Archive for Elections

We have a housing crisis in Toronto — too many people cannot afford to have a place to live. We need to work to have 30% of all units in each building be affordable and accessible to people with special needs, fixed income and/or low income. We need inclusionary zoning — the City of Toronto adopted a 10% version — this is not enough! And we need to insist that developers allot 30% in every building.

Saturday, 2021 August 28, 10 am to noon
Withrow Park, starting near the unfenced playground

Maryem and friends will be visiting Withrow Park on Saturday.

Maryem needs 100 Toronto-Danforth voters to request that she appear on the ballot. We’ll be collecting 150 just to be sure.

Come out and say hello! Come out and sign! Come out and help collect signatures!

Update: The core team has 179 signatures, and several satellite volunteers will be adding more. Signature collecting is done!

Maryem and volunteers (not all pictured) collected signatures of electors today so that she can appear on the ballot.

Maryem Tollar, Toronto-Danforth candidate, 2021 election. Photo credit: Cathy Ord.

Maryem Tollar is a renowned Egyptian-Canadian vocalist, known for her world music performances. She has been a public school teacher with the TDSB since 2012. Her music and work have always coincided with her politics. Many projects she is involved with explore different aspects of society. She uses her music as a vehicle for her activism and she has set many poems by Ehab Lotayef to music. Ehab’s poems have many themes including: the Iraq war, issues in Israel/Palestine, human rights issues and freedom and dignity for the oppressed. Maryem believes that there is intersectionality between climate issues and human rights issues. Maryem is a community organizer in the arts and she has used her platform to shine a light on a variety of social justice concerns. In her artistic career, she has received several Juno and Dora nominations and awards for musical projects and theatre productions. In 2019 she won the inaugural Johanna Metcalf Award for Performing Arts. Maryem is married to woodwind player Ernie Tollar and they have 3 children.