Coalition of Concerned Scarborough Residents
No More Michael Thompson
It is time to elect a new Councillor
Bad for safety!
Michael Thompson doesn't understand community safety. He wants to reduce the police budget by $24 million!
He is entirely ignorant of how the police operation works and utterly oblivious to the exploding violence that the lack of police resources have caused.
Michael Thompson has put the cuffs on the cops instead of the criminals by removing their ability to manage street-level information and cutting the Police budget. As a result, gun violence has doubled in the last four years, acts of terrorism have increased, and people now feel that Toronto is no longer safe!
Michael Thompson is bad for safety!
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/city-council-budget-debate-1.3450982
Bad for business!
Michael Thompson portrays himself as the champion of the community, but in reality, he uses this portrayal for more nefarious political purposes. When Michael Thompson wants to align a business's support for his political activities, he rallies his few political supporters to complain about that business to their licensing board. He has developed a nasty reputation for driving businesses out who don't either donate to his political campaign or post his signs during the elections.
He will use the city resources to focus the scrutiny of a city by law enforcement officers at businesses who don't support him. He has on many occasions contacted the fire marshal's office, food inspectors and other city departments to demand penalties or closer of businesses. This harassment hasn't gone unnoticed by business investors.
Michael Thompson has aggressively disrupted business licensing to favor some businesses over others. Many business owners avoid investing in anything Michael Thompson has his hand in because Michael Thompson has created a toxic environment and has destroyed the excellent relationship between businesses and government.
Michael Thompson has used many methods to drive businesses out of the ward who don't support him politically by humiliating them in the media. Instead of working with businesses to bring them into compliance and standard that would both satisfy the business and the public, Michael Thompson grandstands as the person to make the community safer. When in fact, he is deferring his failed community safety policies on to the business who have been victimized by crime as the cause.
Michael Thompson went after a local business for supporting a political adversary in the 2010 elections by removing their prospect of gaining a liquor license. As a result, the restaurant failed and business investors took note.
He claims that his motivation for removing licencing is to address noise complaints which when investigated were discovered to be fictitious. He most often targets establishments of ethnic background.
What is required is a full police investigation into possible extortion and embezzlement. However, due to his very close relationships with the current police chief that he took credit for installing, the likely hood of that initiative is slim to none.
Michael Thompson is bad for business!
Bad for Scarborough transit!
Michael Thompson keeps promising Scarborough a subway but has never delivered on that promise. He is never at city hall to lobby for a Scarborough subway, to begin with. He has abandoned his obligation to represent our will in favor of traveling the world on the taxpayer dime.
Michael Thompson has failed where others have succeeded. The Sheppard line was created and the young line was expanded but Scarborough got nothing. He is too busy working for his developer friends to care about the plight of Scarborough workers who are slowly being cut off from lucrative downtown jobs due to lengthening travel times in the worlds 6th worst traffic system. He likes to pose for the cameras but to suggest that he is working hard on tackling the issues, however, due to his absence, other councillors don't take him seriously.
Michael Thompson is bad for Transit!
Bad for taxes!
While recklessly spending money traveling around the world, Michael Thompson wants more money from your family to pay for it. Michael Thompson on many occasions has suggested and voted for tax hikes. He claims during his campaigning that he is against all tax hikes but his words don't match his actions. Michael Thompson can't be trusted with our taxes rates. His appetite for tax dollars keeps growing.
Michael Thompson is bad for taxes!
Bad with money!
Michael Thompson is having a good time on the taxpayer's dime. For a person who parades himself on camera as the defender of tax dollars, his actions behind the camera are entirely the opposite.
While city hall adds more taxes on families, Michael Thompson is partying it up around the world. The Star reported, based on receipts, that Thompson’s stay at the ritzy Los Angeles Chateau Marmont during the film mission cost $919 per night, staying at landmark Hollywood hotels, dined in Stockholm, cell phone bill of up to $2000 on his trips far east, and expensed $2,923 for a three-day film business mission to Los Angeles. He has spent $75 338 between 2016 and 2017 traveling around the world. According to a city report posted online, Thompson expensed a total of $36,364 for 10 trips last year, exceeding the closest city councilor's spending by over $15,000. By comparison, Toronto Mayor John Tory spent $14,167 on travel in 2017 overall.
Michael Thompson excuse for this glutinous spending is that he has single-handedly convinced thousands of investors to spend billions in the city. Michael Thompsons' illusion of grandeur is costing the city tens of thousands and making a mockery of the ward's voters.
https://globalnews.ca/news/4236702/toronto-councillor-michael-thompson-hotel/
Bad with integrity!
A person in the position of a City Councillor must hold a high degree of integrity. Michael Thompson has demonstrated that he has a limited understanding of what integrity means. Michael Thompson keeps getting involved in shady dealings with developers time and time again.
In a 23-page report, the integrity commissioner for the City of Toronto, Valerie Jepson unequivocally states that Thompson engaged in discreditable conduct when, in 2016 and 2017, he “quarterbacked” a development proposal for a friend of 33 years.
Michael Thompson has been identified as having problems with understanding how to be ethical. He has been found to have established an inappropriate relationship with developers and he sees nothing wrong with what he did and refuses to apologize for his actions. Mostly, Michael Thompson was found to be giving preferential treatment to developers he likes.
Sue-Ann Levy of the Toronto Sun reported that, " If there was ever evidence of the cozy connections, the “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” way of conducting business at City Hall and the entitled attitudes that many city politicians adopt with a taste of power, it is contained in the integrity ruling on Michael Thompson."
Jepson also points out in her thorough report that Thompson also took good care of Gasparro. He arranged tickets to TIFF for him in 2015 and 2016 and invited him to various events, including a special dinner to honour former Israeli President Shimon Peres in July 2015. It was also reported that Michael Thompson's staff harassed and bullied with city staff with 60 phone calls about permits relating to his friendly relationships with developers for projects that weren't even in his ward.
What is Going on here? Is this an example of clear abuse of office? It appears Michael Thompson was pushing his friend's projects with city council, but that begs the questions, how was he benefiting personally if the project wasn't even in his ward? Does Ward 40 not have enough issues of our own.
Michael Thompson has integrity problems!
https://torontosun.com/news/local-news/levy-councillor-unapologetic-about-misconduct-determination
Bad for religious freedom!
Maybe it's because his developer friends didn't receive the contract. Who knows? But Michael Thompson has taken the position of attacking the Sri Lankan community's efforts to establish a place of worship. Thompson's issue is that the warehouse that the worshippers were using is for employment land.
Places of worship using warehouses didn't seem to be an issue before when Thompson's voter base wanted to convert these properties into churches. There is plenty of example of churches operating out of warehouses in his ward. But now in time for a new Hindu temple, and Thompson seems to have a problem with it.
Michael Thompson helped to pass the bylaw forbidding places of worship from using industrial land like so many others have done. In an unprecedented attack on religious freedom, Thompson went so far as to drive the Sri Lankan worshipers out of their place of worship using the legal muscle of the city!
Many people affected by the new bylaw have said that it targets the growing ethnic communities. The act of discrimination appears to be timed to apply when the cities religious demographic started to change, preventing ethnic communities from establishing their own places of worship. The City planning department, of which Michael Thompson influences, have approved the redevelopment of many existing traditional places of worship into other uses rather than match the needs of the changing demographics.
Instead of reaching out to the Sri Lankan community, it appears that Michael Thompson has marginalized them with his efforts to crusade against any place of worship he deems as unsupportive of his political aspirations. Michael Thompson seems to be intentionally dividing the diverse and peaceful community for political purposes.
Michael Thompson is bad for religious freedom!
Bad with judgment!
Birds of a feather flock together. Michael Thompson's executive director Ihor Wons is a scandal-prone political advisor who has a history of being involved in questionable deals. Most notably, Ihor Wons was engaged in the strippergate scandal that involved the Judy Sgro's office. Ihor Wons was accused of processing visas for strippers who later helped with Mrs. Sgro's campaign. It was an apparent conflict of interest and another example of shady political dealings. Michael Thompsons executive director clearly abused his position for political gain and remains in a position to do that again. Ihor Wons has been accused of manipulation, coercion, and connivance by the media and politicians. He is now Thompson's right-hand man for many years.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/sgros-chief-of-staff-takes-leave/article20437083/
Bad for the BIA!
Michael Thompson is being accused by many people who previously have volunteered for the Wexford Heights BIA of misappropriating funds for his Christmas turkey drive. If the accusation of Michael Thompson using the BIA budget to pay for his turkey drive is true, then he is clearly abusing tax dollars. It would appear that Michael Thompson attempts to portray himself as a giving, virtuous, righteous individual is at cost to the taxpayers. He does have influence with the Wexford BIA as he is in the position to appointing the chairman of the BIA.
It would mean that Michael Thompson is using the BIA budget as his personal piggy bank for self-promotion purposes instead of the intended legal purpose. Controversy-prone Thompson appointed his close political ally, Hussain Ayoub, who ran the La Roche cafe next door to Thompsons campaign office before it abruptly closed down.
Bad for democracy!
Michael Thompson has overstayed his welcome in Toronto Politics. He has used his power to persecutes, political opponents, spend recklessly and get involved in shady deals with developers. Michael Thompson believes he is part of a special political elite system that is reluctant to change, complacent, crony, and corrupt. His performance has been diminishing, his attitude of entitlement increasing, his arrogance growing, complacent, and the possibility of corruption develops. We need a requirement of term limits for councillors. This brings in new energy, new ideas, reinforces democracy, and restrict influence peddling.
Bad for City Hall!
Has anyone seen Michael Thompson? Michael Thompson has one of the worst attendance records at City Hall. For a person who is in the position to advocate for the interest of his ward, Michael Thompson has been doing the worst job tackling his wards issues. Michael Thompson absenteeism's at City Council shows his disregard and negligence towards his ward. His absenteeism has been insulting. According to a report in the Toronto Star, Michael Thompson missed 33.8% in 2015 as compared to Frances Nunziata who never missed a day! If Michael Thompson really was concerned about representing our ward, he would have showed up at City Hall more often.
Bad for ward 40!
Michael Thompson is an old idea and bad for the new ward. Please be responsible when voting.