CLIP
You’re listening to a frequency podcast network production in association with City News.
Joe Fish
Toronto Mayor John Tory is in many ways the opposite to his predecessor Rob Ford. While Ford was boisterous and at times crude, his rain marked by near constant controversy, Tory, by contrast, almost always seems collected, reserved, boring even. He’s sort of your archetypal career politician. Adept at avoiding scandal. And keeping his private life out of the public eye. And after winning a landslide victory to secure a third term in office in the fall, most Torontonians — love him or hate him — expected more of the same. I’m not sure anyone expected this.
CLIP
I recognize that permitting this relationship to develop was a serious error and judgment on my part. Well, I deeply regret having to step away from a job that I love, in a city that I love even more. I believe in my heart it is best to fully commit myself to the work that is required to repair these most important relationships.
Joe
On Friday evening, John Tory announced his intention to step down as mayor of Toronto after an article, and the Toronto Star revealed that he had engaged in a romantic relationship with a former staff member who was at the time his direct subordinate. The scandal has destroyed Tory’s well manicured public image and also caused upheaval throughout the Toronto political landscape. There’s a contentious budget set to be debated in City Council this week, and at the time of this recording there are some strong indications coming from City Hall that Tory may remain in power, at least through the deliberations in terms of the longer term implications here have emerged as the front runners to fill the vacant mayor’s seat. And after a series of slam dunk elections for Tori, the last of which seeing less than 30% voter turnout, could Canada’s biggest city for the first time in almost a decade, see a compelling race?
Joe
I am TBS producer Joe Fish, sitting in for Jordan Heath Rawlings. This is The Big Story. Ben Spurr is a reporter with the Stars City Hall Bureau, and he was part of the team that initially broke the story about Mayor Tory’s affair that ultimately led to his resignation. Ben, I imagine this was a pretty interesting for you.
Ben Spurr
Yeah, it’s been a busy few days for us all at the bureau, for sure.
Joe
Okay, so let’s start there with the investigation. An hour before John Tory announces that he’s resigning as mayor of Toronto. The star publishes an investigation that reveals that he’s been having an affair with a 31 year old former staffer. Can you just to start, tell me a little bit about that investigation, sort of how it began, how long it went on and then it’s sort of ultimate conclusions?
Ben Spurr
So I think, it started, uh, around the end of last year, I think in about December when the Bureau and I should, uh, you know, emphasize here that this was a team effort, uh, led by our Bureau Chief David Rider and, uh, me working with him and our other bureau colleague, Alyshah Hasham. We received some tips about the state of the mayor’s marriage. I’ve just heard that perhaps scene his wife were, were separated or, or there was some problems in the relationship, which we didn’t, you know, really think too much about because you know that that’s not necessarily a big story. It was notable, I think, because the mayor had talked about, you know, how he needed his wife’s blessing to run for reelection in, in last year’s election. And they were something of a kind of political power couple, right? And, and he kind of spoke always with great admiration for her. And then not so long ago they, they recreated their wedding on their 40th wedding anniversary. That started a big story on it. So the fact that they might be, you know, splitting or, or, or there’s some problems. There were a little bit of, of interest to us, but we kind of put that on the back burner. We did notice that the mayor’s wife was not at his, uh, reelection victory party, which, which made us kind of think that there was some truth to, to the rumours. But then there was only about, uh, in the last two weeks or so where we got some harder information about the mayor having a, a, a relationship outside of his marriage. And what really made us take notice was that the, the information that we got was that it was a woman, uh, who had, uh, worked in his office, and that really kind of transferred the story, I think from the realm of, of maybe political gossip to something that’s in the public interest. So we, um, then tried to track down the truth of that we were able to do so. Uh, we put some questions to the mayor. I’m losing track of time, given all that’s happened, less than while. But I think about, uh, uh, two weeks before we published the story, or a week before we published the story, we had sent the mayor’s office some questions. And then, um, the following week we sent some more detailed questions to his, uh, team, and that it was the following day, uh, on Friday, um, that, uh, they sent us, uh, a response in the form of a, a letter from the mayor’s lawyer, which confirmed that this relationship had taken. And we published that story about 7:30 p.m., which was about an hour after we got the letter, and an hour after that the mayor held a press conference and resigned.
Joe
And was that the outcome that you were envisioning or, you know, were you, were you kind of blindsided by the resignation?
Ben Spurr
We’d heard that that was a possibility. To be honest, personally, I was just so kind of intent on making sure we got the story up and did it quickly because we knew we had a limited amount of time before the mayor would speak publicly about it. So we wanted to make sure we had the story done accurately and responsibly and, and that we could put it out there. After that, um, you know, I wasn’t really thinking too much beyond what was gonna happen, and then, you know, just an hour later he did resign. It was surprising in some ways and, and not in others. Like, the things kind of moved pretty quickly in some ways in terms of after our, we published it was very kind of bang bang. But, you know, the mayor had known about the story for a while. He had some time to think about it, and other politicians you could see really kind of toughen it out, try to deny everything or, or try to just plow through. But John Tory’s really not that kind of a mayor, and I don’t think really that kind of person, you couldn’t really envision him having to field questions about his personal life for the next couple weeks. He’s built this reputation on being a very upstanding, um, and kind of buttoned down guy who, who’s not gonna let his personal life intrude on his public duties. And with this story that kind of blew that reputation out of the water. So, you know, the idea that he would kind of try to get through it, I don’t think that is really consistent with his character. So in that way it wasn’t completely surprising.
Joe
Right. Yeah. I kind of wanna delve into that for a second because, you know, as someone who’s spent most of my life in this city and lived through the Rob Ford years, and this seems to be a common refrain, you know, people saying, Well, you know, we saw, we watched Rob Ford kind of truck through and sidestep scandals that at least on their surface, you know, were arguably worse than this. Open drug use, allegations of serious corruption. And I think a lot of people are thinking, okay, yeah, this is, this is bad. There’s obviously the problematic power imbalance between Tory and the staffer. You know, I guess I’m just, what I’m getting at is why do you think Tory felt that he wasn’t able to weather this storm and continue on as mayor?
Ben Spurr
Well, yeah, I think a couple things, right? I think we can, uh, look at what he said in that press conference and if you take that at face value, you know, he said that he’s always been of the belief that the mayor’s office shouldn’t be tarnished by scandal. And he didn’t want to kind of, you know, sully the office by dragging it through that. And I think we can believe that, I think to, to a large extent, right? Because his whole sort of political raison d’être, so to speak, right, was to come in after the Rob Ford years pledging to provide stability and stability at City Hall. So, you know, I think, I think, uh, he probably, as he said, he just didn’t wanna put the office and the city government through that. He also said that he wanted to take some time to try to rebuild the relationships in his family. Uh, you know, I think we can also probably take that at face value, right? Must be a really tough personal time for him and his wife, and his children and, and the wider family. And you could see him wanting to devote some time to that to help kind of fix those relationships. And so I, I think those things do go a long way to explaining what happened here.
Joe
Right. And just, you know, about the investigation. Are there any sort of outstanding questions that, that you or, you know, the city are waiting on, like to your mind?
Ben Spurr
Yeah, I think, you know, when we decided to publish this story, the reason why we thought it was in the public interest was one, you know, I think we have a greater understanding, um, in, in the post, you know, MeToo era about the nature of relationships when there is a significant power imbalance. You know, this is an instance where, uh, a man who is the most powerful politician in the city was in a relationship with one of his staffers who he had the ability, you know, to, to hire and fire and, and all those kind of things. So the extent to which it could be, you know, completely consensual, I think is a matter for debate. And I think any details, um, about the nature of the relationship that would help sort out some of those issues I think are important. Um, the other reason we think this is in the public interest is just to understand that it could had potential ramifications on the operation of his office. If there was any kind of misuse of the office in any way to further this relationship. We know that this person that did travel with him on several occasions on, on publicly funded trips, uh, it’s not quite clear if the relationship had started at that point or what status was there. So I don’t wanna make any insinuations but we would like to kind of better understand things like that.
Joe
And if he were to sort of step back, uh, the person who would probably take his place would be Jennifer McKelvie, current Deputy Mayor of Toronto. What do we know about her and what she’s about?
Ben Spurr
Yeah. Well, she is a, this is her second term, uh, in office at City Hall. She’s a Scarborough, uh, councillor represents Scarborough Rouge River in the east part of the city. She’s, I think, not a, not a super controversial figure or anything like that. She has the mayor’s backing, of course, even before this, um, by, by training. She’s in an environmental geoscientist. She’s, uh, yeah, not known for causing a big stir at city Hall. I think if she were to take over, she’s already said that she wouldn’t, she’s not running to, or at least put people close to her have told media, she’s not gonna run to replace the mayor. So if she, it does take over the job, we can expect her to probably just, you know, try to be an even hand on the tiller until a by-election is held.
Joe
Right. Just sort of tow the line kind of thing.
Ben Spurr
Yeah, I think just try to not rock the boat until a permanent mayor can be elected.
Joe
One thing I was wondering about is, obviously, you know, I alluded before to Tory and these new strong powers that he has. I believe now his vote can defeat anything less than two thirds of a majority in city council. Do I have that exactly right?
Ben Spurr
Yeah. On specific items, but particularly on the budget.
Joe
Right. So now would those, do we have any sense of whether or not those powers would be transferred to McKelvie in her interim role?
Ben Spurr
So, there is some confusion around that. When we talked to municipal law experts who looked at the, the legislation on the books, they said that those powers would transfer, uh, to the interim mayor, uh, the province who drafted that legislation said that they wouldn’t, so it, it, it is confusing generally on these things, what the province says goes. In the sense that they have the ability to craft legislation and amend it, even if it, you know, they have the, the final say here. But yeah, it is a, a bit of a confusing situation. We are in, uh, my colleagues who are journalists, but also, you know, city councillors and staff at City Hall are waiting for some, like, clarification from the city about what exactly happens now, what the procedure is, and you know who, who is in charge and how much power that they have. It is a pretty, um, tumultuous and uncertain situation at the moment.
Joe
Right. Which is exactly what we needed as a city right now.
Ben Spurr
Yeah, exactly.
Joe
So this means that Toronto could see an election in the near future — is it 60 days?
Ben Spurr
Yeah, I think there’s, I’ll have to check the, the bylaws again, but I believe, uh, after the council declares the mayor seat vacant, they have to call a by-election. But I believe there, there has to be a nomination period first and then, uh, a period of up to 60 days to actually run the election. So I think we’re looking at probably somewhere around May is the, the best information we have at the moment.
Joe
Gotcha. So, I know it’s, it’s very early days to be talking about this, but who’s emerged as the sort of most likely candidates to succeed Tory?
Ben Spurr
Yeah. We think that there are gonna be a good number of them. Um, you know, in the last election in, in October, not a lot of people ran because John Tory was seen as such an unbeatable candidate that people were just gonna wait until he was outta the picture to try their luck. Um, this time around, uh, we could see a lot of of people entering the race, especially because city councillors if running in a by-election, our understanding is they don’t have to, uh, vacate their currency seat. They get to keep their seat running an election. If they lose, they just go back to their old job. So the, the bar is, is lower. So yeah, we’re expecting a lot of councillors to be testing the waters. We know, uh, the mayor’s kind of biggest name opponent last time around was a, an urbanist named Gil Penalosa. He’s already said he will run. We’re expecting some councillors like Josh Matlow to enter the race. Former Deputy Mayor Ana Bailao is also a name out there, former councillor who is considered a favourite to run at one time, Joe Cressy, he said he won’t run. We are kind of looking to see who the conservative establishment in Toronto rallies around those. Most of those people I mentioned were more on the left. So we are waiting to see if there’s a, a kind of a conservative candidate that that gets put up. You know, we are hearing potentially people dropping in from the provincial level, like Stan Cho, who’s a PC MPP, um, in, uh, you know, Toronto municipal election. You can never count out a Ford, uh, right. Michael Ford, the mayor’s nephew, the former mayor’s nephew could be, uh, put in the race as well. So yeah, it’s still early days. A lot of, I think, discussion and kind of negotiating behind the scenes is happening.
Joe
Right. It’s gonna be, it’s gonna be interesting. I mean, you know, we spoke to your colleague David Rider four months ago in the lead up to Toronto’s municipal election. And I gotta say it wasn’t the most compelling race. I mean, I think from the jump it was clear Tory was gonna take it. Tory took it. Do you foresee this election being a bit more contentious, a bit more interesting?
Ben Spurr
It, it will be definitely more contentious. I think that’s safe to say. Uh, and, and yeah, and from that perspective, more, more interesting. I think, you know, the mayor’s critics will say that this is an opportunity for a bit of a reset. You know, I think the, the knock on, on the mayor for all his strengths of kind of being a, a capable manager and, and uh, kind of being able to unite different factions of the city and different council, his critics considered him, you know, not bold enough. Particularly to, uh, meet some of the huge challenges the city is facing in terms of a housing crisis. Uh, you know, a, uh, still the, the hangover of covid with transit ridership way down the, the downtown being empty most, uh, weekdays. So, you know, this is a chance for someone new to come in. AndI think to the extent that people will hopefully be more engaged in this election than the last one. I think that that is a good.
Joe
And maybe that’s sort of a silver lining to this whole thing possibly?
Ben Spurr
Yeah. I mean the other interesting thing is that there were some signs that John Tory was kind of starting to take some more bold steps, right? I was just on on another panel with former mayor candidate, Jennifer Keesmaat, who’s a former city planner. She said that the housing plan that he introduced just a few weeks ago was, was really good and positive and kind of the thing that Citi needs. He’d also pledged to go out and launch a national campaign to win a, a new fiscal framework for, for municipalities to give them more stable funding over the long term, which is something that a lot of people who pay attention to municipal politics are saying have been needed for a long time. So it did sort of look like he was going to take a different tack in his third term. But, uh, if he does follow through on his resignation, that has all kind of been cut short.
Joe
Right. I wanna talk about some of those ambitious plans because a lot of that was sort of unlocked by these strong mayor powers that were given to mayor Tory by the province. I guess you can only speculate on this, but is there any word on whether Doug Ford is kicking himself now that these strong mayor powers could end up in the hands of somebody like aJosh Matlow or a Gil Penalosa?
Ben Spurr
Yeah, the thing with these strong mayor powers, that was always I think a bit, you know, curious to many of us was that while they were strong mayor powers in name, there was a kind of an asterisk to them. Which is that the legislation was written in a way that says that the mayor can only, um, exercise them if to further provincial priorities.
So kind of gave the powers in relation to the rest of city council. But it meant that he was on a pretty short leash when it comes to the province. So if, if someone on the left were to, to win, uh, the mayoralty, um, you could see him or her not being able to really wield these powers in a way that they want to because the province could just say, well, the, what you’re trying to do doesn’t align with our priorities so these powers don’t apply.
Joe
Another layer of complexity.
Ben Spurr
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And it just, it, it is really notable, I think, because, you know, John Tory asked for these stronger powers, uh, as some of the more extreme ones. And I think he was granted them and, and because he’s John Tory, because he’s, he’s such a kind of predictable and, and steady hand that, uh, the province was able to give those powers to him without any kind of fear of, uh, someone like his predecessor acting, you know, really irresponsibly with them. So it’s just kind of ironic, I guess, said months later, the mayor who advocated for those strong mayor powers looks like he’s no longer going to be the mayor. ‘
Joe
One thing I was wondering is, you know, Tori obviously stepping down after this scandal, but I gotta imagine, I mean, he took 60% of the vote in the last election. He’s got so many supporters in the city who still like him. I mean, I wonder if this next election is just gonna come down to who he throws his weight behind?
Ben Spurr
It’s possible. Yeah. You know, it, it’s, it’s tough to, to tell. I think it’d be really interesting to see how involved he wants to be. If, if he does resign, you know, does he want to wade back into politics and try to one of his favourite candidates in. And it’s kind of interesting to, to think about whether or not his, you know, political popularity is transferrable, right? You know, I think, uh, so much of what people liked about him, About his own kind of personality and the way that he approached the job. But I don’t think, unlike, you know, people like Rob Ford, there’s not like a whole lot of sort of mania or like, uh, you know, real kind of fanaticism around John Tory’s political brand, which, you know, to be frank is kind of boring as a political figure. So whether or not he could say, energize anyone by saying, this is my favourite candidate and, and really tip the scales, I think remains to.
Joe
Okay. So, you know, the thing I want to ask you to finish off is more of a sort of big picture question. This all comes at a bit of a, what I see as kind of an inflection point for the city. You know, just to name a few issues, we’re dealing with the skyrocketing cost of housing, we’ve got a worsening problem with homelessness across the city, there are concerns over the safety and reliability of the transit system, decrease in quality and scope of civic services. This is just to name a few. You know, as somebody who’s spent his career and who makes his living covering municipal politics — is there one sort of area of civic life that you’re gonna be watching most closely to see sort of what changes in the post Tory? .
Ben Spurr
I think just, you know, the city is facing huge challenge. Financially or maybe some of the pressing ones, like this budget that’s going to council this week has a whole of about a billion dollars in it because of covid effects and the mayor was hoping to try to secure that funding from other levels of government. So I think just in the near term, I’m just trying to understand how the city’s going to pay for itself over the next little while. And then whoever comes into the mayor’s job is going to have to take a, a close look at that. But I do think, yeah, on a more broader level, again, I think, Tory was someone who in the mayor’s job often wanted to bring people together to kind of get broad support for policies. And that was good for not causing a lot of controversy at City Hall, but I think the, the drawback was that the kind of bolder, uh, policy options were often not really on the table because they would be contentious. And so I think it will be interesting to see whether the, whoever has the mayor’s job in a couple months, if they take that same approach of trying to unite people and trying to, you know, advance more moderate policies that have broad support to address some of the challenges that the city’s facing or if they’ll take more kind of, you know, um, bolder extreme or more, more radical and divisive actions to try to deal with some of these issues.
Joe
Ben, thanks so much for joining us today and walking us through this. I guess it’s safe to say interesting times ahead.
Ben Spurr
Yeah, for sure. Thank you very much for having me.
Joe
Ben Spurr reporter with The Stars City Hall Bureau. That was The Big Story. For more head to the Big Story podcast. Find us on Twitter at the Big Story FPN. If you have strong feelings about Mayor Tory and his decision to resign, please send us an email about it at hello the bigstorypodcast.ca. You can also send ideas for stories there. We’re always appreciative. When you do, you can also call us and leave us a voicemail at 416-935-5935. We’re available in every single podcast player and on every smart speaker. You just need to ask your smart speaker to play the Big Story podcast. Thanks for listening. I’m Joe Fish tomorrow and through to the weekend, Donovan Bennett will be sitting in the host’s seat, so be sure to tune in because we’ve got some great stories coming your way.
Back to top of page