Olivia Chow is promising broader access to after-school programs as the starting point for her pledge to put children at the heart of her campaign for mayor.

“Once I’m elected mayor I will create better after-school programs so our children can grow up strong and smart and stay out of trouble,” she told an overflow crowd at her new campaign headquarters on Sunday.

The proposal would be phased in over three years, bumping up the city’s After-school Recreation and Care (ARC) program by about a million dollars per year, with the third-year budget boosted by a total of $3.2 million. It would provide activities to another 1,200 kids, aged 6 to 12 across the city.

“Right now only one out of five children has access to after-school activities and that’s not good enough,” said the former NDP MP, who wielded the giant scissors with a group of kids at the office ribbon-cutting near Yonge and St. Clair.

Chow said she would look for partners to fund and run the “modest” program expansion, including YMCAs and Boys and Girls Clubs. She also suggested that some parents might be able to pay more. But if no one steps up, she said the city would pay.

The idea would also create 200 jobs for young people, who would be employed to teach skills ranging from sports to the arts.

The cost is $2.34 a day per child based on a five-day a week participation. The program is free for about a third of participants since it is delivered through community centres in priority neighbourhoods.

Chow said she developed the ARC program in 2005 under Mayor Mel Lastman, when she was the city’s Children and Youth Advocate.

In a press release, Chow said that Ford tried to eliminate free recreation for at-risk youth in the city and activity fees have risen during his administration.

Asked to comment on reports that the mayor had been belligerent at the Air Canada Centre on Saturday evening, Chow said, “It’s time to pack up the circus.”

“We should not have a mayor that gets warned, that gets thrown out of the Garrison Ball or asked to leave at sports games. Enough already.”

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She also repeated her support for a seven-stop LRT in Scarborough rather than the three-stop subway plan council approved last year, specifically calling on her opponent John Tory to say why “he’s spending $1 billion more with the Scarborough subway.”

“I’m spending $980 million less than Mr. Ford and Mr. Tory because I want to build the Scarborough above-ground train, faster, four more stops and $1 billion less,” she said.

At a public consultation for the relief subway line in Toronto on Saturday, Chow said that increasing bus service by 10 per cent during the rush hour was her short-term transit priority, getting the Scarborough “above-ground train” built is her medium-term priority and in the long-term she agrees the relief line is a priority.

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