Council newbie Curran Stikuts ready to work after pushing past Chris Moise

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Election night was light on drama, but that might have been a relief for weary voters in Toronto Centre.

In what was perhaps Toronto’s only true surprise on Monday night, Curran Stikuts won a three-way race over incumbent Chris Moise and another challenger, Daniel Tate. Moise had spent his rookie term engaged in public feuds – with the boards of Sankofa Square and a local hockey arena, with neighbours who live near a local parkette and most of all with Tate.

Stikuts was a political unknown, although he did have the endorsement of Moise’s predecessor Kristyn Wong-Tam. Polling consistently projected him to finish third and Stikuts told the Toronto Sun that the only time he remembers the internal data putting him higher, he was 20 points back of Moise.

“It’s plainly obvious that there’s a ton of challenges within Toronto Centre,” he said, “but the vast, vast majority of people understand that they’re really complex problems and they want to see solutions that rise to that need.”

Slim margin of victory in three-way race

Stikuts was the only winner of Monday night’s council races to take less than a third of the votes in his ward and his margin of victory was one of the closest in the city. Still, with 28.6% of the vote to Moise’s 23.4%, Stikuts’ lead amounted to more than 2,000 votes.

Tate, the founder of political advocacy group Integrity TO, was in third at 15.2%.

While election night’s results defied the polls, Stikuts said they lined up with what he was seeing when he met voters on the campaign trail.

“At the doors … it was much stronger than what we were seeing in the polls,” he said.

“We definitely could feel the momentum across the ward and across demographics, which was really encouraging.”

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Council’s youth movement

While Monday’s election didn’t quite bring in sweeping changes, some of Toronto’s oldest or longest tenured councillors – Paula Fletcher, Frances Nunziata, Gord Perks and Dianne Saxe – are departing. City council is getting younger and Stikuts will be one of the youngest at just 36 years old.

Like his fellow rookie councillors-elect Chiara Padovani and Diana Chan McNally, Stikuts has a background in community work, but without the same experience in political activism. He admitted with a laugh that it’s “surreal” to now think of himself as a politician.

That’s not to say he’s unprepared for the work ahead. Wong-Tam, in endorsing Stikuts for the job in August, promised he “can do the job.”

He told the Sun midday on Tuesday that he had yet to speak with Mayor Olivia Chow, so he’s not sure what role she sees for him at City Hall.

Stikuts prioritizing public spaces, tenant rights

He said two of his early objectives as councillor will be making Toronto Centre’s public spaces safer, plus tenants’ rights.

“Especially after knocking on tens of thousands of doors and seeing some of the pretty deplorable conditions of our apartment buildings and the lack of support people are getting there, that’ll definitely be a priority,” Stikuts said.

Moise left his mark on City Hall, serving as chair of Toronto’s board of health and taking a direct and visible role on the renaming of Yonge-Dundas Square to Sankofa Square. That latter file helped Moise earn his reputation as one of Toronto’s most combative councillors, however, and the square’s leadership quit in 2023 without bothering to speak to him.

Stikuts may be inexperienced politically, but he said his work in social services has taught him to be diplomatic.

“I’ve always believed in taking a deeply collaborative approach,” he said, “and, you know, not being afraid of disagreement, but leaning into that in order to figure out the best way forward.”

jholmes@postmedia.com

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