John Tory won. Keesmaat lost.

 IN THEIR OWN WORDS

Tory won the Arts Debate – but don’t just take our word for it!

• “The Mayor did what he needs to do to win this election.” – Jim Warren, pundit, on CP24
• “Keesmaat repeatedly diverted the discussion [from the arts]… in an effort to attack Tory.” – CTV News
• “(Jennifer Keesmaat) just committed to doubling the arts funding with no explanation as to how she is going to do that, no explanation about how she is going to pay for any of these things.  I think she forgot for a moment about what debate she was doing.” – Adrienne Batra, Editor-in-Chief of the Toronto Sun, on CP24
• “Jennifer Keesmaat appears to be turning the arts debate into a one-on-one with John Tory. Two arts questions in, and she’s hit affordable housing and smart track. No ideas about the arts just yet.”  –Ron Johnson, Editorial Director of Post City Magazine, on Twitter
• “I like Keesmaat a lot. But why did it take 45 minutes to get to info on her comprehensive arts plan at #artsvoteyyz?…” – Dawn Cattapan on Twitter
• “Jen Keesmaat needs to can her campaign manager. The debate is on the arts, she’s deflecting and still taking jabs at John Tory. Stay on topic Keesmat.” – Craig at PainKillaah on Twitter
• “I have all but tuned out Jen Keesmaat at this point.  [And] I came into this debate thinking she had my vote… [Keesmaat is] way off-topic and very off-putting. Very unfortunate. It shows she only really cares about advancing her mayoral candidacy and not about the issues affecting the people being discussed – the artists in this city.” – HungryPo on Twitter
• “At the very end [Keesmaat] stood up.  That was her chance to shine and have a genuine connection to the voters…[then] she pulled out her notes.  She shouldn’t have to have notes for two minutes to explain your story about why you deserve to be Mayor, and why the other person deserves to lose. That story should have been in the can. She should have rehearsed that. When you’re trying to have that real connection with the voters, it should come from the heart.  Not from your script.” – Jim Warren, pundit, on CP24
• “Yeah, so this debate wasn’t great (maybe not even good) for Keesmaat. Wasted too much time attacking Tory, leaving little time to answer questions…” – Joshua Hind on Twitter
• “Tory fired back and accused Keesmaat of flip-flopping on her support of his SmartTrack plan claiming she supported the idea until she decided to run for Mayor.” – Global News