The winners of two competing political essay contests won’t be announced until later this week, but in the battle between the contests themselves, we have a champion.

It could be that more people in Toronto love libraries than hate taxes. Or maybe they love Margaret Atwood more than Doug Ford.

Either way, the Toronto Public Library Workers Union’s “Why My Library Matters to Me” challenge drew more than twice as many entries as the Toronto Taxpayers Coalition’s rival “Lower taxes are good for Toronto because…” contest.

When both deadlines closed last Friday, the library had “well over” 500 submissions. The taxpayer’s coalition decided to extend its deadline until Monday night, says president Matthew McGuire, after numerous interested parties inquired if they could submit something late.

In total, 250 people entered the coalition’s fill-in-the-blanks challenge.

Judges from both are going over the essay and video entries now. The library union will choose 50 winners, each of whom will receive a meal date with one of 11 famous Canadian authors, including Atwood, Michael Ondaatje and Jeremy Tankard.

McGuire said about 50 high-quality entrants will be entered in a draw for four prizes, a lunch date with other tax-hating Torontonians: Ford, Sun columnist Sue-Ann Levy, outspoken Conservative and Sun TV host Ezra Levant and Michael Coren, another controversial Sun News Network personality.

“We had more than we thought. We were very pleased,” McGuire said.

The coalition will present the mayor’s executive committee with about 20 of the best essays as councillors debate service cuts.

Library union president Maureen O’Reilly said she has had a chance to glance through only some of the submissions, but it’s clear Torontonians believe libraries are a fundamental part of their community.

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

Read more about: