Voters like idea of firing council, poll says

DON PEAT, Toronto Sun September 2, 2010

Turns out Toronto voters want to be able to fire their mayor and councillors in between elections, a poll says. Rocco Rossi’s promise to give voters the right to recall has struck a chord among supporters of all the candidates, according to the poll by Forum Research released Wednesday. The idea also seems to have helped raise Rossi’s support, pushing him up into third place, an improvement from previous polls that placed him behind the four other major mayoralty candidates. “This is huge,” Forum president Lorne Bozinoff told the Sun Thursday. “(The recall idea) is popular across the entire city ... and it is popular with supporters of all the candidates not just the two candidates in favour of it.” Pollsters asked 400 randomly selected Toronto residents “if taxpayers should have the power to recall or remove their politicians between elections, a proposal introduced and announced by mayoral candidate Rocco Rossi, and supported by city councillor Rob Ford.”

A whopping 73% answered “yes”, 22% said “no” and 6% were undecided.