /www/eh8133/public_html/2005/toronto040605a.htm on line 56 Warning: include(): http:// wrapper is disabled in the server configuration by allow_url_include=0 in /www/eh8133/public_html/2005/toronto040605a.htm on line 57 Warning: include(http://www.canadafreepress.com/includes/namearthurbrb.php): failed to open stream: no suitable wrapper could be found in /www/eh8133/public_html/2005/toronto040605a.htm on line 57 Warning: include(): Failed opening 'http://www.canadafreepress.com/includes/namearthurbrb.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/share/php:/usr/share/pear') in /www/eh8133/public_html/2005/toronto040605a.htm on line 57