Sylvia Watson

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Sylvia Watson is a Canadian politician. She was a Toronto City Councillor for ward 14, part of the riding of Parkdale-High Park.

Prior to being elected, Watson was a city employee with the Legal Department. Watson was elected in the 2003 municipal election replacing the long serving Chris Korwin-Kuczynski who retired from politics. She handily beat a field of seven other candidates.

Watson's voting record positioned her as left-leaning, supporting many of mayor David Miller's initiatives. Her support garnered her influential positions on city committees including chair of the Administration Committee.^{[citation needed]}

However, in 2004 she broke with progressive ranks, and voted against a citywide pesticide ban, despite the recommendation of the city's medical officer of health.[1]

In June 2006, Watson withdrew her candidacy for re-election to city council in order to run unsuccessfully as an Ontario Liberal Party candidate to succeed Gerard Kennedy in the Parkdale—High Park by-election. The Liberals fully supported her candidacy, with eleven ministers making visits to her riding, while Premier Dalton McGuinty himself made three trips there. Kennedy, who had resigned to contest the federal Liberal leadership, and Bob Rae also made campaign stops in the riding.[2]

Some saw that the election indicated the differential between the Liberals' popularity and Kennedy's personal popularity. Kennedy's work as food bank director and education critic/minister appealed to the many NDP voters in the riding. Watson was apparently unable to ride the coattails of his popularity. While she ran on the McGuinty government's record of education and health care, her opponents targeted numerous Liberal broken promises, including delaying the replacement of coal-fired power plants, and the addition of the $2.4-billion health premium after campaigning on a pledge to not raise taxes[3]

In the last week of the election, falling behind in polls, her campaign released a number of controversial press releases attacking NDP candidate Cheri DiNovo. These releases have made reference to DiNovo's LSD use at a younger age and alleged that she endorsed the church ordination of pedophiles and axe murderers in Qu(e)erying Evangelism. They also claimed that DiNovo had made past comments in which she compared Canadian murderer Karla Homolka to a Christ-like figure. Education minister Sandra Pupatello said "DiNovo's comments do not reflect the views of any candidate who should be running for office". Both NDP and Conservative candidates for the riding denounced the press releases as mudslinging, saying that DiNovo's comments were taken out of context. The backlash extended to the Premier himself, with NDP MPPs accusing him of condoning and even orchestrating the smear attacks. McGuinty himself claimed that he was unaware of the press releases.[4][5]