Volume 4, Issue No. 56
OPINION/COMMENTARY
/ News That Fears None, Views That Favor Nobody /
Our latest as of Monday, April 24, 2023
~ April Fools' Day has long passed yet we seem to suffer from a little hangover to find one of us in the Filipino community is gunning for the unreachable star. Seriously though, Jose Baking alias Joey wants to be mayor of Toronto, and asks voters to elect him on June 26. What has gone to his mind knowing he has a ghost of a chance of winning. Is he delusional?
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A DREAMER OR A COMIC?
Jose 'Joey' Baking Wants To Be Toronto Mayor
He Publishes a Tabloid Engaged in Yellow Journalism
By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ
Editor, The Filipino Web Channel
"This is my quest, to follow that star
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far . . . "
- Excerpt from The Impossible Dream
TORONTO - Two weeks after April Fools' Day, which was Saturday, April 1, 2023, a certain Jose Baking filed his nomination paper to run for mayor of Toronto in the coming by-election on Monday, June 26.
He is one of about 61 individuals vying for the post vacated by the resignation in mid-February of John Tory over his admitted extramarital affair with an unnamed staff. (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN7Sa7gnlJo).
Baking's name came up as I scanned the list of nominees. It attracted my attention only because it sounds familiar, having ran across someone in the local Filipino entertainment media who sports the same handle, Jose Baking (pronounced bah-kuhng, not bay-kuhng meaning to bake).
By the accident of his surname he's no. 8 in the alphabetical listing. (See website at: https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/elections/by-election/by-election-candidate-list/)
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City of Toronto Media Relations has issued the following:
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News Release
May 12, 2023
Toronto City Clerk certifies 102 candidates for June 26 by-election for mayor
Toronto City Clerk John D. Elvidge has certified 102 candidates for Toronto’s 2023 by-election for mayor. Advance voting days will run from Thursday, June 8 to Tuesday, June 13 and election day is Monday, June 26.
The official list of candidates is available on the Toronto Elections webpage: www.toronto.ca/city-government/elections/by-election/by-election-candidate-list/
This is the highest number of candidates ever registered for mayor of the amalgamated City of Toronto, surpassing the previous record of 65 candidates in the 2014 municipal election. There were 31 certified candidates for mayor of Toronto in the 2022 municipal election.
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I've been waiting for new updates on that list which included well-known political figures I had a chance meeting personally in news gatherings, such as Olivia Chow, Mark Saunders, and Mitzie Hunter.
(Videos of Ms. Chow at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VeOCxCfa8A and Mr. Sanders at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCrHMWk78zY and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OALpESLeTuY).
Ms. Chow, 66, is a former member of Parliament and widow of former MP Jack Layton; Mr. Saunders, 62, headed Toronto Police as chief; and Ms. Hunter, 51, is an incumbent Member of Provincial Parliament of Ontario.
Based on name recall and their activities in the community, any one of these three people have the best chance of winning. That does not mean, however, that those not in my limited list like Jose Baking are incapable of pulling a miracle.
Right now, I'm still trying to figure out how in hell Jose Baking thought of throwing his hat in the mayoralty race. He must have a base of supporters bigger than the minimum required number of endorsements, which is 25.
I had initially thought that the Jose Baking appearing in the city's list of candidates was just a namesake of Jose Baking, alias Joey, the photographer who markets a Filipino tabloid that publishes seminude photos of nubile models and starlets and engages in yellow journalism.
At the FV Foods store in Scarborough on Friday, however, I saw copies of three other tabloids and took one copy of each. While waiting for my video to finish uploading to YouTube, I browsed the papers and, to my total amazement, found an in-house ad in LM Confidential asking readers to vote for Jose Baking for mayor.
It could be in the imaginary enclave called Little Manila where fraudsters and crooks of all shapes and sizes abound, or somewhere in another planet, perhaps the moon. Oh, that would be sheer lunacy!
Thanks to election authorities, the clarity of his candidacy is provided in the city's list, which confirms he is a candidate for Toronto mayor. Wow, impressive, huh!
Well, I'll give him credit for being a big dreamer and a fantastic one at that. How does Mayor Baking or Mayor Joey sound? Stupendous! I would say. But he wouldn't say why he is running. That's one of eight questions I asked him to answer.
An independent magazine, The Local, is keeping track of all the nominees with its Candidate Tracker, a compilation written by a team of journalists and fact-checkers.
The Local has categorized the candidates into three, namely: one, the notable candidates (total: eleven) that included Chow, Saunders, and Hunter; two, the other candidates (total: 34); and, three, the coming soon (total: six) where Baking tops the list.
The last one is so named perhaps because there's nothing there, not even the slightest information about their person. Coming soon suggests that The Local is giving them a chance to supply them with bits and pieces about them.
I am tempted to say that Baking alias Joey is not a serious candidate. As a comedian, he probably is. Just look at his ad in the accompanying collage. And if he is to be identified as coming from the Filipino community, this whole thing will turn out to be a big joke.
Does he have a ghost of a chance to overcome his rivals? All I can say is good luck. By the way, is he fundraising?
Let's not forget that Toronto, home to more than three million people and North America's fourth largest city, is a global leader in technology, finance, film, music, culture and innovation. Where does Baking's yellow tabloid fit?
Anyway, may Lady Luck smile upon him and bring him the coveted post. (Copyright 2023. All Rights Reserved).
