http://www.torontosun.com/2015/03/17/tory-to-world-forget-ford-im-mayor-now
Via Don Peat, hence the proper paragraphs:
TORONTO - John Tory wants the world to know he’s mayor of Toronto and he’s not the notorious mayor they likely have heard about.
Ahead of his first trip abroad on city business, Tory admitted he believes he has work to do to let people know that the city has moved beyond the Rob Ford era that captured global headlines.
“I’m not passing judgment at all in saying this,” Tory said Tuesday in an interview from Pearson airport before flying to Austin, Texas. “I’m just saying that I think there was a chapter we’ve just been through where we were in the press a lot and on the media in the United States, including social media. Everybody knows all about that.
“What we now have to say is let’s change the channel and get back to business here. We want you to come and visit Toronto, we want you to come and live in Toronto. We want you to invest in Toronto and create jobs.”
Tory stressed he wants people outside the city to know “that stuff is over with and we’re now back to business.
“I’m there to sell the city,” he said.
Asked if he’s run into his predecessor’s controversial reputation in his first few months on the job, the mayor was blunt.
“I hear about it almost every day from people who I talk to who are outside the country and inside the country,” Tory said.
“I hope that (Councillor Ford’s) own life, that whole chapter is over with too, but the bottom line is I’ve got to just move on and sell the city — that’s my job.”
Tory does give Ford credit for establishing the Music City Alliance with Austin that other cities are trying to replicate.
“But now I have to make it real or more real by making sure that we can benefit from that and build on that,” Tory said.
“We have clearly indicated we’ve turned the page and we’re back to saying we’re about jobs, jobs, jobs, music, music, music and that’s what it is all about.”
How does his taxpayer-funded trip translate into jobs? Tory said he’s convinced the city has “all the raw materials” for its live music scene to prosper.
“The part people don’t know much about is we have huge production talent and capacity in Toronto to produce records here and we still get way less than our share of production of albums in Toronto,” Tory said.
“I look at it very similar to what happened with (the Toronto International Film Festival), as you grew the film festival, as you grew the prominence of the film festival, so grew the marketplace in Toronto for film production and that created, as you know, huge numbers of jobs and we can do the same thing for music.
“On top of that, there is the opportunities for live music where we don’t really have now a huge live music festival of the scale of South by Southwest and one could argue that with the talent that we have and the size of our music industry, we should have.”
Tory’s trip also includes stops at three technology companies: Google, AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) and IBM Austin.
“What I’m anxious to see is the connection that I’m told exists ... they would say that in terms of the attraction of the talent they need to work in their companies, the big part of the basis on which they choose where to go and where to invest is a healthy creative sector,” he said.
“I want to make sure that these kinds of companies that are the global companies with a lot of the jobs of the future will want to locate and expand their presence in Toronto and create more jobs and if music is a big part of that — as I believe it is music and culture and creativity and even the diversity that we have — that we sort of figure out that formula as best one can so that we can use that in attracting those companies to come to Toronto.”
http://www.newstalk1010.com/news/2015/03/18/mayor-john-torys-approval-rating-at-72
Tory has a 72% approval rating.
