Higher taxes on land transfers and empty homes won’t pay for the spending she wants
After an exciting election night evening, Olivia Chow pulled a rabbit out of a hat to become Toronto’s new mayor. She will need to repeat the magic in coming years if she’s to revive Ontario’s sputtering economic engine.
When Olivia Chow moves into the mayor’s office in a couple of weeks, one of the biggest issues on her desk will be what to do about Toronto’s homeless encampments. Unruly collections of tents and tarps have sprung up in parks, ravines and underpasses around the city. There are a staggering 270 of them, twice as many as a year ago.
They are not nice places to live in. Fires, overdoses and fights are common. They are not nice places to live near, either. Neighbours and passersby often complain about noise, garbage and discarded needles.
Chow will embrace homeless camps and encourage their expansion all the while demanding tax payers pony up to solve a problem she has no intention of fixing.
Solving the “Homeless crisis” would kill the Golden Goose.
Higher taxes and fewer services likely as mayor-elect Olivia Chow tries to dig city of out financial hole
Toronto mayor-elect Olivia Chow has promised a “modest” tax increase. Unfortunately for Torontonians, even something an NDPer would call modest won’t be enough to get the city out of the financial hole it’s in.
Olivia Chow’s victory in Monday’s mayoral byelection in Toronto could be seen coming a mile away. It was so clear, even days and weeks in advance, that any news scribes looking to have an easy go of it on election night could have had most of their copy written in advance. And it seems like many of them did.
With a court deadline looming on July 10 for the City of Phoenix to clean up a squalid homeless encampment known as “The Zone,” more homeless people than ever are flooding the area despite the city’s aggressive efforts to address the disorder.
The failure to clean up “The Zone” is leaving business owners and other neighbors more distraught than ever about destruction of property, violence, drugs and filth, and even dead bodies.
Portland, Ore., Is Losing Residents Weary of Crime and High Housing Prices
PORTLAND, Ore.—Mark Rogers has made a list of things he misses about Portland—its vegan restaurants, Powell’s bookstore, public transit—and the things he doesn’t—having his things stolen, stepping in human excrement, extreme politics.
The 44-year-old artist moved across the country to Fort Wayne, Ind., last year.
In an acceptance speech Monday night — peppered repeatedly with vows to deliver a “safer, caring and more affordable” Toronto — Olivia Chow’s narrative reminded me of the same hopey-changey hyperbole made by Toronto’s last NDP mayor David Miller.
Why should Canadians outside of Toronto care about this past Monday’s mayoral election there?
The rest of us aren’t going to have to pay the taxes needed to cover the winner’s grandiose, lefty dreams or live with the crime caused by her ultra-progressive approaches to policing, addiction, homelessness and unemployment or put up with the frustration of her transit and bike-lane expansion or added regulations.
In the end, Toronto’s mayoral election never came down to a left versus right fight. Former NDP MP Olivia Chow won 37 per cent of the vote, squeaking out a victory over second-place finisher Ana Bailão — a candidate so dully centrist, it took a former mayor best known for being boring to breathe life into her campaign.
Robbery at a Shoppers Drug Mart in Toronto 😬 pic.twitter.com/esi0l47oFa
— 6ixBuzzTV (@6ixbuzztv) June 18, 2023
Looting retail outlets is not new in the city, liquor stores were the preferred target a couple of years ago. That seems to be under control now or is simply not being reported any longer.
A couple of weeks ago I mentioned having to to be virtually vetted before being allowed in to a locked down drugstore during “normal business hours”. This was due to the number of raids conducted by local “youths.” It was in a strip mall maybe 1000 yards from Rob Ford’s old home.
Last week I filled up at my local gas station. They had just changed over to pre-pay due to the surge in “gas and dash” incidents.
The demon possessed of the TTC homeless shelter are still being dumped out at Kipling station to wander and scream at all hours.
Chow did not cause this. But the comrade will make it far worse far faster than under the usual apparatchiks of our political class.
By the numbers …
On the more serious side of the numbers, voter turnout was higher for this byelection to select the mayor of Toronto than what we saw in last fall’s municipal vote. In October, just 29% of eligible voters cast their ballots but, in this election, it was up to 39% of eligible voters trotting out to fill in the circle.
Olivia Chow has been elected mayor of Toronto, CP24 declares, ending almost 13 years of right-leaning rule at Toronto City Hall and becoming the first woman and the first visible minority person to lead post-amalgamation Toronto.
Chow, 66, was the favourite to win the race from the moment she entered and managed to command a decisive lead in the polls, though the race on election night ended up being a photo finish between her and Ana Bailão.
Toronto chooses a new mayor today and the final opinion polls are in. They suggest that Olivia Chow ends the race with a lead that is significant but smaller than at any time since the early campaign days. Mayor John Tory’s endorsement last week of former councillor Ana Bailão has propelled Bailão firmly into second place with the best shot, it appears, of an upset victory over Chow, a former NDP MP.
And finally, our last Toronto mayoral poll
Chow – 36%
Bailao – 30%
Saunders – 9%
Furey – 8%
Matlow – 8%
Hunter – 5%
Brown – 1%
Bradford – 1%Others – 3%
Are you an Intel subscriber? Find the crosstabs here! https://t.co/9EfVQNuwLD
Not an Intel subscriber? Subscribe here for… pic.twitter.com/fZSvxXDGmq
— Mainstreet Research (@MainStResearch) June 26, 2023
May as well elect Chow, Toronto deserves the pain.
I believe that democracy is not an event, it’s a process. One that works best when as many people as possible stay engaged and involved.
But elections are events. And this one is here.
On Monday, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., Toronto voters have the chance to decide who will lead their city government. The choice could hardly come at a more important time.
With just a day to go before Torontonians heads to the polls, John Beebe is watching the city’s mayoral byelection closely.
The founder of the Democratic Engagement Exchange, whose mission is to foster democratic participation, said last fall’s municipal vote was a wake-up call. With a record low 29 per cent voter turnout, his organization has been hard at work during this campaign doing outreach and providing free tools, resources and training to community groups.
As for the reasons for the low turnout, Beebe said the impact of the pandemic, the strength of then-incumbent John Tory and the lack of a single predominant issue all were likely factors.
Slim hope … Olivia Chow’s lead in the Toronto mayoral election shrinks after rival gets surprise endorsement, poll finds
The mayoral race has entered its final sprint as arguably the two biggest names in Toronto politics weigh in with competing robocalls.
On Thursday, the voices of both former mayor John Tory and sitting premier Doug Ford could be heard in robocalls, urging voters to support competing candidates.
The two men endorsed rival campaigns on Wednesday. Tory came out in support of Ana Bailão, his former deputy mayor, and Ford confirmed his already apparent support for former police chief Mark Saunders.
Hardly. It’s no secret Ford endorsed Saunders from Day 1. If anything that likely hurt Saunder’s chances. As for Tory, that’s for Ana Bailao to rue.
