Municipal elections in Toronto | Who will succeed John Tory in the Queen City?

Residents of Canada’s largest city are called upon to elect their new mayor on Monday. Despite a nearly $1 billion deficit amid housing, homelessness and crime issues, a record 102 candidates will be vying for the keys to City Hall. Close-up on a race… very popular.

Another Toronto mayoral election? Wasn’t that fixed last fall?

Indeed, Mayor John Tory had been elected with a comfortable lead, for the third time since 2014. His term, however, was short-lived. At the beginning of February, he resigned because of an extramarital affair forged with an employee during the pandemic, when he had been married for more than 40 years.

Interesting ! Is there a bit of suspense in this election?

Yes and no. With 102 candidates, including one who is campaigning with his dog, it is jostling at the gate. Olivia Chow, 66, is well ahead in the polls, with just over 30% of the voting intentions, but that does not guarantee anything.

The last time she ran for mayor in 2014, she started out as the favorite but bit the dust at the finish line, finishing third behind John Tory and Doug Ford.

This Olivia Chow tells me something. Are you refreshing my memory?

I could tell you that she was a school commissioner and a municipal councilor before sitting in the House of Commons as an NDP MP, from 2008 to 2014. But if her name is familiar in Quebec, it is mainly because we saw her a lot alongside Jack Layton, the very popular NDP leader who died in 2011, who was her husband.

Doug Ford being Premier of Ontario, that leaves the field open to Toronto, doesn’t it?

Not really, since Doug Ford has never been shy about getting involved in the politics of the Queen City, which is the capital of his province. Last Wednesday, he declared that the election of Olivia Chow would be “an absolute disaster”. Mr. Ford supports Mark Saunders, who was a candidate for his party in the last provincial election, and Toronto’s police chief from 2015 to 2020. The Ontario premier, however, indicated that if Mr.^me Chow was elected mayor, he would work with her.

Who are the other favourites?

Mark Saunders, who was a police officer in Toronto for 38 years, including five years as chief, came out second in several polls. He promises to tackle crime and the feeling of insecurity, including on public transport, by preventing people from begging or sleeping there.

A recent poll, published last Friday by Mainstreet Research, however, suggests a cooling towards it. The firm placed him fourth, trailing Conservative columnist Anthony Furey, but behind ex-Councillor Ana Bailão, with whom Mr Saunders shared second place in the previous Mainstreet poll. “Following the support received from the editorial team of the Toronto Star and ex-mayor John Tory, Ana Bailão saw her support jump,” the firm commented on its website.

Two city councilors (Brad Bradford and Josh Matlow) and a former provincial Liberal MP who was a minister in the government of Kathleen Wynne (Mitzie Hunter) complete the front runners.

And the dog, who is he campaigning with?

Toby Heaps, who describes himself as “the human candidate on the ballot”, is campaigning with his dog Molly, 6. “Molly would be Toronto’s first honorary canine mayor,” the human candidate explains on his website, citing the case of Niagara Falls, where the mayor gave up his title to a dog one weekend last May to help fundraising for a good cause. Mr. Heaps runs the responsible economy firm Corporate Knights, which he co-founded. Of all the candidates who have no chance of being elected mayor of Toronto, Toby and Molly are undoubtedly the most photographed.

That’s all well and good, but don’t voters risk being lost in front of a ballot with 102 names?

It is a shared concern, indeed. Several candidates include the number that will appear next to their name in their campaign advertising, including Mark Saunders (#84) and Anthony Furey (#40). And the City of Toronto, no doubt to prepare the spirits, published a facsimile of the famous bulletin on its Web site. The 102 names fit on a single page, but in three long, tightly packed columns.

It must be said that Torontonians are getting used to parades of suitors. If the most recent municipal elections had attracted “only” 31 candidates for mayor, the previous ones, in 2014, had set a first record, with 65 aspirants to the title.

With The Canadian Press