There were six "major" candidates running who were included by the media in public opinion polls and mayoral debates during the campaign, although by election day only three remained as active contenders: Ward 2 councillor Rob Ford, deputy mayor and Ward 19 councillor Joe Pantalone and former Liberal cabinet minister George Smitherman.
Giorgio Mammoliti was also included in debates until his withdrawal from the contest. Magazine editor Sarah Thomson announced on September 28, 2010, that she was ending her campaign, and former Liberal fundraiser
Rocco Rossi dropped out of the campaign on October 13, 2010. Due to their late withdrawal, Thomson's and Rossi's names remained on the ballot.
Registered candidates Candidates listed as registered on the City of Toronto website. Rocco Achampong •
Date registered: January 4 Achampong is an alumnus of
Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. At 18, he drove a getaway car in an armed robbery. He spent a year in jail. He calls the incident the "mistake of his life" and is now a lawyer. He was one of two candidates, alongside the six "major" candidates and Keith Cole, selected by an online poll to participate in a debate on municipal voting reform sponsored by the civic advocacy group Better Ballots. When
Giorgio Mammoliti subsequently withdrew from the race on July 5, 2010, he encouraged the media to give Achampong his former space in the mayoral debates.
James Castillo •
Date registered: February 23 Castillo is a supporter of
multiculturalism. He frequently sings and preaches on the streets of Toronto while wearing long, flowing blankets or robes, which he uses for warmth in case he is arrested and detained in prison. Clarke also campaigned for
Mayor of Toronto in the
2000,
2003 and
2006 municipal elections. His primary issues are children's rights, homeless rights, street safety and water safety. He is also strongly against police corruption and abuse of authority. He ran the 2001 campaign out of a homeless shelter that he used every night. He is known for crashing political debates, and disrupting his opponents' campaigns, which have gotten him banned from many political events. Clarke originally registered in January but withdrew his candidacy on March 31 before subsequently resubmitting his nomination.
Keith Cole •
Date registered: February 16 Cole is an openly gay
performance artist and
female impersonator associated with the
Buddies in Bad Times theatre. His campaign focused on gay rights, cycling and the arts.
David Epstein •
Date registered: August 25 Epstein, 32, is a Toronto business owner, director of a not-for-profit organization, humanitarian and human rights activist. His campaign slogan was "Lead by Example". Epstein supported dramatic tax reductions for Toronto citizens.
Selwyn Firth •
Date registered: January 29 A chemical engineer by profession. His campaign slogan was "science should trump emotions". Firth supported completion of the
Spadina Expressway and trash incineration. Councillor
Peter Milczyn, Councillor
John Parker, Councillor
Doug Holyday, former mayoralty candidate Wendell Brereton. •
Date registered: March 25 Ford, 40, had been an Etobicoke North city councillor for 10 years, was a conservative and Miller critic. Campaign promises included repealing the vehicle registration tax, repealing the land transfer tax, making the Toronto Transit Commission an essential service, and working to cut the number of councillors on city council by half.
Abdullah-Baquie Ghazi •
Date registered: January 5 Ghazi ran for councillor from Ward 28 (Toronto Centre) in 2006 and received 3.3% of the vote. He proposed a reduction in the price of
Metropasses, introducing
toll roads, reducing
property taxes and increasing the size of city council. In 2006, he described himself as the "Dealienation Advocate" and said that he would rescue people from "traps" like psychologists and laboratory experimentation.
Dewitt Lee •
Date registered: July 14 Lee campaigned as the city's
Christian candidate. His ideas include listing the City of Toronto on the
Toronto Stock Exchange. In the past he supported the vigilante
Guardian Angels in their attempts to expand to Toronto.
Jack Layton, MP for Toronto-Danforth and NDP leader,
Rosario Marchese, MPP for Trinity-Spadina, Councillor
Howard Moscoe, Councillor
Cesar Palacio, Councillor
Gord Perks, Councillor
Paula Fletcher, Councillor
Sandra Bussin, Councillor
Maria Augimeri, Councillor
Mark Grimes, Councillor
Janet Davis,
John Laschinger, Mike Layton, •
Date registered: January 13 Pantalone, 57, was deputy mayor under David Miller and had been a city councillor for what is now Trinity-Spadina for almost 30 years. He was also a former provincial NDP candidate. Pantalone highlighted his experience in municipal politics compared to other candidates saying, "people are looking around at the outsiders and think their experience does not match mine," and said the approach to the city's finances should be "clinical as opposed to a sledgehammer." Said he would build
Transit City and partner with the private sector but would not privatize services.
Vijay Sarma •
Date registered: September 2
George Smitherman •
Endorsements: Former mayors
David Crombie,
John Sewell, and
Art Eggleton, Councillor
Chin Lee, Councillor
Adam Vaughan, Ralph Lean, Conservative and former fundraising chair for Miller and Tory; Former Ontario Conservative cabinet ministers
Isabel Bassett,
Dan Newman and
Charles Harnick, Conservative Senator
Nancy Ruth, Carpenters’ District Council of Ontario •
Date registered: January 8 Smitherman was the former Liberal MPP for Toronto Centre and former
Deputy Premier of Ontario. Resigned from cabinet to run for mayor. Former chief of staff to former mayor
Barbara Hall. Smitherman said he would consider
toll roads in order to raise revenue and the use of
public-private partnerships in public works projects such as rapid transit expansion. He also called for the reduction or elimination of the city's $60 motor registration fee.
Mark State •
Date registered: January 4 A retired engineer, State wished to return Toronto to a state of economic self-sufficiency through capital investment and a more vigilant approach to planning.
Tibor Steinberger •
Date registered: June 3 Steinberger advocated
floating houses as a solution to the city's housing problems, more red light cameras to catch driving infractions and electronic transit fares. Syed advocated "citizen's rights" as part of his platform.
Weizhen Tang •
Date registered: September 9 Tang was a former investment fund manager and self-proclaimed "Chinese
Warren Buffett" who faced fraud charges for allegedly defrauding investors of $30 million in a
Ponzi scheme.
Phil Taylor •
Date registered: July 12 Taylor was described as a
self-help guru. He had five core principles he wanted the city to adopt.
Samuel Goldstein, former
federal Conservative candidate and former adviser to candidate Sarah Thomson; Rob Sinclair, "Red Tory" and former David Miller campaigner; Andy Pringle, former provincial Conservative candidate and chief of staff to
John Tory; IUOE Local 793;
Warren Kinsella. •
Date registered: January 4 •
Campaign ended: October 13 Rossi, 47, was a Toronto-based federal Liberal Party organizer and senior advisor to
Michael Ignatieff. He issued a statement denying interest in running in October 2009 He promised to reduce and freeze the mayor's salary and sell off
Toronto Hydro and other city assets if he became mayor. Rossi proposed to remove and prohibit
bike lanes from major streets, freeze construction of
rapid transit lines and replace the
Toronto Transit Commission's board with private sector experts. ;
Sarah Thomson •
Endorsements: Former newspaper publisher
Conrad Black. •
Date officially registered: January 4 Thomson, 42, was CEO and founder of the ''Women's Post'', a national magazine for business women. She proposed to open up city services to competitive bidding from the private sector and build subway lines instead of the TTC's planned streetcar-based
rapid transit lines which would be paid by a $5 rush hour toll on the
Don Valley Parkway and
Gardiner Expressway. Previously, she ran unsuccessfully for city council in
Hamilton, Ontario. She was endorsed by former newspaper publisher
Conrad Black. An April 2010 poll by the
Toronto Star stated that Thompson had the support of 7% of respondents. and former 12-year veteran of the Ontario Provincial Police. Brereton was opposed to same-sex marriage and decriminalizing marijuana and believed the city had become too "progressive". Brereton withdrew from the mayoral contest on August 4, 2010, in order to run for city council in Ward 6, and threw his support to Rob Ford. ;
Mark Cidade •
Date registered: January 11 •
Date withdrawn: July 9 ;
Stephen Feek •
Date registered: January 4 •
Date registered: February 1 •
Date withdrawal announced: February 10 •
Date withdrawn: March 10 Giambrone, 32, was city councillor for Davenport, a Miller supporter, and chair of the
Toronto Transit Commission. Former president of the
New Democratic Party. and announced nine days later that he was dropping out of the race after being involved in a sex scandal. ;
Naseeb Husain •
Date registered: January 25 •
Date withdrawn: March 26 ;
Ange Maniccia •
Date registered: January 4 •
Date withdrawn: January 5 ;
Giorgio Mammoliti •
Date registered: January 5 •
Date withdrawn: July 9 Mammoliti, 48, had been York West city councillor since 1995. Mammoliti served on Miller's executive committee. The
National Post described him as "a former union leader and New Democratic Party MPP, [who] has transformed himself into a 'right-of-centre' city councillor, who champions such law-and-order issues as calling in the army to crack down on drug crime and gangs." More recently, Mammoliti was a member of the
Liberal Party but will allow his membership to expire in 2010. When announcing his candidacy he unveiled a platform that included building a
casino, introducing a municipal
lottery, reversing tax increases he had previously voted for and creating a
red light district for
prostitution. He also called for cars to be banned from the
Gardiner Expressway, converting the thoroughfare into a
garden, implementing road
tolls. Mammoliti announced his withdrawal on July 5 and made it official four days later. ;
Sonny Yeung •
Date registered: January 8 •
Date withdrawn: September 10 Yeung, 35, ran for council in 2003 in Ward 41 (Scarborough-Rouge River) where he won 25.4% of the vote losing to Bas Balkissoon in a two-person contest. He ran in the same ward in 2006 and received 2.5% placing seventh in a ten candidate field. Yeung withdrew from the mayoral election in order to run for public school trustee.
Candidates who died ;
Tom Sullivan •
Date registered: February 17 •
Died: April 7 Sullivan died at the age of 75. According to his obituary, "Sullivan was born in London, Ontario on January 11, 1935 and moved to Toronto in the 1950s. He led a varied and productive working life which included accounting and taxi cab ownership." Considered a Miller supporter. On January 12, she told reporters that she will not be a candidate. However, with the withdrawal of Giambrone from the race she was reportedly reconsidering. She "couldn't be swayed to enter" the mayoral contest and was re-elected as the city councillor for her ward. •
Olivia Chow – Trinity Spadina NDP Member of Parliament and former city councillor from 1991 to 2005. •
Frances Lankin – president and CEO of
United Way Toronto. Former NDP MPP for
Beaches—Woodbine (later
Beaches—East York) and senior cabinet minister in the
Bob Rae government. Has expressed no interest in running and is not currently a resident of Toronto as she lives in
Restoule, Ontario near
North Bay with her husband. •
Jack Layton – leader of the federal
New Democratic Party and, formerly, a long-time Toronto city councillor and runner-up in the
1991 mayoralty election. Layton has ruled out returning to municipal politics. Ran for, and won, the February 4, 2010 byelection to succeed George Smitherman as MPP for
Toronto Centre. •
Peggy Nash – president of the
New Democratic Party,
Canadian Auto Workers official and former NDP MP for
Parkdale—High Park. • Robert Pritchard – former president of the
University of Toronto. President of
Metrolinx. Has denied having mayoral ambitions. Following John Tory's announcement that he will not be a candidate Stintz reaffirmed her decision not to contest the mayoralty. •
Michael Thompson – Scarborough Centre city councillor, conservative, and Miller critic. •
John Tory – runner up to Miller in the 2003 mayoral election, former leader of the
Ontario Progressive Conservative Party and afternoon drive time host on
CFRB radio. Tory announced on January 7 that he was not running in order to continue his radio show and also become head of the
Toronto City Summit Alliance. Tory re-iterated his decision not to run on August 5, 2010, after a week of speculation that he was going to enter the contest. After the election, Ford's staff revealed a targeted campaign involving a fake social media account intended to convince Tory not to run. •
Adam Vaughan – Trinity-Spadina city councillor and former municipal affairs reporter. In the wake of Miller's withdrawal from the campaign, Vaughan told reporters that he won't run for mayor because "I can't get inside the heads of those people who live in the suburbs", and because he wants to be around for his family.
Satirical candidates The 2010 election was also noted for the participation of two mock candidates who conducted
satirical campaigns through
social networking platforms.
Murray4Mayor was spearheaded by
National Post cartoonist
Steve Murray, while
The Rebel Mayor was written in the persona of 19th century Toronto mayor
William Lyon Mackenzie. After the election it was revealed that
The Rebel Mayor was written by Shawn Micallef, a journalist for
Eye Weekly and
Spacing. ==Opinion polls==