news Steve Murray Hates Toronto, and Wants to Be Your Mayor



A small selection of Steve Murray’s campaign materials.



National Post illustrator Steve Murray is running for mayor. Well, he isn’t, because he can’t; the deadline for registering has passed. But he’s trying.

On Wednesday night, accompanied by a Post article, Murray launched murray4mayor.biz, his campaign website. “Generally speaking,” Murray’s Post article begins, “my sense of civic duty has been relegated to returning library books almost on time and to not murdering my neighbours.” While Murray’s vision for Toronto can be, like most of the other leading mayoral candidates, difficult to distill, there is one over-arching theme: his Toronto is a city in decline, from too-high taxes to worse-than-mediocre TTC service. And while he’s no fan of Rob Ford, he doesn’t see the solution to those woes in any other candidate to Ford’s left. (His website includes a testimonial from a familiar-looking “Gary Meedles,” identified as a “Druglord, New Democrat,” that reads in part: “I hope one of the other candidates wins so I can keep on selling DRUGS to your CHILDREN!!!”)

Torontoist spoke with Murray on Thursday.



Torontoist: Who is Steve Murray, and why should the voters of Toronto care?

Steve Murray: I’m just a caring, tender man filled with unbridled rage 24/7 on behalf of all hard-working Torontonians the country over. I just think this city deserves a mayor who recognizes the problems we face and will distill them down into one large problem, i.e. taxes, or immigration. Look, I have no problem with immigration, but when we have thousands of people from Barrie and Oakville flowing into our downtown to steal our jobs, something’s got to be done.

If you had to distill your platform down to a sentence, what would it be?

We have to grab the reigns of the gravy train and wrassle it into submission while chopping off the money teat that our fat cat city workers suckle on and also we need to recognize that cars are getting scratched every single day by biking menaces and we need to stop that gravy bike because roads were made for hard-working cars I suppose they were originally made for horses but it’s been years so it’s a moot point we just need to make Toronto number one again.

OR, Murray 4 Mayor: Built Ford Tough.

Take us forward in time—four years from now. How is a Steve Murray–led Toronto then different from Toronto now?

I think it will just be a happier place. I don’t want to tip my hat too soon, but my team’s transit plan will put the entire unsightly TTC underground. Frankly, anything related to people who can’t afford cars will be placed underground. Low income housing, benches, Honest Ed’s, all of it will be readily available through my Mole Tunnels. My previous TTC posters were just the beginning of my desire to overhaul transit. Back then I didn’t have the kind of power that a potential mayoral candidate wields, so my ideas are getting grander.

Building a subterranean city would likely cost hundreds of billions of dollars, to say nothing of the ongoing cost of maintaining it. Where would the funding for that come from? Would the provincial and/or federal governments chip in?

Going to the higher levels of government for money doesn’t usually work, as history and basic foresight has shown us. Luckily, I’m a pro at it, having learned at an early age how to procure more allowance money from my father. So, taking those lessons with me into the mayor’s seat, I simply need to find a photo of the provincial government with their secretary.

“Look, I have no problem with immigration, but when we have thousands of people from Barrie and Oakville flowing into our downtown to steal our jobs, something’s got to be done.”

Who do you see as your primary opponent in the mayor’s race? Whose votes are you taking away?

It’s not a “me versus them” situation, even though that’s exactly what an election is. I’m taking votes away from THE PEOPLE and putting them in my corner, where I’ll protect and respect them. All the candidates are equal in my eyes and choosing which one I hate the most is like choosing which of my supposed children makes me the sickest. That being said, I really hate that one guy. You know, the middle-aged white one.

Do you see any conflict of interest with your running for mayor while you’re a newsroom employee of the National Post? Will you be stepping down? (I noticed that the paper is refusing to back your campaign—and that Conrad Black has been throwing his considerable weight behind Sarah Thomson.)

There were many discussions at the highest levels of the paper, levels which I am, of course, privy to. Over several days we debated the ethics (cue uproarious laughter in the comments) of allowing me to pay my rent while I ran such a magnificent campaign. Once it became apparent that I had missed the deadline to enter the race, lowering my chances of winning considerably, the powers that be weren’t as bothered. While it’s true that they will not officially endorse me, I do not hold it against them. They’re probably just scared of upsetting Furious Joe Pants or something. I respect fear.

Conrad holds in high esteem self-made folks like myself, with an air of dignity and great legs. I expect his support any day now.

What happens next?

Well, if there’s one flaw I have, it’s that I have little experience with public speaking. I’m hoping that organizations like The Ontario Federation of Portuguese Accountants or Dogs in Canada magazine invite me out to speak on issues near and dear to their hearts, like accounting or dogs. I will gladly give a speech no less than five minutes long to any group of two or more voters. Please contact me.

All materials courtesy of the candidate.

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