Toronto election: Which conservative mayor?

If you like candidates who describe themselves as conservative, boy has Toronto ever got the election for you.

With both Karen Stintz and John Tory officially signing up to join Rob Ford and David Soknacki last week, there are now four major right-of-centre candidates in the race for Toronto’s top office. It’s a situation that already has some pundits worrying about vote-splitting, fearful that a fractured electorate will pretty much hand the mayor’s job to Olivia Chow in October.

But any attempt to quickly “unite the right” in Toronto this year isn’t likely to get very far. After a full term of Ford politics, during which a lot of local right-wingers who should have known better were content to let Ford carry their flag, it’s hard to even know what the word “conservative” means in this town. It’s a damaged brand, and so there’s a rush of would-be mayors jumping into the fray in the hopes of defining a new kind of Toronto conservatism.

They’re all taking a different approach. Stintz, for example, is positioning herself as Mayor Mom, talking up her ability to relate with tales of mortgages and her kids’ soccer games. The positive approach is good, but she sure risks coming off as pandering.

Tory, meanwhile, has taken a more business-oriented approach. His platform so far is limited to repeating the words “livable, affordable, functional.” The subtext there isn’t hard to read, especially with his emphasis on the word “functional.” If Ford’s 2010 campaign was about stopping David Miller’s gravy train, Tory’s is all about stopping Ford’s crazy train.

Speaking of Ford, he is — somehow — still in the race, and still talking up his free-wheeling brand of right-wing politics. It’s mostly based on discredited budget numbers, but Ford remains great at telling voters what they want to hear. He’ll promise low property taxes and improved services. He’ll rail against the evils of debt and revenue tools then vote to increase taxes and debt for a subway. For Ford, math is no obstacle.

Which contrasts him nicely with David Soknacki, who leans heavily on math that actually adds up. His approach is policy-heavy, nerdy and, well, boring. But it also harkens back to the days of pragmatic and sensibly efficient governments run by Progressive Conservatives like Bill Davis and David Crombie. They weren’t splashy, but they were effective.

Soknacki faces an uphill road, but maybe 2014 is the year effectiveness trumps splashiness. Either way, the question conservative-minded voters will have to ask themselves over the next year is what exactly they want from their mayoral candidate. It won’t be an easy choice, but it’ll be an important one. This October, right-leaning Toronto voters will have a chance to redefine the word “conservative” for good.