Mayor John Tory officially launched his re-election campaign from a television studio Sunday with a pledge to try to cut youth unemployment by half.

Tory gave few specifics about how he would do that, or how it would be measured, and that seemed fine with invited guests packed into ZoomerMedia's Liberty Village studio.

Tory said if he’s elected to a second four-year term on Oct. 22, he will connect firms in the booming tech sector to a city program that helps find jobs for youth in all parts of Toronto.

“The goal there is one that we’re going to work hard to do, and that is to reduce youth unemployment by half. We simply have to do that,” Tory said to enthusiastic applause captured in the multi-camera production broadcast on YouTube.

Tory never mentioned Doug Ford, a political nemesis who is now Ontario premier, but seemed to try to blunt criticism from mayoral rival Jennifer Keesmaat that Tory is unwilling or unable to fight for Toronto’s interests.

He vowed to “stand up for Toronto when the occasion demands,” arguing his co-operative approach got Toronto new gas-tax revenues and money from other governments for transit and housing.

Tory keyed in on affordability issues, repeating his pledge to keep property tax hikes at or below the inflation rate while making investments in city services.

That was possible during his first term largely thanks to record revenues from a land transfer tax that could lose its golden goose status as the housing market cools.

The mayor said, if he is re-elected, 2020 will be “a year of public art,” with a new project and private sector involvement in neighbourhoods across the city.

He also vowed to “digitize” navigation signs in the PATH underground plaza that connects downtown buildings.

Tory defended his signature SmartTrack commuter surface rail plan, which helped get him elected in 2014, and expressed surprise that Keesmaat, who helped guide the project when she was Toronto's chief planner, is now criticizing it.

Her plan would cancel two of Tory's planned six SmartTrack stations on existing GO Transit lines and make a relief subway line, connecting downtown with the Bloor-Danforth line to ease pressure on the Yonge line, Toronto’s top priority.

Tory said Torontonians can’t risk a new plan after the chaotic Rob Ford mayoralty.

Keesmaat “wants to start up the old debates and the old arguments and the studies all over again,” he said.

The mayor concluded the heavily scripted event with an impromptu emotional moment. Tory choked up as he thanked family members in the audience, saying his wife Barb Hackett has had a “challenging year ... and she hasn’t been out on the campaign trail very much with me.”

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A campaign spokesperson later told reporters he was referring to effects of Guillain-Barré syndrome, a serious autoimmune disease which she contracted in 1991.

After the event, Keesmaat's campaign released a statement calling SmartTrack a “vote-buying mirage” being used to cover up Tory's “real record of dithering and weak leadership.”

David Rider is the Star's City Hall bureau chief and a reporter covering Toronto politics. Follow him on Twitter: @dmrider

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