🔭 PLATFORM VIEW: Mark Saunders’ plan to create new dog parks to keep dogs from peeing and pooping on schoolyards.

🔗 LINK: marksaundersfortoronto.ca/news/new-dog-…

🔧 DOABLE? Sure?

💰 COSTED? No. Of course not.

✨ OVERALL: ⭐️½ ( 1.5 out of five)

Look, I’ll level with you: I’m giving this plan a full star just because I think Mark Saunders’ dog is cute.

I have to assume that was basically the whole point here. The campaign team wanted to soften Saunders’ image by showing him cuddling with his dog, Copper. Because as policies go, this is pretty thin.

“It’s simple: kids shouldn’t have to play in the same place where a dog has peed – or worse yet, where an owner hasn’t picked up after their dog,” says Saunders, before pitching to “create new off-leash spaces for people to take their dogs. Nearby residents will be consulted if there are any perceived impacts to their current environment.”

This, he says, will ensure dog owners do not let their dogs run loose on school properties, because they’ll just take their pooches to the new dog parks.

I am not convinced that’s necessarily true — some people are always going to be inconsiderate. But sure, more off-leash dog parks would almost certainly help, but to get to the point where most people have an off-leash park as close to their home as they do a school is a very tall order.

It’s not going to be cheap, in other words. And Saunders has offered literally zero notion as to how the city should pay to build more dog parks. They are not free and dogs do not pay taxes. The money has got to come from somewhere.

But not offering any costing with his plans is a hallmark of this whole Saunders campaign. He’s a frustratingly vague candidate. But, well, at least one thing is clear: his dog is cute.

PLATFORM VIEW is a daily(ish) feature by City Hall Watcher on Substack Notes. Got a request for a candidate policy proposal I should review? Let me know.