Anthony Furey: Think Toronto is bad now? Wait till Chow’s new left-wing council takes over

Olivia Chow campaigned for re-election from the political centre. But brace yourselves Toronto. Canada’s largest city now has a more left-wing council than before.

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Whatever the mayor was planning for her second term, Chow will certainly face pressure from council to be more left-wing than she was the first time around.

The results of Monday’s Toronto municipal election were quite a shock. A lot of centre and centre-right observers were certainly prepared for Chow to narrowly eke out a win. But in the end it wasn’t even close. She beat challenger Brad Bradford by a considerable margin: 532,201 to 404,013.

Here’s a wild statistic to chew on: Olivia Chow likely received more direct votes than any politician ever in Canadian history. There’s a reason why some people call the Toronto mayoralty one of the most powerful political seats in the country.

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The thinking was that if Chow won, it wouldn’t be by much and there would at least be turnover on council — with some left-wing incumbents losing and being replaced by more centrist or centre-right councillors.

This scenario would have resulted in more centrist policies at city hall. Chow campaigned on more modest tax increases than last term and a promise to focus on public safety. If council was balanced, she would have been held to those promises and pushed to do even more.

That didn’t happen, though. There were a number of wards in which the polling suggested a close race, but in all of them the left-wing candidate ultimately prevailed by a decent margin. Now there are no checks and balances on the excesses of the left.

Brad Bradford had played the role of leader of the opposition. But he is no longer on council and has been replaced in his council seat by former Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, who will be a key member of Chow’s team.

The public will see very few if any viral clips coming out of council calling for, say, fiscal responsibility. It was already hard to get these messages out before the election. Now it will be even harder. The pressure put on Chow will not be coming from centre-right voices, but from the more left-wing council members.

This also calls into question whether Chow’s approach to collaborating with other levels of government will be maintained. The mayor and Ontario Premier Doug Ford have worked together on a number of key issues and it has served them both well.

But Ford’s leadership on removing bike lanes from major Toronto streets and closing down the drug injection sites are things the left wants to fight tooth and nail. Chow will be expected to oppose Ford more.

It looks like the beatings will continue until morale improves. Left-wing organizers are surely quite proud of themselves, for understandable reasons. But they are now at risk of being victims of their own success. They can’t share the wealth if others don’t generate it, and their policies risk running people out of town.

The potential exodus of jobs and capital from Toronto is a very real threat. A friend of mine who runs a manufacturing business in Scarborough recently opened a plant in the United States and says that all of the other manufacturers she knows have done the same in recent years. They’ve already got one foot out the door.

They’re not doing this because they want to leave their homes. They’d rather stay. They’re doing it because economic and political considerations are leaving them with little choice.

To be fair, provincial and federal policies play just as big a role in these business decisions. But the City of Toronto should be focused on retaining these jobs and fostering a climate in which businesses want to invest and prosperous and ambitious families want to move. This is done in part by making Toronto a more livable city.

Intolerable gridlock, high taxes and public disorder do the opposite. They send us towards a Detroit-style downward spiral. Yet Toronto council is not focused on turning these problems around.

Olivia Chow’s first term as mayor was a shortened three years and she was working with a council mostly elected during the John Tory era that was familiar with his way of doing business. This term will last a full four years and it’s made up largely of Chow’s people.

Good luck, Toronto. You’re going to need it.

National Post

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