Hard-nosed Toronto Sun city hall columnist and friend of Estonian Central Council Medal of Merit recipient, the late Bob MacDonald, 52-year-old Sue-Ann Levy has decided to leave the press box and jump into the fray. Levy will contest the provincial riding of St. Paul's in the by-election called for September 17th as the Progressive Conservative candidate.

Levy, who lives (and jogs) in the riding is Jewish, a key St. Paul’s demographic. She has also declared herself gay – another influential riding demographic - and has married her partner, a paramedic.

Levy's uncle is Jeff Lyons, a long time city hall lobbyist, there before the days of Mayor David Miller's socialist "silly hall" (trademark: Sue-Ann Levy) days.

Of all the attributes, however, that Levy wants to rely on most are her MBA and her degree in journalism, as she goes after the governing Liberals.

Levy started at the Toronto Sun covering the education beat, eventually becoming the Sun’s city hall columnist. All along Levy has railed against municipal government’s waste and bloating, pointing out that the city has added 1,200 extra workers in this time of recession. During the CUPE strike she kept on Miller's case, pointing out that the strike finished with no visible winner in sight, just six weeks plus worth of piled garbage.

Levy has declared municipal bloat as a side issue in this by-election: she is a fiscal conservative and has commented on that position for a long time. She sees Premier Dalton McGuinty's Liberal government as not transparent nor responsible as shown by the eHealth scandal and the blended, or harmonized sales tax, this after the Liberals ran on a platform of promising not to raise taxes.

Levy's committee room is on 723 Mt Pleasant Road, just south of Eglinton (and St. Peter's Estonian Lutheran Church). Phone number is 416.848.8199.

The by-election at St. Paul's came open when the sitting member Michael Bryant, former economic development minister became CEO of Toronto's investment promotion arm, "Invest Toronto".

The Liberal candidate is 48-year-old family physician Dr. Eric Hoskins who was policy advisor to Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy and is now President and CFO of charity War Child Canada, which works in Africa. He was defeated in Haldimand- Norfolk in the 2007 federal election.

The New Democrats won't have a candidate declared until after their September 9 nomination meeting.

The Green Party candidate is community activist and realtor Chris Chopik.

More to come, I love an election.

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