By Adonis Huggins
Adonis is a staff at FOCUS MEDIA ARTS CENTRE

The Community Civic Engagement Collaborative (CCEC) is a grassroots collective of agencies and residents in Regent Park, Moss Park, St James Town and Corktown neighbourhoods, working to increase civic engagement in elections and beyond in Toronto’s down town east, through non-partisan community organizing. Some of the organizations involved are the Focus Media ArtsCentre, Regent Park Neighbourhood Association, Yonge Street Mission, Fred Victor, St. James Town Service Provider’s Network, Dixon Hall, Centre for Social Innovation, the Regent Park Community Health Centre, The Neighbourhood Group, Building Roots, Neighbourhood Information Post and the Neighbourhood Legal Services.

In an effort to engage residents in the upcoming elections, Regent Park TV joined CCEC in going out to the community of Regent Park to interview residents on how they feel about voting in the upcoming elections. Some of the questions that were asked were: Do you plan to vote in the upcoming elections? Do you know who the candidates are? What are the most important issues for you are?

Almost everyone who was interviewed intended to vote in the upcoming election and many of them had a lot of opinions about the issues that matter. However very few people knew who the candidates were. In an effort to help with this the Community Civic Engagement Collaborative held an all-candidates meeting on October 12, 2022.

The candidates running in Toronto Centre Ward 13 is Chris Moise, Ryan Lester, Nicki Ward, Colin Johnson, Miguel Avila, Dan Cortez Manalo, Cleveland Marshall, Caroline Murphy and Dev Ramsumair.

To find out more visit www.downtowneastvotes.ca Don’t forget to vote in the upcoming elections on Monday October 24