Pubdate: Tue, 08 Apr 2014 Source: Toronto Star (CN ON) Copyright: 2014 The Toronto Star Contact: http://www.thestar.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/456 Author: Betsy Powell Page: GT2 VYING TO BE THE FIRST OPENLY CANNABIS-INHALING MAYOR Once a week through the end of the mayoral election, we'll introduce you to an obscure person who is vying to be Toronto's chief magistrate. Who are you? Matt Mernagh, 40, calls himself a "disabled cannabis advocate" who spent more than five years waging a court battle to strike down Canada's marijuana laws. The St. Catharines, Ont., native has written a pot smoking guidebook and hosts a weekly webcast called Mernahuana Zone on www.vaporcentral.com. Yet Mernagh doesn't want to be defined by his pot policies. "Now is a time to expand my brand out there," he says. "Justin Trudeau talks about pot, and I want to expand beyond that." Mernagh has a brain tumour. "It causes me a lot of pain, but I don't think it would prevent me from holding public office." What's your political experience? Mernagh belonged to the NDP riding association in his hometown, has attended political conventions and stumped for candidates. His campaign team includes the founding member of the Freedom Party of Ontario. "We're all political enthusiasts. We want to see what we can do in this type of campaign and see what works and what doesn't work so, when we try again, if we have to try again, we can do much better." Why do you want to be mayor? "It was really hard to figure out whether I should run for city council, because my ultimate goal is to become the first openly cannabis-inhaling person on city council. I think I can do that within 10 years. We entered the mayor's race because we don't know where our largest support is. I have friends in Scarborough. I have friends in Etobicoke, friends up in North York. We've got little pockets of support everywhere, so it was kind of hard to decide where to go. So we decided this would be a good opportunity to run for mayor, to get our name out there and show we love the city and the politics of the city and we're not just cannabis people." What will you do when you are mayor? Mernagh would dramatically increase urban gardening. "We can't get enough of those. People love gardening, they need to get their hands in soil. They live in condos that don't have garden space." He would stop the Billy Bishop airport expansion and rein in the $1 billion police budget by using different deployment strategies and priorities. "We would try to make marijuana the least of their priorities =C2=85 I don't mind them going after hard drugs." Mernagh would make building a downtown subway relief line a priority and lobby the province for Toronto's "fair share of taxes to pay for it. I'd have to go to Kathleen Wynne, or whoever is premier, and sit outside their office for funding. When it comes to sitting outside somebody's office I am quite good at it." He'd also push for the city to sell and tax pot, Amsterdam or Denver-style. Mernagh would make it tougher to run for mayor: "There are more people running for mayor than are on the Blue Jays baseball team." Would-be candidates should, at the very least, produce 100 signatures, he says. "It's not a huge barrier, come on." What is your goal? To beat the 5,012 votes candidate Rocco Rossi got in 2010 despite dropping out before the election. "If I could get 5,000 that would be amazing, that would be 2 per cent." What do you like about Toronto? Mernagh loves this city for its diversity, tolerance and vibrancy. "In Brazil, you only cheer for Brazil in the World Cup. In Toronto, people everywhere are cheering for different teams, because that's how international we are." - --- MAP posted-by: Matt