Tory hesitant to debate if Ford & Chow don’t participate

With the Toronto municipal election now just over a month away, front-runner John Tory is re-evaluating his participation in a number of debates.

His campaign office said Tory will “review on a case-by-case basis whether to attend debates that don’t exclusively feature the three main contenders.”

Doug Ford did not attend two debates on Wednesday, and Tory’s campaign said Ford’s absence raises “questions about the productiveness of these discussions.”

His office also said the last-minute additions and deletions from the debate roster, as well as rule changes, makes the debates less productive.

Tory’s office said the candidate has attended nearly 30 debates over the course of the campaign, and that he is looking forward to attending more debates.

Ford has also declined to attend a debate at 7 p.m. on Thursday at Trinity St. Paul’s United Church.

Tory told 680News political affairs specialist John Stall on Thursday morning that Ford’s decision to skip certain debates gives Ford’s “campaign and him a big advantage if he can choose to do other campaigning.”

He said he will attend more debates, but that he just doesn’t “want him to have the advantage of kind of deciding what he wants to do, and the rest of us locked into these debates, so we’ll make the decision on a case-by-case basis.”

Tory said there is lots of preparation time that goes into a debate, and they are often around two hours each.

“So if you are doing two or three a day, and your opponent isn’t, he or she can be doing something else in the city, meeting lots of people. I just want to leave myself free to make descisions based on something that’s not going to be putting me at a big disadvantage.”

Tory said sometimes his campaign team doesn’t know if Ford will attend a particular debate until closer to time.

“We found out, for example, he is participating in the one on Friday yesterday. But lots of the others he doesn’t attend. They find out sometimes hours ahead.”

Ford went head-to-head with Olivia Chow and John Tory on Tuesday in his first debate since becoming a mayoral candidate. The debate was hosted by the York South-Weston community associations.

The next time all three candidates will square off will be on Friday afternoon at a debate at Empire Club of Canada.

On Wednesday, Ford continued his offensive against Tory, saying he is “out of touch” and that he doesn’t “understand the job of mayor.”

“I’m designating September 26 as Take John Tory to Work Day,” Ford said, adding that he is “willing to take him down to city hall and show him how we get things done.”

Tory’s campaign co-chair Bob Richardson issued a comeback on Twitter, calling election day “take out the trash day.”

Tory said Ford’s “bullying style” is not something people want at city hall.

“When he went after the council and called them monkeys, when he went after the premier and told her to grow up, or went after me, is this the style, that kind of bullying style that is going to get things done at city hall, is going to get people working together? I say no, and I think people have a clear choice between him and me, and we’ll see that they decide,” he said.

Listen to the full interview with Tory below:

Torontonians head to the polls on Oct. 27.