Baking Cookies with David Soknacki: Candidate places policy over the ‘politics of celebrity’

“Am I having too much fun?” Toronto mayoral hopeful David Soknacki asked an aide during a recent conversation with Yahoo Canada News.

He was working on a batch of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and the topic of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford had just been raised. Ford, currently in rehab battling an addiction to alcohol and famous for his other vices, is set to return to the campaign train next month. Meantime, his brother, Coun. Doug Ford, had been rumoured set to take his spot.

"Bring them both on, I think it would be so entertaining, don't you?” Soknacki asked with a wide smile. “And I understand there are a couple other family members in the background. Maybe we could bring them in. You know what, we could have the entire lingerie football team on, maybe they could all register."

This is the politics of celebrity, he says, where candidates rely on name recognition and flash rather than policy and good ideas. That is not Soknacki’s campaign. In many ways, Soknacki is the antithesis of Toronto’s current mayor. He's quiet, respectful, thoughtful and not prone to fits of debauchery. He doesn’t drink beer, has no interest in sports and, concedes, is not a fan of Drake.

"I have many (vices), and it's for you and the media to find them out," Soknacki said with a smile and his short, signature giggle.

It’s hard to imagine. This is a man who makes a point of cooking dinner for his wife on the weekends during the hectic campaign. This is a man who refers to his rivals as “esteemed colleagues.”

This is a man who, while baking cookies in front of a rolling camera, momentarily halted the segment to wash the dirty dishes. And appeared horrified when he was told he could leave them in the sink.

"Well, OK. Only so not to offend you," he finally conceded. "It comes with doing the work, right?" That may best encapsulate Soknacki. No flash, no showmanship. Just a dedication to doing the job right.

Soknacki is easily the least-recognizable name on the short list of credible Toronto mayoral candidates. He has been out of politics for nearly a decade, having finished the last of three terms on council in 2006. During his tenure he worked closely with conservative mayor Mel Lastman and then with his progressive successor David Miller, sitting for a time as his budget chief.

He said he chose not to run for re-election at the time because he felt his influence was being diminished as the administration turned left. He never expected to return to politics. But after watching the past four years, he thought he had something more to contribute.

"You take a look at the circus after the last period. I was also very, very frustrated that everything seemed to be defined as a wedge issue,” Soknacki said of Rob Ford’s divisive reign. “Instead of bringing people together and working out where we need to go as a city, everything was turned into a wedge issue."

Soknacki is realistic about where he stands in the race. Polls have placed him with as much as five per cent of the popular vote. Front-runners such as Olivia Chow and John Tory are pulling in around 30 per cent. But the election isn’t until Oct. 27, and he believes that he can get his message out to enough people to make up the ground.

"What we have now, with the greatest respect for my colleagues, it is the politics of celebrity,” Soknacki says. “Where the public is right now, they haven't made a decision because they don't need to make a decision. If they have an inclination that they want to be left or right of centre they will go to a candidate who they feel comfortable is left or right of centre. But I don't think they have thought about where we want to go as a city."

He then admits something other candidates might not. The polls don’t worry him now, but if he doesn’t see a marked improvement by Labour Day – Sept. 1 – he’ll reassess his campaign.

"That is when people are going to start to say, 'How am I going to vote?'” he says. “My numbers have gone from zero to two to four to five to four. Would I have liked eight or 10? Absolutely."

It’s a moment of honest candor one comes to expect from Soknacki after knowing him for only the length of time it takes to bake a batch of cookies.

Listening to David Soknacki talk politics is somewhat unnerving, at least to those used to hearing the "sky is falling" superlatives that tend to flow during an election campaign. With Soknacki, there is no enemy, there is no hyperbole. He says what he means and tends to stick to raising new topics and ideas.

He says while others are playing the “politics of celebrity,” he is focused on introducing policy. He takes pride in moving the debate forward. Following the last televised mayoral debate, Soknacki’s campaign proudly declared that he had brought a “calculator to a gun fight.”

"Ask yourself this question. Do you have regrets in what you do?” he asked. “I have none. I have no regrets. I feel very comfortable not only in my own skin, but in our plan and our path. It has the straightjacket, or advantage, of being the only plan that will work for a policy person such as myself."

Baking cookies with Olivia Chow: Transit dominates the conversation

Baking cookies with John Tory: Mayoral hopeful addresses Rob Ford's absence

Soknacki’s campaign is non-traditional in that he is relying on serious, thoughtful ideas spread from the ground up. Instead of fighting Ford and Chow for headlines, he's going straight to the source.

When he announced a cycling policy and expanded bike lane system, he spent the day visiting bike shops, talking to people who would be most affected. By the end of the day, the conversation had grown so loud that newspapers had to take notice.

He was the first candidate to announce he would replace the Scarborough subway plan with the original light-rail transit plan, though Chow now gets credit for that stance. He was the first to unveil the idea of a mayoral ethics pledge, a position Tory more recently joined.

"I'm not setting my hair on fire, sorry," Soknacki said laughing, when asked how he plans to draw attention to his campaign. "We have a lot of very, very strong building blocks. That is what we are going to be known for – our competence."

“Either I have to be true to my strategy, or – sorry. I have to be true to my strategy. There is no or. That is my path. Otherwise you have celebrities running celebrity campaigns."

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