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John Tory elected mayor of Toronto: reports
The former Progressive Conservative leader will become the city’s 65th mayor on Dec. 1, beating Doug Ford and Oliva Chow, according to reports
By: Daniel Dale City Hall, Published on Mon Oct 27 2014
John Tory has been elected mayor of Toronto. The Ford era is over.
Tory promised “sensible, competent, accountable” leadership after four years of scandal and upheaval under Rob Ford. His win over Doug Ford and Olivia Chow, as The Canadian Press reports — much narrower than predicted by recent opinion polls — is a repudiation of the siblings whose behaviour outraged most of the city. It heralds a return to normalcy in local government.
Tory, who launched his campaign in a distant third place, took the lead for good three months ago. But the steady polling trend line belies the mayhem of a campaign in which the celebrity incumbent left the city for two months to receive treatment for drug and alcohol addiction, was diagnosed with a rare cancer, and was replaced on the ballot by his brother a mere 45 days before the vote.
Tory rose on the strength of his centrist good-government message, pleasantly staid personality and a single signature policy proposal, the “SmartTrack” surface rail line he claimed would “solve” the city’s traffic congestion problem “quickly.” With the help of endorsement upon endorsement from members of the provincial Liberal caucus, the former Progressive Conservative leader beat Chow, a former New Democrat MP, in the critical battle for middle-of-the-road voters.
Rob Ford will remain mayor through November. Tory, 60, will become Toronto’s 65th chief magistrate on Dec. 1. He will quickly face big decisions.
Council will decide in 2015 on the future of the elevated eastern portion of the Gardiner Expressway; Tory favours a proposal to reconfigure the expressway rather than taking it down. And council will vote in 2015 on whether to allow jets to fly from the island airport; Tory has not taken a position, and he may have to recuse himself from the debate because of a potential conflict of interest.
Tory said his top priority is addressing the city’s traffic and transportation woes. He will soon embark on complicated discussions with the provincial and federal governments over SmartTrack, which he pitched as a 53-kilometre, 22-stop, $8-billion project built in no more than seven years.
The mayor has just one vote on the 45-member council. Tory will have to deal with a very vocal and very famous antagonist: Rob Ford was elected to his former Etobicoke North council seat despite his inability to campaign.
Ford, though, will once again become a largely powerless outsider if his health permits him to work. Doug Ford’s defeat effectively concludes the chaotic and oft-surreal period in which Toronto became a fixture on late-night U.S. comedy shows — Ford was lampooned by HBO’s John Oliver for four minutes the night before the election — and the mayor was the world’s most famous municipal politician.
Doug Ford, a conservative councillor and a businessman, ran a heavily negative and frequently dishonest campaign focused on Tory, whom he called an establishment “elite” figure uninterested in “the common folk.” Adopting much of his brother’s successful populist rhetoric, Ford presented himself as a champion of low taxes, subways, and suburbanites neglected by city hall.
Before the end of voting on Monday, campaign spokesman Amin Massoudi said he is proud of what Ford’s skeletal team managed to accomplish.
“We’ve done everything we can with the time that we had,” he said. “We think we’ve run a successful campaign against some pretty serious odds.”
Chow began the campaign as the clear favourite. After months of attempting to establish her bona fides as a budget-minded centrist, she altered her message after Labour Day — newly identifying herself as a “progressive,” proposing a tax hike on the rich to pay for an expansion of student meal programs, and touting social policies intended to help marginalized people and neighbourhoods.
She, too, attacked Tory relentlessly, joining with Ford in an uncoordinated late-campaign assault on the untested technical and financial components of the SmartTrack plan. Tory brushed off his two main opponents as needlessly negative “members of the can’t-do-it committee,” and their criticism never appeared to resonate.
Before the polls closed Monday, Chow said she believed her emphasis on issues such as bus service, child care and affordable housing was appreciated by voters.
“They’re saying, you’re the only one talking about things that matter to people,” she said. “They see that I am with them.”
Ford is likely to return to his printing firm, Deco Labels and Tags, as he had planned to do in November before he suddenly became a candidate. Chow’s future is uncertain. She gave up her seat as Trinity-Spadina’s federal representative to run for mayor, and it has since been filled in a byelection by popular Liberal MP Adam Vaughan.
The campaign formally ran for 10 months, informally even longer. Tory and Chow participated in more than 50 debates each, on topics as varied as accessibility, the arts and Latino political participation.
But transit was the overwhelming focus throughout. Chow was first to issue a major proposal, promising to immediately improve rush-hour bus service by 10 per cent. She was forced to make her proposal less specific when TTC officials said a quick fix wasn’t possible during peak periods.
Tory, who initially led voters to believe the downtown subway relief line was his top priority, radically changed the race when he instead unveiled SmartTrack, a different project. He mentioned SmartTrack at every available opportunity, demonstrating more message discipline than he had during previous campaigns.
Tory had lost consecutive provincial elections, and he also lost the 2003 mayoral election, in which he had not been favoured. Chow claimed throughout the spring that she was “the one person” who could beat Rob Ford. Her argument fizzled in late July, when Tory overtook her in the polls for the first time. He never trailed again.
Strategic anti-Ford voting appeared to be a significant factor in the outcome. When fourth-place candidate David Soknacki dropped out of the race in September, he said the election had turned into a “referendum on Rob Ford” rather than a clash of ideas.
Rob Ford took his name off the ballot two days later. He had run a largely positive campaign focused on his policy achievements, taking personal credit for the “booming” city while asking voters to overlook his crack cocaine scandal and other “personal” failings. Doug Ford’s abbreviated campaign, launched long after Tory established himself as the man to beat, took on a sharply different tone.
The candidates each spent part of election day in the public eye. Ford travelled in his campaign RV to Scarborough, long the Fords’ strongest bastion, and stopped by about a dozen Toronto Community Housing buildings.
“If everyone at Toronto Community Housing votes, we will win,” Ford said outside an apartment on Ellesmere Rd. “I’ll be your voice,” he assured one resident who complained about living conditions.
Chow also visited Scarborough, canvassing at a bus stop at Lawrence Ave. E. and Markham Rd. She headed downtown to vote at 10 a.m. at the Cecil St. community centre near her home, joined by stepdaughter Sarah Layton and Layton’s daughters, and then to Ryerson University, where she enjoyed the affection of students.
“I think I’ll just stay here,” she said, laughing, before heading to another bus stop at Jane St. and Wilson Ave. in North York.
Tory accompanied his wife, Barbara Hackett, to cast her ballot just steps from their downtown condo on Bloor St. W. He pronounced himself “actually very serene.” He could not sit still, though, as Ford and Chow continued canvassing in the afternoon, and he added a 20-minute glad-handing stop at Sherbourne subway station to his previously empty afternoon itinerary.
He insisted he was still calm.
“It’s an occasion to celebrate democracy, and celebrate the great city we’re in, and I hope we’re celebrating a victory, too — but I take nothing for granted,” he said.
With files from Betsy Powell, Jennifer Pagliaro and Paul Moloney
The former Progressive Conservative leader will become the city’s 65th mayor on Dec. 1, beating Doug Ford and Oliva Chow, according to reports
By: Daniel Dale City Hall, Published on Mon Oct 27 2014
John Tory has been elected mayor of Toronto. The Ford era is over.
Tory promised “sensible, competent, accountable” leadership after four years of scandal and upheaval under Rob Ford. His win over Doug Ford and Olivia Chow, as The Canadian Press reports — much narrower than predicted by recent opinion polls — is a repudiation of the siblings whose behaviour outraged most of the city. It heralds a return to normalcy in local government.
Tory, who launched his campaign in a distant third place, took the lead for good three months ago. But the steady polling trend line belies the mayhem of a campaign in which the celebrity incumbent left the city for two months to receive treatment for drug and alcohol addiction, was diagnosed with a rare cancer, and was replaced on the ballot by his brother a mere 45 days before the vote.
Tory rose on the strength of his centrist good-government message, pleasantly staid personality and a single signature policy proposal, the “SmartTrack” surface rail line he claimed would “solve” the city’s traffic congestion problem “quickly.” With the help of endorsement upon endorsement from members of the provincial Liberal caucus, the former Progressive Conservative leader beat Chow, a former New Democrat MP, in the critical battle for middle-of-the-road voters.
Rob Ford will remain mayor through November. Tory, 60, will become Toronto’s 65th chief magistrate on Dec. 1. He will quickly face big decisions.
Council will decide in 2015 on the future of the elevated eastern portion of the Gardiner Expressway; Tory favours a proposal to reconfigure the expressway rather than taking it down. And council will vote in 2015 on whether to allow jets to fly from the island airport; Tory has not taken a position, and he may have to recuse himself from the debate because of a potential conflict of interest.
Tory said his top priority is addressing the city’s traffic and transportation woes. He will soon embark on complicated discussions with the provincial and federal governments over SmartTrack, which he pitched as a 53-kilometre, 22-stop, $8-billion project built in no more than seven years.
The mayor has just one vote on the 45-member council. Tory will have to deal with a very vocal and very famous antagonist: Rob Ford was elected to his former Etobicoke North council seat despite his inability to campaign.
Ford, though, will once again become a largely powerless outsider if his health permits him to work. Doug Ford’s defeat effectively concludes the chaotic and oft-surreal period in which Toronto became a fixture on late-night U.S. comedy shows — Ford was lampooned by HBO’s John Oliver for four minutes the night before the election — and the mayor was the world’s most famous municipal politician.
Doug Ford, a conservative councillor and a businessman, ran a heavily negative and frequently dishonest campaign focused on Tory, whom he called an establishment “elite” figure uninterested in “the common folk.” Adopting much of his brother’s successful populist rhetoric, Ford presented himself as a champion of low taxes, subways, and suburbanites neglected by city hall.
Before the end of voting on Monday, campaign spokesman Amin Massoudi said he is proud of what Ford’s skeletal team managed to accomplish.
“We’ve done everything we can with the time that we had,” he said. “We think we’ve run a successful campaign against some pretty serious odds.”
Chow began the campaign as the clear favourite. After months of attempting to establish her bona fides as a budget-minded centrist, she altered her message after Labour Day — newly identifying herself as a “progressive,” proposing a tax hike on the rich to pay for an expansion of student meal programs, and touting social policies intended to help marginalized people and neighbourhoods.
She, too, attacked Tory relentlessly, joining with Ford in an uncoordinated late-campaign assault on the untested technical and financial components of the SmartTrack plan. Tory brushed off his two main opponents as needlessly negative “members of the can’t-do-it committee,” and their criticism never appeared to resonate.
Before the polls closed Monday, Chow said she believed her emphasis on issues such as bus service, child care and affordable housing was appreciated by voters.
“They’re saying, you’re the only one talking about things that matter to people,” she said. “They see that I am with them.”
Ford is likely to return to his printing firm, Deco Labels and Tags, as he had planned to do in November before he suddenly became a candidate. Chow’s future is uncertain. She gave up her seat as Trinity-Spadina’s federal representative to run for mayor, and it has since been filled in a byelection by popular Liberal MP Adam Vaughan.
The campaign formally ran for 10 months, informally even longer. Tory and Chow participated in more than 50 debates each, on topics as varied as accessibility, the arts and Latino political participation.
But transit was the overwhelming focus throughout. Chow was first to issue a major proposal, promising to immediately improve rush-hour bus service by 10 per cent. She was forced to make her proposal less specific when TTC officials said a quick fix wasn’t possible during peak periods.
Tory, who initially led voters to believe the downtown subway relief line was his top priority, radically changed the race when he instead unveiled SmartTrack, a different project. He mentioned SmartTrack at every available opportunity, demonstrating more message discipline than he had during previous campaigns.
Tory had lost consecutive provincial elections, and he also lost the 2003 mayoral election, in which he had not been favoured. Chow claimed throughout the spring that she was “the one person” who could beat Rob Ford. Her argument fizzled in late July, when Tory overtook her in the polls for the first time. He never trailed again.
Strategic anti-Ford voting appeared to be a significant factor in the outcome. When fourth-place candidate David Soknacki dropped out of the race in September, he said the election had turned into a “referendum on Rob Ford” rather than a clash of ideas.
Rob Ford took his name off the ballot two days later. He had run a largely positive campaign focused on his policy achievements, taking personal credit for the “booming” city while asking voters to overlook his crack cocaine scandal and other “personal” failings. Doug Ford’s abbreviated campaign, launched long after Tory established himself as the man to beat, took on a sharply different tone.
The candidates each spent part of election day in the public eye. Ford travelled in his campaign RV to Scarborough, long the Fords’ strongest bastion, and stopped by about a dozen Toronto Community Housing buildings.
“If everyone at Toronto Community Housing votes, we will win,” Ford said outside an apartment on Ellesmere Rd. “I’ll be your voice,” he assured one resident who complained about living conditions.
Chow also visited Scarborough, canvassing at a bus stop at Lawrence Ave. E. and Markham Rd. She headed downtown to vote at 10 a.m. at the Cecil St. community centre near her home, joined by stepdaughter Sarah Layton and Layton’s daughters, and then to Ryerson University, where she enjoyed the affection of students.
“I think I’ll just stay here,” she said, laughing, before heading to another bus stop at Jane St. and Wilson Ave. in North York.
Tory accompanied his wife, Barbara Hackett, to cast her ballot just steps from their downtown condo on Bloor St. W. He pronounced himself “actually very serene.” He could not sit still, though, as Ford and Chow continued canvassing in the afternoon, and he added a 20-minute glad-handing stop at Sherbourne subway station to his previously empty afternoon itinerary.
He insisted he was still calm.
“It’s an occasion to celebrate democracy, and celebrate the great city we’re in, and I hope we’re celebrating a victory, too — but I take nothing for granted,” he said.
With files from Betsy Powell, Jennifer Pagliaro and Paul Moloney
