Local paper has NDP backers

By Ian Harvey

A new publication is hitting mailboxes in Birch Cliff with a decidedly left wing stance and NDP backers.

The Bluffs Advocate  is the brainchild of a group led by former Ward 36 candidate Robert Spencer, currently finishing a PhD in teacher professional development at the University of Toronto, who lost to Councillor Gary Crawford in 2010 by 422 votes.

The first 16-page issue hit 10,000 “selected” homes across the Bluffs, including Birch Cliff, and as far west as Riverdale. The second is scheduled for March 1.

Many New Democrats behind paper

More curiously, the masthead is mostly made up of longtime NDP candidates, party workers and supporters but Spencer, listed as General Manager, insists this is not an early run at a campaign.

Robert Spencer, General Manager of the Bluffs Advocate

“We’re hoping to publish when we have enough material, not quite once a month but more than once every two months,” said Spencer adding the focus will be on Bluffs related issues, especially around environmental issues and politics.

Its tag line reads: “The progressive voice of Scarborough Southwest and East Toronto”

Content in  first issue

The first issue dealt with the Quarry Lands, offered support for teachers in their fight against Bill 115 and mounted an attack on Mayor Rob Ford.

Advertising was generally thin but included support from Scarborough Southwest NDP MP Dan Harris, a full-page which may or may not have been an ad from the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario outlining their position on austerity budgeting, and house ads calling for volunteers to contribute content and help distribute the paper.

This is one of the articles from the first edition of the Bluffs Advocate

“We’re mostly in our dotage and wanted to sponsor a local publication friendly to education and with a strong environmental view,” Spencer said. “Scarborough was the dumping ground. We’ve got two watersheds here, the Don and the Rouge Rivers and we want to look at local issues relating to this environmental mishap. The March issue will look at the garbage dump behind St. Augustine’s which is leaking into the lake.”

He said there’s a push to get students from local high schools to contribute more content to the publication, in addition to the two students, one each from Birchmount Collegiate and the Scarborough Academy of Technology, who wrote pieces in the first edition.

Who’s on the masthead?

Neil Walker, photographer and former editor of Education Forum magazine, an OSSTF publication, is the editor with contributions from:

• Paul Bocking, union executive officer for Toronto public high school supply teachers;
• Tom Grinnell, constituency assistant, MP Dan Harris
• Graham Murray of GP Murray Research, a well-known and keen observer at Queens Park supported by the NDP, who publishes a highly regarded and well read newsletter about provincial politics.
• Ted Schmidt, a former Neil McNeil teacher and former editor of the New Catholic Times, who describes himself as “an active supporter of NDP and a Catholic.”
• Bill Signal, Business Agent at United Association of Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 46
• Lawyer Barbara Warner,  federal NDP candidate in Beaches-East York and lawyer.

However, despite the strong presence of NDP players, Spencer says he’s not using the publication as a springboard to raise his profile in preparation for another run at Ward 36 – or any other office.

With other ridings across the city already mobilizing for the expected right vs left battle, Ward 36 – which slipped from the NDP’s grasp with 25.2 per cent of votes cast for Gary Crawford against Spencer’s 22.8 per cent – could be seen as a “winnable” Ward to gain a stronger grip on council in the event Mayor Ford gets reelected, pushing moderates like Crawford out of the picture.

“I’ve been involved in campaigns since the mid 1960s, I remember election night (2010) as a painful night,” he said. “I have no plans to run again. In these elections, 95 per cent of the time the incumbent wins.”