Toronto mayoral candidate Ana Bailão said today that “she is a product of the Portuguese community” and wants to bring that brand to city management.

“I am not a person who got into politics because I like politics. I came in through my community work, what I did and learned, the values ​​that I acquired in my community work I am a product of this community, I am an active member of this community and I hope that the community recognizes itself in my plan, that it sees the services that intend to be improved,” he said. he said in an interview with Agência Lusa.

Born in Vila Franca de Xira (Lisbon), Ana Bailão has been in Canada since the age of 15.

All this means “that I can bring life and professional experience to the benefit of the city and the class that is suffering today”, he explained, promising concrete policies.

People are “suffering from the impact of inflation, such as increasingly expensive housing prices, with more expensive services. We need to focus very strongly on providing good service and making sure people get good value for what they pay,” he added.

The Canadian-Portuguese was a councilor from 2010 to 2022, representing the electoral district of Davenport, and most recently the 18th Ward, due to the reformulation of electoral districts, obtained almost 84% of the vote.

About 50% of Toronto’s population, who were not born in Canada, are people who come to the country in search of “opportunity, safety, a perfectly functioning city”, he said. recalled.

“Many feel that, I felt that when I first came here to this city. But today, after this major pandemic, the city is struggling to get back to normality, and to provide the services that the people deserve and that they pay for it”, he justified.

A graduate of the University of Toronto in sociology and European studies, she had been responsible for the municipal commission on affordable housing since 2010, having also served as vice-president of the municipality for five years, until 2022.

The Portuguese-Canadian also promised to focus on “the offer of services”, especially in “housing”, an area in which many people today “find the difficulty of acquiring or renting a house in Toronto”.

By 2031, the Canadian municipality plans to build about 281,000 new homes, an insufficient number due to immigration.

“We have a difficult financial situation, the federal and provincial governments have helped us a lot during the pandemic with grants, but we need a lasting solution,” he stressed.

One of Ana Bailão’s priorities in her election platform is to “return” the management of the Don Valley Parkway (DVP) and the Gardiner Expressway to the provincial government of Ontario led by the conservative Doug Ford.

The candidate also points out that the municipality will have to have a smarter solution because the residents of Toronto “pay for the maintenance of these highways through the property tax”, which does not happen in other cities in the region where they are run by the government.

“The City of Toronto spends about 200 million Canadian dollars (134 million euros) a year for the maintenance and reconstruction of the Gardiner Expressway,” he lamented.

Another of the issues defended by Ana Bailão is public security, deploring that other candidates defend a cut in the budget of the Toronto police, managed by the municipality, wanting this security force to be “more trained, well funded”. , and even with programs to support mental health and for the homeless.

The City of Toronto is expected to choose a new mayor on June 26.

The midterm elections were scheduled following the resignation last month of ‘mayor’ John Tory, following a scandal, after the mayor confirmed he had an intimate relationship with a former employee during the pandemic.