Still haven't made up your mind? Our guide to the platforms of the three candidates can help:

Personal Vehicle Tax (worth $49.5 million in 2010)

Ford: Abolish starting sometime in 2011.

Pantalone: Phase out over four years.

Smitherman: Reduce by one third to $40 a year.

Land Transfer Tax (worth $204 million in 2010)

Ford: Abolish as of Jan. 1, 2012. Part of his campaign against tax, tax, tax, spend, spend spend.

Pantalone: Keep.

Smitherman: Keep.

---

Property taxes

Ford: Increase in line with inflation, currently running less than 2 per cent.

Pantalone: Increase tax on homeowners by 2.5 per cent; hike commercial properties by 0.833 per cent.

Smitherman: Freeze for one year. He has vowed to make himself budget chair, conduct a 100-day line-by-line review of the budget and go from there.

---

Light rail transit

Ford: Negotiate with province to put its Transit City funding into subways instead.

Pantalone: Build Transit City.

Smitherman: Grow Transit City by, extending the proposed Finch line to Humber College; tunneling Eglinton to Black Creek; adding a waterfront line to the West Donlands.

---

Bike lanes

Ford: Build ravine and trail-based cycling network.

Pantalone: Continue city’s program of testing dedicated bike lanes on major arteries. Promised to complete 1,000 kilometres of cycles routes by 2012

Smitherman: Expand bike routes through hydro corridors and ravines.

---

Contracting out

Ford: Contract out all garbage collection and recycling.

Pantalone: No further contracting out.

Smitherman: Consider contracting out all garbage pickup, some bus routes and the two city-owned ski hills.

---

Debt reduction

Ford: Use budget savings and asset sales, mostly land, to cut debt by $1.58 billion over four years.

Pantalone: Comfortable with current debt burden of about $3 billion.

Smitherman: Use money from asset sales, including land plus selling for $100 million the city’s 47 per cent interest in heating and cooling company Enwave. But instead of paying off debt, he would create a transit fund.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

---

Hiring freeze

Ford: Replace only half the staff that leave/retire each year. In 2011, that means lopping off 1,500 jobs and saving $67 million, with increasing savings in following years.

Pantalone: Continue Mayor David Miller’s “hiring slowdown” where a second look is required before a vacancy is filled.

Smitherman: Fill only four out of every six vacancies, meaning city would shed 1,300 jobs in 2011, saving $61 million.

---

Size of council

There are currently 44 councillors and the mayor. In Toronto, there are 22 federal and provincial ridings each covering the same area. The ridings have been split into two parts to create 44 city wards. Ford argues if those hardworking MPs and MPPs can represent the larger area, why can’t councillors? The counter-argument is each city ward has about 60,000 people, more than North Bay.

Ford: Cut council in half to 22 councillors for the next term which begins Dec. 1, 2014.

Pantalone: Keep current council, noting there were 106 municipal politicians running Toronto in the days before amalgamation in 1998

Smitherman: Keep current size while setting up panel for advice on making city hall more responsive to citizens.

-

Cost of council

Ford: Cut councillors’ annual expense budgets to $30,000 from $50,445, saving $900,000 in total, and trim the mayor’s office budget by $512,000. As well, pare back councillor budgets to hire staff by $1.4 million.

Pantalone: No cuts.

Smitherman: Freeze politicians’ pay for four years and cut $2 million from mayor and councillor budgets.

---

Environment

Ford: Didn’t respond to candidate questionnaire from Toronto Environmental Alliance.

Pantalone: Granted an A+ for answering yes to all 20 questions on issues like building transit, diverting waste, buying local food, providing bike lanes, saving energy and fighting pollution.

Smitherman: Also won an A+. Answered yes to 18 of 20 questions. He wouldn’t rule out incineration of garbage and wouldn’t commit to implementing the bike network, including on arterial roads, by 2012.

Compiled by Paul Moloney