Curran Stikuts has shown he's not afraid to criticize Chris Moise, but Stikuts' connections to the provincial NDP prevent him from making systemic critiques that really matter. Daniel Tate is great at both.

One expects Curran Stikuts would have been happy last week when the news broke about Chris Moise's chief of staff operating a private business at City Hall. With his hopes set on becoming City Councillor for Toronto Centre, Stikuts needs to unseat Moise and prove himself more fit for the job than his competitors. The news about Moise's chief of staff running ProgressiveNation.ca at City Hall is perfect ammunition for Stikuts, but Stikuts hasn't used it.

Is this because Stikuts didn't hear about the news? Has he been too busy campaigning? Or is there another reason for his silence?

Stikuts knows about the story. He probably is busy campaigning. But I'd suggest Stikuts is in an uncomfortable position right now because of his connections to the NDP, in particular the Toronto-area NDP who are party to the Chris Moise scandal.

As TheGritty.ca disclosed last week, Moise's chief of staff Tyler Johnson operates a private business while collecting a public salary with many City Councillors as clients. Johnson's business partner at ProgressiveNation.ca is Jeff Slater, an NDP executive. Multiple Toronto-area NDP members are Johnson and Slater clients as well, including Krysten Wong Tam who has endorsed Stikuts after previously backing Moise in 2022.

This NDP connection to Chris Moise's chief of staff is what makes both Stikuts and Krysten Wong Tam uncomfortable at the present moment.

If Stikuts were to attack Moise for allowing his chief of staff to run a private business at City Hall while Moise's office also ignores constituents (as Stikuts has previously documented), Stikuts should probably also criticize the provincial NDP members who use Johnson and Slater's business and prevent Johnson from doing a good job as Moise's chief of staff. Johnson is simply too busy as COO of ProgressiveNation to do a proper job as Moise's chief of staff, for which he earns over $100,000. But Stikuts doesn't want to rub the NDP the wrong way, so he is staying silent about the whole situation, letting Moise off the hook on this issue.

Krysten Wong-Tam looks especially foolish right now. In 2022, Krysten Tam Wong endorsed her "good friend" Chris Moise who, she said, is committed to "listening and making life better." But in August of this year, Wong-Tam endorsed Stikuts for Toronto Centre. If she really wanted to help Stikuts now, Wong-Tam would criticize Moise for allowing his chief of staff to run a private business on City time. But if she did that, she would be implicating herself and all her NDP colleagues in the scandal, because they all know Tyler Johnson and have hired him to build their websites.

So Stikuts and Krysten Tam-Wong are keeping quiet even though they should have excellent ammunition to attack Moise with, and Stikuts needs to make up ground in the polls.

Meanwhile, Daniel Tate reacted as one might expect to the news. He immediately denounced Moise and Johnson on social media and pledged to not allow the same to happen if elected to City Council in 2026. Tate's followers on X.com and Instagram agreed.

Daniel Tate has proven he knows how to act swiftly. It's possible that Curran Stikuts has been busy with other things. Hopefully we'll find out soon. Read last week's story about Moise and Johnson here