The other two main candidates are John Tory (former leader of the Progressive Conservative party of Ontario) and Olivia Chow (formerly involved in Toronto municipal politics from a leftist perspective; former NDP MP in the federal House of Commons who resigned her seat to run in the mayor election).
An opinion poll released yesterday put Tory in first place with 40%; Ford in second, with 28%; Chow in third with 21%.
I had just typed the words below when I read the two previous posts:
“I never thought I’d see the day when a Toronto Mayor electoral race could be so much fun for the whole world to enjoy. Thank you, Toronto!”
I guess it will not be so much fun now.
It used to be that Toronto was several different muncipalities: the downtown core was the City of Toronto, and it was surrounded by several suburban municipalities. There was a greater Toronto governing body, but the individual municipalities still had a lot of autonomy.
Then several years ago, the Province amalgamated them all into one City of Toronto. There are a lot of inherent tensions between the downtown and the suburbs, and that’s what’s driving the mayoral politics.
One dispute is over transit. The downtown core wants subway expansion, which is very expensive, but the outer areas don’t see that as benefitting them; just more taxes to benefit the core. The downtown core wants more funding on arts, public theatres, etc., but the outer areas don’t see that as benefitting them. The downtown core is seen as rich and elitist, while the suburbs are seen as middle-classs and everyday Joes. And so on.
That tension is reflected in the mayoral politics. Ford is the candidate of the suburbs. He’s run very successfully on a “rein in the spending for the downtown and keep taxes low” platform, plus he does have a lot of personal popular appeal as an everyday kind of a guy (before all the coke and alcohol abuse stories started coming out).
Ford may have major personal flaws, but he has done a good job of collecting support from the suburbs, not just on a personal level, but on issues that are important to them.
Tory and Chow are both downtowners; Ford is the only viable candidate from the suburbs. I guess he still has a strong core of suburban support. It may be a “hold your nose and vote” kind of support, but it’s still there.
Since you’re a lawyer, I guess there’s a better than even chance that you’re part of the “downtown elite” rather than the “suburban plebes”. Does that mean you’re not voting for Ford?
Toronto has long billed itself as “The City that Works”. It’s never suffered from a major decay in the downtown core. That’s where things happen. Nor have we ever had the experience of “white flight” in Canadian cities.
It looks like John Tory is likely to be the next mayor - a man as exciting as his name. A return to Toronto the boring? We who live here certainly hope so.
The deadline for any changes to the ballot was at 2 pm Ontario time today, and it looks like he’s still on the ballot. There was some speculation that his brother, Councillor Doug Ford, would take his place on the ballot, but doesn’t look like that’s happened.
