John Tory kicked off the first door-to-door canvas of his re-election campaign on Saturday morning with a shot at his political rivals, telling a group of volunteers that there are people at city hall “who “find it fun” to “polarize and politic.”

Tory and about 100 volunteers went door-to-door in the city’s Deer Park neighbourhood for several hours on Saturday but beforehand Tory took a moment to address his team about his hopes and goals for the city and the importance of working to ensure that “a sensible, rational” council is elected to help him “move the city forward.”

“There are people at city hall who just want to polarize, who just want to politic, who just want to do that because in some cases I think they just really enjoy it. They find it fun. But you know that kind of fun doesn’t move the city forward,” he said.

Tory told his volunteers that he would work "just as hard” in a second term as in his first and would continue to be “steady, rational and prudent” in how he approaches city business.

He said that while he remains committed to getting transit built, he is often frustrated by people who try to “undermine” his agenda at city hall.

Numerous members of council, most notably Josh Matlow, have previously criticized Tory for pushing ahead with a planned one-stop subway extension into Scarborough rather than reverting to a previously approved plan for a seven-stop light rail transit line. The one-stop subway extension is estimated to cost $3.35 billion, though the price could rise as additional design work is completed.

“We have a transit plan now, it was approved by the city council, we did a lot of work to get it approved and then funded by the other levels of government but there are people who continue to this day to try to undermine, to try to stop, to try to change and to try to re-debate and restudy the transit plan because they just can’t give up until they have things their own way,” Tory said. “I think the people of Toronto don’t want to go back to that kind of leadership. They want to move forward, get the transit built, get the plan implemented and actually have the transit to ride on before too long.”

Tory is currently one of 12 candidates registered to run for mayor, though he is the only one currently on council.

He said that if given a second term he would continue to provide “steady leadership” while focusing on important issues like transit, affordable housing and attracting jobs to the city.

“I have tried to provide steady leadership so whether it is on a day-to-day basis at city hall or when crisis hits the city, we have responsible leadership that people know is going to speak responsibility, act responsibly and that isn’t hung up on taking the city to the left or the right. That stuff to me has nothing to do with building a great city,” he said.

Tory’s mayoral campaign has already raised about $1 million.

The municipal election will be held on Oct. 22.