John Tory’s campaign released a press release today that says the leading mayoral candidate is contemplating skipping future debates.
Tory and company say that they are unhappy that Doug Ford is skipping many of the debates. “The unexplained absence of Doug Ford from most of these debates, and, at others, last minute rule changes, raises the productiveness of this discussions,” says the release.
Tory’s campaign then promises to review the merit of each debate on a case-to-case basis, and only focus on those that “feature exclusively the three main competitors.”
The reasoning for the decision comes down to Tory belief that Ford is gaining an unfair advantage skipping the debates. “Doug Ford’s decision to skip debates provides him with an immense advantage… While debates are an important part of the democratic process, debate preparation, and the events themselves, requires the diversion of significant time and resources from other campaign priorities.”
Tory and his campaign aren’t wrong, but one hopes that he would still attend all the debates he’s already committed to attending.
The entire press release can be seen here.
Image via Joseph Morris.
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Igor Bonifacic is the managing editor of Toronto Standard. Follow him on Twitter.
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