By Hamutal Dotan

Adam Giambrone at the June unveiling of new Metropass designs. Photo by David Topping/Torontoist.

Among the progressive members of City Council, TTC Chair (and occasional Torontoist Rocket Talk contributor) Adam Giambrone is one of those most frequently cited as a potential mayoral successor to David Miller. In the aftermath of Miller’s announcement this morning that he will not be running for re-election, we spoke with Giambrone about the mayor’s statement, and about the speculation that has already begun to swirl about his own so-far hypothetical candidacy.

Torontoist: When did you first learn that Mayor Miller did not intend to run for re-election?
Giambrone: He let a few people know shortly before he made the announcement this morning.
Were you surprised?
I think when something like this happens we’re always surprised…I’ve been here for six years, and had a chance to work with the mayor. I was expecting him to run in the next election; I was looking forward to the campaign.
What effect do you think the mayor’s announcement will have on his major policy initiatives over the next fourteen months? Will he be forced to scale back his ambitions now that councillors know he won’t be running again?
No, I think exactly the opposite. If there had been a normal process when the mayor was running he would have had to have been both candidate and chief magistrate at once. This will give him the opportunity to focus on the issues that have been at the centre of his mayoral career…Fourteen months is a long time and we have a lot of work left to do.
Speculation has already begun building about which progressive candidates might step into the breach now that the mayor will not be running. Your name has appeared on every list of potential candidates. Are you considering a bid for office?
Despite what the news media’s reporting, today is not about the next campaign. There are fourteen months—there is plenty of time.
I think people forget that politics is not just something that happens in an isolated setting—there are people involved. Everybody here in this City Hall is a human being. I respect the mayor: he’s a colleague, a friend. For a day like today I’m focused on that element, the human side.
What do you think are the most important issues for us to all be discussing over the next fourteen months? What should this campaign be about, whoever runs in it?
I think the first general thing the campaign should be focused on is the next four years. Some people are already talking about looking at the mayor’s record, and that would make sense if he were running again, but he isn’t and that’s not going to be helpful.
Campaigns really do need to be focused on people’s vision, and not just vision—vision’s important—but the action plan…You can’t just propose, for example, that you’re going to build one hundred kilometres of subway. I’d like one hundred kilometres of subway. But the reality is that there is no way for that to be feasible. Really we should be hearing specifics about where the city is going and what is under control of the mayor—that’s what the campaign should be about and what I hope it’s about.
What do you think are the most pressing issues?
The ones that I think are really important are ones like transit: people want to see movement on improving public spaces, on their parks, on the waterfront, they want to see a mayor that’s talking about realistic financial arrangements for the city.
An example of an issue that I think will get talked about perhaps more than it should be is crime—that’s an example of something that mayoral candidates are going to have to talk about even if perhaps it may not be the biggest problem.