{"id":51421,"date":"2017-02-13T22:58:22","date_gmt":"2017-02-14T03:58:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=51421"},"modified":"2017-02-13T22:58:22","modified_gmt":"2017-02-14T03:58:22","slug":"ndp-backed-neethan-shan-wins-ward-42-by-election-with-4763-votes-to-become-first-tamil-canadian-to-serve-on-toronto-city-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=51421","title":{"rendered":"NDP Backed Neethan Shan Wins Ward 42 By-Election With 4763 Votes To Become First Tamil Canadian to Serve on Toronto City Council"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Betsy Powell<\/strong><\/p>\n

NDP-backed Neethan Shan will be the first Tamil-Canadian to serve on Toronto city council after he won a byelection in Ward 42 Scarborough-Rouge River, according to unofficial results on the city web site.<\/p>\n

He won 4,763 votes in a crowded field of 29 candidates in a part of the city that held its third byelection in 13 months. His popular vote was 45.7 per cent.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m ready to get to work immediately,\u201d Shan told CP24 at a victory party.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Political neophyte Zuhair Syed was a distant second with 1,452 votes followed by Hratch Aynedjian, former Ward 42 Councillor Raymond Cho\u2019s executive assistant, who had 1,055 votes.<\/p>\n

Shan ran a campaign promising to put \u201cScarborough First\u201d after what he said has been decades of neglect at city hall.<\/p>\n

The multi-lingual former teacher and youth worker, who came to Canada as a refugee when he was 16, also promised to bring the perspective of \u201cresilience\u201d and \u201cstruggles\u201d of different communities, so there is more \u201cinclusive decision-making at city hall.\u201d
\nNeethan Shan, photographed here at city hall this month, will be the first Tamil-Canadian to serve on Toronto city. He replaces Raymond Cho in Scarborough Rouge-River.
\nNeethan Shan, photographed here at city hall this month, will be the first Tamil-Canadian to serve on Toronto city. He replaces Raymond Cho in Scarborough Rouge-River. (Carlos Osorio \/ Toronto Star) | Order this photo <\/p>\n

The byelection was held to replace Cho, a city councillor for more than a quarter century. Cho is the area\u2019s Tory MPP after he won another byelection last fall.<\/p>\n

According to the city\u2019s election website, 10,409 people cast votes<\/p>\n

In January 2016, Shan, a married father of two, was elected as a Toronto District School Board trustee for the area after the previous representative jumped ship to the federal Liberals.<\/p>\n

During the campaign, opponents called Shan an \u201copportunistic\u201d candidate who has run for public office at least 11 times in the past 14 years, three of them in the last 13 months.<\/p>\n

Shan has strong ties to the NDP. He was a former provincial party president and had a key endorsement of the Toronto and York Region Labor Council. He relied on that support to help with his ground campaigning and getting out the vote on Monday.<\/p>\n

While several left-leaning councillors supported Shan\u2019s campaign, Mayor John Tory and his Conservative allies hoped another ideologically aligned candidate would emerge to back the mayor\u2019s agenda, as Cho often did.<\/p>\n

As Tory insiders say, every vote counts. Earlier this month, the mayor ditched his attempt to privatize garbage collection in Scarborough because it was unclear whether he could muster enough votes on council.<\/p>\n

Last week, while Shan said he was \u201cproud to be progressive\u201d he didn\u2019t want to be \u201cboxed\u201d in as a councillor with a pre-determined voting pattern.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end day, my priority is to make sure the people in my community are taken care of,\u201d he told the Star.<\/p>\n

Shan, for instance, campaigned in support of the one-stop extension connecting the Bloor-Danforth subway line to the Scarborough Town Centre, a position that puts him at odds with council\u2019s left-wingers.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor many people from my area who travel downtown . . . this would save them about an hour,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had debate after debate. We should get moving, if we were building this 10 years ago it would not have cost us this much, we\u2019ve not been building transit for far too long.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Monday night, Tory congratulated Shan and said he is encouraged the new councillor supports extending the subway to the Town Centre.<\/p>\n

Shan also said he would not support raising property taxes beyond the inflation rate \u2014 Tory\u2019s position \u2014 until Ward 42 residents feel their contribution to property taxes is translating into attention and resources.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf that\u2019s not happening, the communities aren\u2019t going to be able to contribute more, including myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

The TDSB will now have the option of declaring a byelection or appointing a trustee for the remainder of the term. The next municipal and school board election is Oct. 20, 2018.<\/p>\n

A trustee is a part-time job which pays $25,507 a year. A Toronto city councillor will earn about $112,000 a year if council approves the 2017 budget this week.<\/p>\n

In the 2014 general municipal election, 24,560 people cast ballots in Ward 42, which is 51.97 per cent of the vote. Ninety per cent of residents are visible minorities.<\/p>\n

Courtesy:thestar.com<\/em><\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Betsy Powell NDP-backed Neethan Shan will be the first Tamil-Canadian to serve on Toronto city council after he won a byelection in Ward 42 Scarborough-Rouge River, according to unofficial results on the city web site. He won 4,763 votes in a crowded field of 29 candidates in a part of the city that held …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘NDP Backed Neethan Shan Wins Ward 42 By-Election With 4763 Votes To Become First Tamil Canadian to Serve on Toronto City Council’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51421"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51421"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51422,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51421\/revisions\/51422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}