Toronto Votes 2026: Toronto-Danforth councillor candidate George Fawcett profile
(EDITOR’S NOTE: Local voters will cast their ballots on Monday, Oct. 26, in Toronto’s municipal election. Along with voting for mayor and school trustee, local voters will also be electing a new councillor for Ward 14 Toronto-Danforth.
There are 18 candidates running for the council seat in Toronto-Danforth. The seat is open as incumbent councillor Paula Fletcher announcd in August that she was stepping down after representing the area for the last 23 years. For this Candidate Profile feature, Beach Metro Community News reached out to the candidates who we could find contact information for and asked them to send their profile and a photo in by a set deadline. We are only printing the profiles of those who responded by the deadline. The 18 candidates registered to run for councillor in Toronto-Danforth in this month’s municipal election are Maqsood Ahmad, Susan Chapelle, Michael Connor, Dennis Corcoran, Robb Dagenais, Peter De Marco, Sara Ehrhardt, George Fawcett, Mary Fragedakis, John Kladitis, Michael Mitchell, Caryma Sa’d, Dianne Saxe, Devyn Stackhouse, Jason Stevens, Christiane Tetreault, Maria Voutsinas and Denise Walcott.)
I’ve been a proud resident of Toronto-Danforth for the past 10 years. This is where I’ve started a small business, started a family, and watched my kids start to grow up amongst our parks, schools, and neighbourhoods.
We are facing some enormous challenges as a city right now, including affordability, housing, climate change, and Doug Ford’s continued interference in our schools, our waterfront, and our bike lanes.
I believe that another challenge we’re facing is the state of our local politics. Low voter turnout and a sense of pessimism in our politics have reinforced each other, leading to a cycle of disengagement. Less than half of Torontonians who voted in the recent federal election did so in the 2022 municipal one, even though one could argue that municipal politics affects us in a more direct and immediate way.
When a bench is installed at a streetcar stop, when better lighting is added to a park, or when a speed bump makes the road near a school safer, it may not seem life-changing on its own or solve the bigger crises we’re facing, but it does make our lives a little bit better right away.
As City Councillor, my top priority will be engaging at the local level with community leaders, non-profit organizations, Business Improvement Areas, and other neighbourhood groups. The people who live and work in our neighbourhoods understand them best, and we need to ensure their voices are heard in the decisions that shape them.
As one small step towards this goal, I am the only candidate in Toronto-Danforth to have signed onto the Community-Led Planning Champion Pledge from the Coalition for Responsible Community Development, a Toronto-based group advocating for more community involvement in planning and decision-making.
I believe that if we can start to restore more optimism, trust, and participation in our local politics, together our voices will be so much stronger in fighting for real progress on the issues we care about.
