Will Canada’s largest city take a hard left turn?

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Jordan Heath Rawlings For the past 13 years, Toronto has been run by conservatives. First by a loud and proud one, infamous Mayor Rob Ford. Then by a quieter and more boring one in John Tory who tacked more towards the centre. But in the end, left office in scandal, just like his predecessor, creating a by-election, which takes place Monday. And if the polls are to be believed, Toronto’s next mayor will be absolutely nothing like the men who came before her.

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Jordan Heath Rawlings Olivia Chow has as many progressive left-wing bonafides as any career politician and activist. She was an NDP MP, married of course to former NDP leader Jack Layton, and has a long history of sitting as a leftist city counselor and fighting for progressive causes. She is running on a platform of spending to make the city better, which will require yes, raising taxes. And she won’t say exactly how much she’d raised them by, which, as you might imagine, does not go over well with her opponents and their supporters. But somehow she is poised to win in a landslide again, if you believe the polls. So what’s changed in Toronto and with Olivia Chow since she ran for this job in 2014 and finished a dismal third. Is this race all but over? Or could this weekend or election day see a surge for one of the many candidates chasing her? What happens if it is over? And Canada’s largest city takes a hard left turn.

I’m Jordan Heath Rawlings. This is The Big Story. Ben Spurr is a reporter with the Toronto Stars City Hall Bureau who has been covering this mayoral election. Hello, Ben.

Benn Spurr Hi, Jordan. Thanks for having me.

Jordan Heath Rawlings You’re most welcome. When we first covered, the first and only episode we did about this race was before the filing deadline when we weren’t sure how many candidates would actually run for mayor, and the feeling then was that the race was wide open. How has that turned out?

Benn Spurr It’s looking a little less wide open now for the past several weeks, all the polls have been telling a, a similar story that Olivia Chow, the former, NDP MP, has a pretty healthy, lead. And it’s, it’s hasn’t really wavered much. There’s been some movement. And who’s second, third, and fourth place, but, she’s been out in front since she basically entered the race and hasn’t dipped and so with a couple days to go. She, is out ahead and it’s like her election to lose.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Was that popularity expected when she joined the race? I recall a lot of people who, probably now support her cuz they’re very progressive, not wanting her to get into this race.

Benn Spurr Yeah, I think she ran in 2014 and had what is widely considered a pretty disastrous campaign. She, she started as the front runner and then faded really badly over the course of the campaign and, and came in a disappointing third to Doug Ford and, the winner John Tory. So I think when she entered, there were fears among Toronto’s progressive leaning voters that, that she might have a similar trajectory. And I think there was also just some consternation that there wasn’t another candidate who could take up that progressive standard right? It’s been, you know, nine years since she last ran. A lot has happened at City Hall since then. And there have been some pretty well-known and broadly popular, left-leaning counselors at City Hall, the likes of Joe Cressey and Mike Layton, who I think many people did expect to, to get into the race. Who were kind of, mayoral candidates in, in waiting over the last couple years. But, they both opted to, to not enter the race. And so it, it kinda left a dearth of, of young, you know, political talents, so to speak. So I think there was some maybe disappointment that they kind of old guard of Olivia Chow what was coming into the race, to take up that progressive banner. And, for people who wanted a, a left wing mayor elected, there was some fears that, you know, her campaign would turn out like her 2014, one did.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Well, it obviously hasn’t and the city votes on Monday. You mentioned it’s her race to lose and you know there’s 2, 3, 4 sort of well behind. Maybe just give us the top four if you can, and the rough poll numbers. I know that there are a million polls out there and they kind of each seem to fluctuate a little bit.

Benn Spurr Yeah. So behind her, her, there, there’s been some conflicting poll results, but the, the aggregate of the polls shows that at the moment at least, Mark Saunders, the former police chief of Toronto, is, around second place with about 15% of, of the support of decided voters compared to Chow, who’s, at above 30% below Saunders is, Anna Bailão, a former city councillor and one of John Tory’s deputy Mayors. Below her is, Josh Matlow, who is a current city counselor, who is also a progressive, running a progressive campaign, but is, kind of an independent progressive, as opposed to Olivia Chao who has the advantage of being able to plug into this kind of NDP apparatus in Toronto to right to help her campaign.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Do we know what’s different about her campaign this time? as you say, the 2014 campaign, I mean, I, I remember that race. It was pretty disastrous. She faded very quickly. What’s different, what’s her message being to voters this time?

Benn Spurr Well, what, what’s different this time is you know, she was asked about right, right from the bat, right when she got in the race about, you know, what she would do differently. She said that she, in 2014 was self-conscious about herself, particularly her English skills. English isn’t her her first language and so she said that she ran that campaign by relying on on notes and written speeches and didn’t really speak off the cuff. And so she said that this time around she was gonna be more authentic, I guess, and just kind of talk directly to voters. And that’s one thing she’s done. But I think other ways you can see that she, perhaps she’s learned from, from 2014, is that one thing is she entered the race late, she entered it, in, in mid-April after, most of the other leading candidates were already in. So if you’re worried about your campaign fading, over time, as, as her one in 2014 did, getting into the race late, maybe inoculates you a bit from that, maybe it gives you less time for, to get attacked by opponents. And, less time for your support to kind of dwindle. And she also, in 2014, she took a lot of flack from, from the, the left in Toronto for out of the gate, promising to not raise taxes above the rate of inflation, which is kind of conservative or centrist tactic that, mayor Tory and of course before him, Rob Ford, ran on successfully. But, that seemed to kind of hamster in her campaign or sort of kinda undermined her progressive credentials. I guess because she couldn’t really talk a lot about investing heavily in city services when she was also saying that, you know, tax revenue is basically not gonna increase. So I think, this time around, she has not said she won’t raise tax rates above the rate of inflation. She’s, she’s not actually specified what her tax increase would be, and she’s taken a lot of heat from her opponents on that. But that has given her some wiggle room to kind paint herself, not just as another middle candidate, but as someone who might, you know, raise city revenue to, to improve, services, which a lot of people are unsatisfied with in Toronto right now.

Jordan Heath Rawlings I was gonna ask this later, but since you just touched on it, I’ll ask it now. One of the biggest criticisms I’ve seen, of Olivia Chow is that, she hasn’t provided much in the way of specifics at all. What do we know about what her vision for Toronto is? What, what actual policies she would plan to enact, were she’d win this thing.

Benn Spurr She wants the city to get more directly involved in, housing construction. The, the approach, of the previous administrations has largely been to make it easier for the private sector to build housing. She says she wants the city to get directly involved again in affordable housing for people. She said she would raise property taxes by a modest amount, but also would, increase the tax on vacant properties. Would introduce a new higher tax rate on the transfer of mansions. Basically a mansion tax. She said like the sales of homes, over 2 million. She would, increase the tax on that. She also wants to reverse TTC service cuts, which, have, come into effect recently and upset a lot of, transit users. So those are some of the broad strokes of her policy, but you’re certainly correct that some of her opponents, notably Josh Matlow and Mitzie Hunter, the former, Scarborough, MPP for the Liberal Party haven’t, released really detailed platforms, you know, really crunch the numbers on their plans. Mitzie Hunter has been fond of waving her booklet of her, her platform around debates. Olivia Chow has not provided that level of specificity, to be sure.

Jordan Heath Rawlings What about on the right? One of the things that has surprised me about this race is that support on that side has not really consolidated around any one person. Why is that? What are the options there and, and how have their campaigns gone?

Benn Spurr Kinda headed into the race, the, the strongest conservative, candidate appeared to be Mark Saunders, who is the former police chief. He was here from 2015 to 2020, and he ran for the Ontario PC party last year. He is a conservative with, with ties to, to Doug Ford. A lot of, Saunders campaign team, has links to, to Ford and his party. And so he seemed like the person who was going to provide the counterbalance, I guess, to, to Olivia Chow and be the, the strong conservative candidate. This campaign hasn’t really taken off and, and in recent weeks it’s really been, I think, undermined by the, rise in the polls of, of a candidate who I don’t think many people thought was gonna have much of an impact at all on this race. It was Anthony Fury, a former Toronto Sun columnist who, is, on leave from his job as, an executive at at a right wing media site. And he’s, come in and I think released a lot of, kinda eye, eye-catching proposals and controversial ones as well. But he sort of seems to be the kind of, you know, unadulterated conservative in a way that Saunders is, is not. You know, Saunders, I think, is, you know, he says that he’s, he’s not an insider, but he’s been around politics for a little while at this point and kind of talks like a politician. Anthony Fury’s, I think a bit more direct in his approach and, and kind of blunt and talking about things like clearing homeless encampments from parks and, and kind of raising the fears, I think it’s fair to say over, you know, safe injection sites and, and, harm reduction drug policies and that kinda thing. And I think that his message is resonated in a way that Saunders hasn’t. I think he just sort of reads as a more authentic conservative to a lot of voters. And so he’s kind of shot up the polls. Not, not to a huge degree. He’s maybe around 10%, but I think he’s eating into to Saunders, support and making it really difficult for the former police chief to catch up with Olivia Chow.

Jordan Heath Rawlings And what about in the middle of the political spectrum? I mean, this is, the territory John Tory was frankly famous for right? And certainly based on, I guess outside impressions of Toronto as a kind of milk toast political city, seems like a lane that somebody should be occupying well.

Benn Spurr Yeah. And so the, the kind of, the person to occupy that lane, and to some extent I think Tory’s air apparent, who has been Anna Bãilao, who was one of one of tour’s deputy mayors and, and is political liberal and very much kind of wants to pitch herself as a middle of the road, kind of moderate person who can get along with, different levels of government and with business and labor and, and get things done very much in the mold of John Torry. You also have, Mitzie Hunter who until, a couple weeks ago who was the liberal MPP, and so you would maybe paint her as a centrist, but she’s ran a pretty progressive campaign that, that’s quite similar to Chow’s and Matlow’s in some ways. And then there’s also, Brad Bradford, who on council, has been more of a centrist. His campaign is, is a bit more right wing than his council record. So there’s sort of three candidates in there that are all kind of fighting out for the, for the middle. And none of them have, really been able to, to rise above the rest of the pack.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Before we move on to, election night and the days after, if indeed, Chow holds onto her lead, is there any sense that something could still shift? Is this a situation where either Fury or Saunders who you know collectively, might have close to the numbers that Chow does, or, you know, candidates in, in the centre could unite and tell their supporters to vote strategically and, make a dent in Olivia? Was everybody just still out for themselves?

Benn Spurr Yeah, I think if we were gonna see that the kind of rallying around a single candidate to, to block Chow, it would’ve happened a while ago. At this point with, you know, about four days till election day. It, that’s leaving it very late. Yeah. And, and it likely wouldn’t have an impact. I think it’s just not enough time to get a message out to voters to shift their support to somewhere else. And I think that’s, at the best of times, it’s a questionable strategy. I’m not sure how effective that is, but I, I actually reported on this, last weekend. And did kind of try to get behind the scenes a bit as to conversations, about that. There, there have been actually conversations between the campaigns, about potentially dropping out to try to block Chow. But, because, all the kind of trailing candidates are all sort of tangled up, with, you know, somewhere between, you know, 8-14% of support. It’s really hard for any of them to make the strong case that they’re the one who, can, can go and be Chow. Fury has shown no interest at all for instance, in dropping out and throwing his support behind Saunders in Fury says that he’s the one who has momentum. He’s been rising in the polls, whereas, Saunders is flat. So he says that if anyone should drop out, basically it should be Saunders dropping out to support him. So there’s just no kind of clear, anyone but Chow candidate. So even though those conversations I think did kind of happen informally and people did test the waters, just, it doesn’t look like, it’s gonna happen. And certainly I think not at this, late date.

Jordan Heath Rawlings What about a surprise on election night itself? And I don’t mean, somebody magically running away with this thing, but I know from covering the last election that turnout was at an all time low. Like it was, it was abysmal. If that happens again, is there a chance something shift? And what do we know so far about, about what turnout might likely be?

Benn Spurr This is, I feel this is kinda a nerdy interest of mine, I guess, but like I, I’m really interested about what the turnout will be in this election. Because I think there are a lot of different kind of conflicting factors that could push it either higher than, than last abysmal turnout, as you say, or, or actually depressed it lower. Generally by elections are notoriously, low turnout, right? But the reason for that is usually that at the provincial and federal levels, a by-election has no chance of affecting the government, right? It’s just one seed changing out of outta hundreds or dozens at least. But at, at this point, whoever wins this, by-election will actually control city government or be the head of it. So it’s not quite clear whether that by-election effect will take place. But there’s also just issues like, you know, there’s no council races going on with the mayor’s race this time, usually in a municipal election that you are also running simultaneous elections for, for local wards. So in one sense, that could kind of focus people’s attention on the mayor’s race. And maybe make them tune in a bit more cuz there’s less names out there and kinda less conflicting campaigns and that, that kind of thing. So you could see that boosting turnout. But at the same time, in a normal municipal election, you have all those council candidates going door to door, trying to pull the vote on election day and get them to the polls where they also vote for mayor. So that’s not happening this time. But to your point about a low turnout perhaps, like affecting the race, I, I don’t know that it would kind of throw up a surprise in terms of who wins, but I think the turnout will have an important effect potentially on the winner’s ability to actually govern. Right? If, Olivia Chow, for instance, at the moment is pulling at, at about 30%, that’s lower than, the last couple elections the mayor has won with. And, and if turnout’s very low as well, then she would, or whoever wins, could be elected with a, a pretty small percentage of eligible voters in Toronto. And that would make it difficult, presumably for the mayor to go to other levels of government, for instance, and, and push their agenda. This city has a huge funding issue right now. It needs help from the provincial and federal governments. A and if, the mayor, you know, doesn’t have the backing of a wide swath of Toronto voters, it kinda makes their leverage with other levels of government, weaker presumably.

Jordan Heath Rawlings I know for people who casually follow, Ontario politics, one of the biggest issues of the past couple of years has been the relationship between, the City of Toronto and the Province of Ontario, led by Premier Doug Ford. Ford came out pretty hard against Olivia Chow, just a day or so ago. What did he say about her and what, if anything has she said about potentially working with him, if she wins, do they have any history?

Benn Spurr Yeah, so he, Ford came out, just yesterday and, and said that, his Chow being elected would be an absolute disaster for the city, saying that she would hike taxes, make life more unaffordable for residents, drive out businesses. Basically, you know, caused the collapse of the, the local economy.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Scorched earth.

Benn Spurr Yeah, pretty much. You know, one of the more notable moments of this campaign actually, you, you have seen all the candidates, at various points, most of them at least, take shots at the premier. But, at an editorial board meeting with, the star, Olivia Chow was asked about this and I found her response really interesting that she said she was asked how she would work with the premier, and, she said that, you know what, Doug Ford loves Toronto too. He, he wants the city to succeed. He doesn’t always express it in a way that I agree with, but no, he, he wants Toronto to, to be a good and successful place to live. And I thought that was really kind of conciliatory, in a way that some of the other candidates have not been about Doug Ford. And of course, Doug Ford has not, as of yesterday at least been towards her. And what is notable is that divided as Ford and Chow might be politically they do have a bit of a personal history. Rob Ford, the premier’s brother, sat next to Jack Layton. Olivia Chow’s, late husband on council. And they were kind of an odd couple in a way. They, they were friendly to each other. Layton was, really kind of helped out Rob Ford when he was new on council, just kind of learned the ropes a little bit. And Rob Ford had a lot of, you know, positive things to say about Jack Layton. And, of course when Jack Layton died, Rob Ford expressed his condolences to Olivia Chow. And when, Rob Ford also died of cancer a couple years ago, our understanding is Olivia Chow, you know, reached out to Doug Ford and his family and, and was, you know, to express her consultant condolences. So there are kind family ties there, and, and a bit of a personal relationship that, might help them work together despite how, you know, far apart they are on the political spectrum.

Jordan Heath Rawlings In terms of working together, or I guess just in terms of the dynamic, no matter, who is elected, really. The province, I believe, and you might need to sort of explain this to me, recently granted strong Mayor powers, to whoever is the Toronto mayor. What does that mean for whomever takes office, after this election and even in terms of their working relationship with the province? I know one of the, big items in this campaign has been the province’s desire to change the green belt or move the science center, do those kind of things, where do those powers come in, in that situation? Or is that just strictly a, like a council level only power?

Benn Spurr Yeah, so the strong mayor powers, which were introduced last year, give the whoever’s mayor of Toronto, some pretty extraordinary abilities. The, the most controversial one is that, the mayor can pass certain measures through council with the support of just one third of council members, which a lot of critics say is undemocratic. He or she can also introduce the budgets, on their own can, can pass certain, budget measures, the mayor can veto, council. And then council has the ability to overturn that veto with two thirds, support. So the mayor does have some authorities, whoever is elected on Monday. The, the caveat though is the province, when they introduced those powers, kinda put in this safety valve, to some extent that a lot of people thought was odd and does not exist in other strong mayor systems in the United States, for instance, which is that the mayor can only use those authorities like passing a measure with one third of supportive counsel to advance an issue that is, a provincial priority. So you couldn’t see a mayor coming in and having an agenda completely opposed to the conservative provincial agenda and kind of ramming a bunch of things through council with less than one-third support. So the, the kind, the mayor is, you know, a strong mayor in relation to council, but is on a short leash in relation to the provincial government. And when it comes to other issues like moving Ontario Place or, or the Green Belt and that kind of thing, whoever’s mayor has, has basically no ability to interfere in some of those issues.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Hasn’t stopped them from yelling about it though.

Benn Spurr Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And, and you’ve seen the candidates this election use, you know, voter antipathy towards those plans to, to kinda take a run at, at, Doug Ford and his government and hope of boosting their support. But whoever gets into office has limited abilities, to actually change the province’s plans on those kind of things. As the, the, the phrase is, you know, banded around City Hall, that the city is a creature of the province. It doesn’t have the ability to overrule on most important issues.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Just to make sure, I’m explaining the strong mayor powers right. This would mean that, if say Mayor Chow was going to attempt to I don’t know, build a, build a ton of public housing, she could not do it with one third of counsel unless, premier Ford approved. But she’s could still pass it the traditional way with a majority of council?

Benn Spurr Yes. Yes, that’s right. And, and just to get into the weeds, I guess, where I things will get really interesting is that the province has like officially designated building more housing as a priority that these rules apply to. But you know, the province hasn’t shown much support for the government actually getting directly involved in building a new affordable housing, for instance. So if Olivia Chow was elected mayor and tried to advance that and try to apply the strong mayor powers to that, then that would be, I think, interesting to see how the province would react. I think important to note actually, that Olivia Chow, along with other candidates like, Josh Matlow, Mitziee Hunter has said that they won’t use the strong mayor powers, even though they have them available to them. They believe that they’re undemocratic and say that they would work with counsel to advance their agenda and not, use these, new authorities to ram their agenda through.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Last question, kind of a two-parter. First, what will you be watching for between now and when the winner is decided on Monday night to get a sense of if this thing is really over and second, if it is really over and Chow holds her lead, what will you be watching for first, to see what she does or prioritizes?

Benn Spurr Yeah, I think what we’re watching for between now and election day, is whether or not there’s anything that could, you know, dramatically shift voters opinions at this. There was a, a potential twist yesterday when, when former Mayor, mayor John Tory came out and endorsed Anna Bãilao, you know, her, her team is hoping that that pushes her over the top and, and it’ll sort of catch up with Chow. Whether that’s is likely remains, you know, we’ll have to wait and see. And I think it’s important that to know it, of course, that even though Olivia Chow is, is out in front in the poles, it’s not over until the voting is done and everything could happens. So, you know, we don’t wanna say that it’s, it’s a complete lock for her, but, yeah I think that once the election does take place. What I think I’ll be watching for is, you know, this is a city government that has been, you know, center right, or, or you know, further right for the past 12, 13 years. So if there is a progressive mayor who’s elected, I think it’ll be really interesting to see how they shake up city hall in terms of, you know, there’ll be a real shift in the, in the power balance. I think, you know, a lot of the same counsellors who supported, Rob Ford’s, mayoralty went on to kind of pivot to be, supporters of John Tory’s mayoralty. And the kind of council was left, was, was, relegated to the sidelines. I think you could see a big shift in that dynamic if, a more progressive mayor is elected. And then I think we’re just waiting to see what the new mayor does to, to address the really urgent problems facing the city, right? The, the city government has a 1.5 billion operating, dollar operating deficit that, it needs to figure out how to fix, like immediately to avoid serious cuts to transit, and, and other city services and housing, of course, is a hugely urgent issue where we have people, you know, moving out of Toronto because it’s just too expensive to live here. And whoever is mayor, pretty much on day one has to get started on addressing, those, really pressing issues.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Ben, thanks so much for this and, I guess we’ll see you on Monday.

Benn Spurr Yeah, thank you so much for having me on.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Ben Spurr reporting from City Hall for the Toronto Star. That was The Big Story. If you’d like more, head to TheBigStorypodcast.ca. You can find us as always on Twitter @TheBigStoryFpn. I’m working on the Blue Sky invite, so if you’ve got one, send it our way and we’ll meet you there too. You can always email us. Don’t need an invite for that. The address is hello@TheBigStorypodcast.ca. And you can call us and leave a voicemail. 416-935-5935. Joe Fish is the lead producer of The Big Story, Robyn Simon also produces on the show this week. Allie Graham produced a couple of episodes. Ryan Clarke handled our sound design. Saman Dara is our research assistant. And I’m Jordan Heath Rawlings. Thanks for listening. Have a great weekend. We have something really special for you on Sunday when we turn five, so we’ll talk then.