You hear a lot about the five major mayoral candidates, but what about the 30-odd others? Some are true "fringe" candidates with eccentric views. A bunch are hard to even reach. And at least a few are quite serious, even though almost nobody knows who they are. Once a week through the end of the mayoral election, we'll introduce you to an obscure person who is vying to be Toronto's chief magistrate.

Rob Ford and former city budget chief David Soknacki participated in the first debate of the mayoral election in early February — but the winner might have been a guy named Robb Johannes, who impressed the University of Toronto Scarborough student crowd with articulate, unscripted policy remarks and a dash of humour.

Johannes, who says he has “recently entered” his 30s, is the lead singer for the “Brit-rock” band Paint and the former executive director of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU), an advocacy group whose work helped lead to the creation of the InSite supervised injection facility.

Johannes has also been coordinator of a prison conflict-resolution program and coordinator of a Native Education College program on aboriginal justice. He holds a master’s degree in criminology from Simon Fraser University, where he has taught courses.

Among his proposals: expanded subway hours and late-night bus service; road lanes dedicated to bus rapid transit; free recreation programs for the poor; a plan to “eliminate homelessness”; more funding for student meal programs; extending hours or perhaps abolishing last call at bars; a Toronto version of the provincial government’s internship program; tax breaks for builders of affordable midrise housing.

He lives on the Danforth. His website address is ... RobbNotFord.ca. Below is a condensed and lightly edited transcript of our conversation.

How did you make the decision to run for mayor?

I felt that a lot of people in Toronto were feeling disenfranchised with the political process and didn’t feel they had a candidate they could identify with. So I felt like somebody who was not a career politician, that was sort of slightly removed from that process, could be more relatable, particularly to youth voters and maybe those who have felt their voice has not been represented. I just didn’t feel it was enough to vote, you know? I felt like, this time around, more needed to be done.

Have you run for any office before?

I have not before. My experience with the political process has mostly been through the non-profit sector — but also with VANDU in Vancouver, for example, we were government-funded. So I’ve been in the position of having to be the bridge between the governing body and community organizations, which I think is a very important skill for somebody who is running for mayor: to be a strong listener and a strong facilitator, especially when there’s diverse interests at play.

What would you consider a successful outcome?

After the major five candidates — Tory, Soknacki, Ford, Stintz, and Chow — if we can be the sixth man in this election, that’s our big goal. I think the point is to be seen as a viable option. It’s challenging when you’re not a very “name” candidate, because anything that everyone else does — there’s spoof-comedy kind of “fringe” candidates as well, and anything that they do kind of drags me in with them. But we don’t want to be that.

What do you think of the main candidates?

I like the fact that David Soknacki is being very pragmatic in his campaign. He outlines his platform and his items with research and with detailed points. I guess the joke about Karen Stintz would be: “I’m like you” as well, except I can’t afford a house or a car and I ride transit. I kind of feel like a lot of the candidates are maybe just a little out of touch with regular working Torontonians, the real “little guy.” I would just like more concrete things being said. It’s a lot of riding on names and vaguer ideas at this point, and I don’t know if that’s what a lot of people want.

After belatedly realizing what VANDU stands for, I have to ask you Ford-inspired questions: What is your own history of drug use? Have you smoked crack?

Having been a musician my whole life, drugs have always been around, and I have, at times, taken part. It’s never been significant enough to ever consider it “drug use,” and has never affected my judgment, career, health, or relationships. I have not and will never go near crack.

Most of the transit talk from the main candidates is about subway and light rail. Why have you emphasized buses?

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Well, they’re already there, for one thing. It’s not going to take decades to pay for them as well as to get the network into a system that’s usable. It’s a much more practical cost-saving measure, I believe.

Do you think it is possible to “eliminate homelessness” in the city?

I would absolutely hope so, if I have any faith in humanity. Homelessness mostly just has to do with access to housing. And there’s a lot of barriers that prevent that, from the cost of living, to the ability to get jobs, to the ability to find somewhere to live that’s affordable. So I think designating units in new developments, as well as trying to do it with old ones, for social housing, low-income housing, is a really big step to make that possible.

Why do you believe that student meal programs need more funding?

There’s a lot of hungry kids out there.

Why is extending or abolishing last call not a recipe for all-night chaos?

The example that I give is the Autobahn system in Germany, which is an extended network of highways that also has one of the lowest accident rates in the world. If you let people regulate their own behaviour instead of creating laws and regulations for everything, you’ll probably find that people can manage their own behaviour.

How would a municipal internship program help people?

For youth, especially 15-24 — but “youth” in Toronto feels like “under 50” at times — there’s a lot of not just unemployment, but underemployment. Having the city bring more of a youth representation into the public service I think can go a long way, not just for immediate employment but for future program development.

How are you campaigning? What is your strategy here?

There’s a lot of ground-level outreach to people and communities that are generally feeling separated from the political process in Toronto, and maybe don’t have anybody they can identify with. Reaching out to arts communities, LGBT communities, using social media and a team of volunteers, and just sort of seeing how effective we can be in engaging people who may have otherwise not voted this time. Which I think is why we got Rob Ford in the first place — I think there were a lot of people that just felt like their votes didn’t count.