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Mayoral hopeful says he'll be `giant slayer';
By Stan Josey Toronto Star. Toronto Star. Toronto, Ont.: Aug 25, 1997. pg. A.7
North York lawyer Munyonzwe Hamalengwa says he can be the ``giant slayer'' who will defeat the acknowledged front-runners Mel Lastman and Barbara Hall in the race to be the first mayor of the new megacity of Toronto.
``They will be fighting so hard against each other that I can slip up the middle and win,'' says the 41-year-old immigration and criminal lawyer who came to Canada after he was expelled from Zambia two decades ago.
``Canada and North York have been good to me and I feel I can give them something in return,'' he told a North York news conference officially launching his campaign yesterday, attended by only a handful of journalists.
Hamalengwa said it is time someone from a visible minority became mayor in Toronto.
And he vowed to fight for the rights of landed immigrants in Ontario to vote in municipal elections.
He said it is a disgrace that large numbers of immigrants in Metro will be unable to vote in the November municipal election because of the Municipal Elections Act, which restricts the right to vote to Canadian citizens.
Hamalengwa said he plans to mount a constitutional challenge to the law before the election, in hopes of winning the right to vote for anyone who pays municipal, provincial and federal taxes in Canada and has been a resident for at least three years.
He said the new Toronto is going to need a mayor who is less tied to the corporate community and more willing to deal with some of the social ills in the community.
``As a lawyer dealing with the less fortunate, I have seen the underbelly of this city and I know what is needed to help them out.''
Hamalengwa added that he would not be opposed to raising taxes if more money was needed to deal with social problems and to pay for some of the services being shifted from the province.
Lastman, the mayor of North York, launched his campaign last week and with considerably more fanfare, travelling to each of Metro's five cities and one borough to declare he was running.
His main rival, Toronto Mayor Hall, declared her candidacy in June.
The two have already begun sparring, with Lastman criticizing Hall's support of a failed legal challenge to the provincial legislation creating the unified city of Toronto.
The other declared candidates are journalist William Burrill, restaurateur Al Carbone, publisher Alan Heisey and musician Ben Kerr.
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Last Modified: August 11, 2007
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