Time to look at the power and influence of Progress Toronto

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Did Rachel Chernos Lin win the Don Valley West byelection or did Progress Toronto? Whatever the answer, Chernos Lin clearly won with the support of Progress Toronto, a third-party campaign group that few people know about.

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Progress Toronto can now claim six city councillors and a mayor that they have helped to elect, along with their former executive director, Michal Hay, being installed as Mayor Oliva Chow’s chief of staff.

This organization runs training workshops for candidates as well as volunteers. They back candidates, and they oppose other candidates and try to defeat them.

In a municipal system that doesn’t have parties, Progress Toronto has become a defacto political party pushing their agenda. There is no group at City Hall with more sway and after the byelection on Monday, their power is only growing.

But we need to question whether this is a good thing or if reforms are needed.

Progress Toronto didn’t directly campaign for Chernos Lin, though surely there was a cross-over among volunteers. What they did do, though — and they have boasted about it openly — was to campaign against Anthony Furey.

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“Furey thought he’d win on name recognition and wanted to avoid running on his harmful record. We didn’t let that happen,” Progress Toronto said in a social media post.

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“Our incredible volunteers dropped 22,000+ flyers telling voters the truth about Furey! When voters learned the truth, they rejected him.”

Their flyers and their social media were nothing short of vicious smears on Furey, attacking him based on half statements and comments that were twisted and taken out of context. They portrayed him, unfairly and untruthfully, as a racist, and they spread that message far and wide.

The problem with Progress Toronto isn’t just the campaign in Don Valley West, it is a problem city-wide.

We don’t know who funds this group or their campaigns and while they are limited and monitored on spending during elections, they aren’t limited the rest of the time. We know that Progress Toronto had a heavy supply of union money when they started, but they have obviously been able to grow their donor base since then.

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That’s all we know, which essentially means this is dark money in the political system.

Supporters of the group are likely saying at this point that those in the centre and on the right who don’t like it should organize themselves. That’s a valid point and there are a couple of different attempts to do that at the moment, and hopefully they will be up and running by the next municipal election.

The same problem will remain, this will be dark money, the public won’t really know who the donors are calling the shots and pushing the agenda of these groups.

You can have no doubt that when these groups do emerge, Progress Toronto, their supporters and the councillor they have elected, will be complaining about corporate money or “the rich” calling the shots.

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There will be an alternative to Progress Toronto coming, meaning another defacto political party operating behind the scenes and in the same dark corners as Progress Toronto.

Which is why it is likely time for there to be openness and transparency at City Hall with political parties. This is something that already exists in other major Canadian cities, such as Montreal and Vancouver.

We could adopt a party system that mirrors the provincial or national parties, as happens in the United States or Britain. Or we could do as both Montreal and Vancouver have done and establish distinct municipal parties.

Either way, it would bring about transparency and give voters a better understanding of who they are voting for municipally and what those candidates stand for.

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