  The red box John Tory's meeting with the Sun's editorial board yesterday sealed their endorsement of his candidacy. If you love the Sun, you'll love John Tory because the Sun LOVES John Tory. Here's the text of the editorial this morning Take a look at John Tory In the race for Toronto mayor, John Tory has proven that you don't have to be a career politician to mount a credible campaign.
The former Rogers Cable CEO, chairman of the United Way, commissioner of the CFL and principal secretary to Tory premier Bill Davis, is right in the thick of this race. As the only businessman facing a field of four politicians, he's running, as he himself has put it, to do a job, rather than just to have one. In his meeting with the Sun editorial board yesterday, Tory also demonstrated that he's actually developed a personality over the years - something he wasn't known for in the past. We believe his platform is the best of the three main contenders - David Miller, the new frontrunner according to an Environics Poll released yesterday, followed by a fading Barbara Hall and then Tory - in many areas.
We like the fact he identifies real waste at City Hall and his commitment to freezing taxes in the second and third year of his mayoralty, while holding them to no more than inflation in the first. Tory has a realistic plan for getting rid of Toronto's garbage, which includes safe, modern incineration, an idea 70% of the public supports, according to a recent poll. This despite the constant anti-incineration hysteria generated by city politicians who failed to address this issue for years and who absurdly argue we can recycle virtually all of our garbage by 2010. We agree with Tory's pledge to put 400 more cops on our streets. He's the only one of the top three who isn't anti-car - although he's not pro-road enough for us.
We support his idea of private-public partnerships to improve public transit and deliver reliable, efficient services. That said, we disagree with his refusal to support a bylaw to make it illegal to live on our streets. We worry about his reluctance to prioritize his goals. We fear he has little appreciation of how intransigent the city's powerful trade unions will be to change.
And he's far too naive in assuming Liberal PM-in-waiting Paul Martin and Ontario Premier-designate Dalton McGuinty are about to shower Toronto with cash. Tory now says he would never set up a "kitchen cabinet," even though he was part of one that privately advised Mayor Mel Lastman. Fine by us, but we're alarmed when he says he'd consider advice from the City Summit Alliance, in our view an elitist group with little understanding of the concerns of ordinary taxpayers. Tory has good political instincts. He needs to trust them more. They like him except for his easy-on-homelessness stance. If only the two Johns platforms were a little closer, the Sun might be endorsing Nunziata's push for the mayor's office. 
