Toronto Mayoral By Election

[Upper Canada Tory]

I haven't been following the Toronto mayoral race too closely as of yet, but the candidate I find the most interesting at the moment is Mark Saunders. I'll wait for policy platforms to be released though.

[Upper Canada Tory]

She's Portuguese-Canadian (which is my main reason for backing her) and a Liberal herself so I am not too worried about her advisor. Wasn't Kouvalis Tory's campaign manager or something at some point anyway?

Better to back candidates based on policy & qualifications, not ethnicity and/or country of birth.

My main issue with Bailão is that she wants to make the province pay entirely for the Gardiner and DVP to save money to pay for TTC. Seems unfair that the province has to pay for two roads entirely in Toronto city proper.

Also, I'm sceptical of her ability to do anything regarding affordable housing. She has served in some housing related portfolios (TCHC, Chair of the Affordable Housing Committee) but seems to have accomplished very little in her time in these positions and at city council.

[Upper Canada Tory]

I haven't been following the Toronto mayoral race too closely as of yet, but the candidate I find the most interesting at the moment is Mark Saunders. I'll wait for policy platforms to be released though.

Conservatives certainly seem to be rallying around Saunders, or they almost certainly will, because he's the only conservative-aligned candidate with a serious shot. As a former police chief he's uniquely positioned to run on crime as the main issue, which tends to be a winning issue for the right. Now, his time as police chief was controversial, but mostly with people who wouldn't vote for him anyway.

That said, he does need to consolidate the right and count on a split left to have a shot, and while the latter is almost guaranteed, the former is complicated by Toronto Sun columnist Anthony Furey. He's also running, but whereas Saunders is more of a "Ford Tory", Furey is more of a "Poilievre Tory", if that makes sense. Furey doesn't have a realistic shot, but he does have enough of a profile and following that he might split the vote.

I have mixed views of Ford's performance as Premier of Ontario but Saunders being a 'Ford Tory' is probably preferable to Furey's 'Poilievre Tory' leanings as far as Toronto politics are concerned.

I think one asset Saunders has that people often overlook is that he's had a lot of experience in different fields of the public service. He was Toronto's Police Chief, as you mentioned, but he was also on the province's COVID vaccine task force and was named special advisor for the Ontario Place renovation. He is probably uniquely positioned to deal with a variety of different issues, compared to most of the other candidates.

Also, I think candidates like Furey won't take away too much of the right wing vote from Saunders. As some have already mentioned, Furey seems to be a candidate of the Twitter lobby, as I like to call them, and he isn't as well known as Saunders. He also doesn't have the qualifications for dealing with crime that Saunders does, which, as you rightly pointed out, is a winning issue for conservatives at the moment.

At the same time, Furey did appear in an interview on CP24, some maybe his attempts to put his name out on more mainstream news networks will end up with him becoming more of a threat for Saunders. Who knows?

[Upper Canada Tory]

That said, this time is a little different because it's an open seat and there's really no obvious successor to John Tory, so everyone thinks they have a shot. I think Bailao, Chow, Hunter, Matlow and Saunders can be considered the "tier one" candidates who have an actual shot. Bradford, Furey and Perruzza could put in a serious run, but won't win. Caesar-Chavannes, Climenhaga, D'Angelo, Davis, Mammoliti, and Sky are notable in some vague way, but I wouldn't take them seriously.

Most observers would bump Bradford from 2nd to 1st tier.  He's always had a vibe of a potential "John Tory anointed successor" about him.

I haven't been following the Toronto mayoral race too closely as of yet, but the candidate I find the most interesting at the moment is Mark Saunders. I'll wait for policy platforms to be released though.

Conservatives certainly seem to be rallying around Saunders, or they almost certainly will, because he's the only conservative-aligned candidate with a serious shot. As a former police chief he's uniquely positioned to run on crime as the main issue, which tends to be a winning issue for the right. Now, his time as police chief was controversial, but mostly with people who wouldn't vote for him anyway.

That said, he does need to consolidate the right and count on a split left to have a shot, and while the latter is almost guaranteed, the former is complicated by Toronto Sun columnist Anthony Furey. He's also running, but whereas Saunders is more of a "Ford Tory", Furey is more of a "Poilievre Tory", if that makes sense. Furey doesn't have a realistic shot, but he does have enough of a profile and following that he might split the vote.

I think Furey's one of those candidates who seems more of a factor through the wonkish filter of political Twitter than he'd be in actuality.

And let's remember that it's more complicated than a Saunders-vs-a-split-left race--just because Saunders is a candidate of the right doesn't make him the candidate of the John Tory big tent; and you can be sure that Bailao and Bradford in particular will make (and *are* making) strong bids for *that* vote.  That is, *they're* more likely to be injurious to Saunders than Furey is...

Saunders seems like he will be the candidate of the more right-leaning half of John Tory voters and most Rob Ford/Doug Ford voters. If you base your info on the 2014 mayoral election, this would be roughly 50-55% of the Toronto electorate, give or take (Doug Ford voters in that election made up 33.73% of the electorate, John Tory voters made up 40.28% of the electorate and if you take one half of that, presumably the more right-leaning half, it would be 20.14% of Toronto voters, adding up to 53.87%). Edit: To clarify, I'm not saying he will get 54% of the vote but that's his group of potential voters, the pond he can fish out of.

Based on my completely unscientific analysis, this means Saunders would do well in Northern Etobicoke, in North York but moreso further to the west of the area, particularly in wards 8 and 9, and Scarborough, especially further north.

[Upper Canada Tory]

That said, this time is a little different because it's an open seat and there's really no obvious successor to John Tory, so everyone thinks they have a shot. I think Bailao, Chow, Hunter, Matlow and Saunders can be considered the "tier one" candidates who have an actual shot. Bradford, Furey and Perruzza could put in a serious run, but won't win. Caesar-Chavannes, Climenhaga, D'Angelo, Davis, Mammoliti, and Sky are notable in some vague way, but I wouldn't take them seriously.

Most observers would bump Bradford from 2nd to 1st tier.  He's always had a vibe of a potential "John Tory anointed successor" about him.

I haven't been following the Toronto mayoral race too closely as of yet, but the candidate I find the most interesting at the moment is Mark Saunders. I'll wait for policy platforms to be released though.

Conservatives certainly seem to be rallying around Saunders, or they almost certainly will, because he's the only conservative-aligned candidate with a serious shot. As a former police chief he's uniquely positioned to run on crime as the main issue, which tends to be a winning issue for the right. Now, his time as police chief was controversial, but mostly with people who wouldn't vote for him anyway.

That said, he does need to consolidate the right and count on a split left to have a shot, and while the latter is almost guaranteed, the former is complicated by Toronto Sun columnist Anthony Furey. He's also running, but whereas Saunders is more of a "Ford Tory", Furey is more of a "Poilievre Tory", if that makes sense. Furey doesn't have a realistic shot, but he does have enough of a profile and following that he might split the vote.

I think Furey's one of those candidates who seems more of a factor through the wonkish filter of political Twitter than he'd be in actuality.

And let's remember that it's more complicated than a Saunders-vs-a-split-left race--just because Saunders is a candidate of the right doesn't make him the candidate of the John Tory big tent; and you can be sure that Bailao and Bradford in particular will make (and *are* making) strong bids for *that* vote.  That is, *they're* more likely to be injurious to Saunders than Furey is...

Saunders seems like he will be the candidate of the more right-leaning half of John Tory voters and most Rob Ford/Doug Ford voters. If you base your info on the 2014 mayoral election, this would be roughly 50-55% of the Toronto electorate, give or take (Doug Ford voters in that election made up 33.73% of the electorate, John Tory voters made up 40.28% of the electorate and if you take one half of that, presumably the more right-leaning half, it would be 20.14% of Toronto voters, adding up to 53.87%).

Based on my completely unscientific analysis, this means Saunders would do well in Northern Etobicoke, in North York but moreso further to the west of the area, particularly in wards 8 and 9, and Scarborough, especially further north.

I know you're not saying that Saunders will actually get 54% of the vote, that's just the pond he can fish out of. That said, I'd be careful reading into the Ford Nation vote too much. Many of those voters were loyal to Rob Ford, and to a lesser extent Doug Ford, more than any ideological association. Other right-wing politicians have tried very hard to tap into the Ford Nation vote with little success, because many of the most loyal Ford supporters weren't actually right-wing in a general sense.

Yeah, I should have clarified. He won't get 54% of the vote but that's his potential voters, the pond he will fish out of.

[Upper Canada Tory]

The issue is that unamalgamated cities allow for segregation of wealth and resources from the common good. You see this in the U.S., where you get clusters of wealth and poverty and immense racial segregation. If you care about social inequality, amalgamation is a necessary tool to combat that.

Toronto would be MUCH better off with Newmarket and Oshawa brought in.

I don't mean this to be dismissive, but this reads like you're really not familiar with Toronto or the GTA, and applying the issues of US cities to a completely different context.

Toronto is an amalgamation of six pre-existing municipalities, and much of it is suburbia. Sure, Newmarket and Oshawa are considered Toronto suburbs now (debatable for Oshawa), but there are like seventeen more layers of suburbs before you get to "urban" Toronto, so it's not such a logical expansion. If all of the GTA were amalgamated into Toronto, you would get an area larger than New York, LA, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, and Philly combined.

Additionally, the non-Toronto parts of the GTA, by and large, aren't just Toronto's bedroom communities. Mississauga, Brampton, Vaughan, Markham, Oshawa, Ajax, Oakville etc all have significant economic activity happening within them. Oftentimes, they have their own bedroom communities, like people living in Stouffville and working in Markham. More than half of the GTA's population lives outside of Toronto. Amalgamating the GTA into Toronto would be like putting all of LA, Orange, Riverside counties into LA.

As for racial and economic segregation, ditto. GTA suburbs aren't sundown towns formed by 1960s white flight - to the contrary, many of them are immigrant towns. Toronto itself is very ethnically diverse too (and I'm not using diverse to mean not white, I mean genuinely diverse in a way that very few American cities can top). As for social/economic inequality, there's plenty of that within Toronto's borders, but it's really not a "rich suburbs/broke city" dynamic like in many US cities.

The issue is that unamalgamated cities allow for segregation of wealth and resources from the common good. You see this in the U.S., where you get clusters of wealth and poverty and immense racial segregation. If you care about social inequality, amalgamation is a necessary tool to combat that.

Toronto would be MUCH better off with Newmarket and Oshawa brought in.

Also, to Sol's original argument, if you ask me, the 1998 amalgamation made Toronto more unequal. Prior to that, Toronto city proper was a much smaller city of 700,000 people and the surrounding municipalities tended to have more inequality than Metropolitan Toronto itself, due to more poverty in certain neighbourhoods and much wealthier populations in others (think of North York and Jane & Finch vs Forest Hill, for example). You put all of these neighbourhoods together under one municipal government overnight that has to govern over 2 million people and distribute tax renevue equitably across all these people while ensuring everyone has roughly the same services in terms of infrastructure, transit, etc., what do you think is going to happen?

Apparently, there is a bit of evidence lending support to my hypothesis. In fact, there is a report by the Toronto Foundation that concludes that divisions between pre-amalgamation cities have made Toronto more unequal. According to the president of the foundation, policy discussion around issues tends to leave some parts of the city behind.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/divisions-between-pre-amalgamation-cities-making-rich-poor-gap-worse-report/article26676956/

[Upper Canada Tory]

I don't think we'll ever agree, unfortunately, and it honestly flummoxes me that people could not want the wonders of amalgamation. Regardless, we should probably stop derailing the thread.

Just wondering, why is a discussion regarding the merits and drawbacks of amalgamation considered to be derailing the thread? A thread about a Toronto mayoral election is inevitably going to have some degree of discussion about issues that affect Toronto and amalgamation is one of them.

[Upper Canada Tory]

Is it just me, or do some of Olivia Chow's numbers regarding housing don't really add up?

She wants to build 25,000 rental homes using $404 million in revenue over 8 years?  (So $16,000 per rental home? This seems like this would cover a tiny percentage of how much it costs to build a residential property)
https://www.oliviachow.ca/olivia_chow_to_create_25000_new_homes

She also wants to use the CMHC's Housing Accelerator Fund, municipal bonds (aka debt) and net operating income of the rent generated by the new rental housing to fund these projects, however also provides no tentative numbers for this, which makes it just seem like a gamble of promising things on which she has a slim chance of delivering. The homes are also meant to be rent controlled, so I'm not sure if that will bring in enough revenue to fund the whole thing.

[Upper Canada Tory]

I think odds are pretty good for Furey to finish a (distant, distant) second. He's running a stronger campaign than the two other right-wing candidates, and Saunders' pitch to "stop Olivia Chow" is only slightly more believable than Furey's pitch to "stop Olivia Chow"

Though a caveat: from my limited observation, I haven't really seen any Furey lawn signage yet--not that there *isn't*, of course, but most of what little non-Chow lawn signage I've seen is either Matlow or Bailao or Saunders (and I haven't really seen *Mitzie Hunter* lawn signage, either, even on a bus venture into Scarborough).

But if anything, I see the Saunders vs Furey dynamic playing out a little like federal PC vs Reform in the 90s, even in the likely vote distribution (Saunders plumped in "suburban rich areas",  Furey more spread-out and overachieving in old-stock Ford Nation blue-collar white-trash areas)

I think that a more recent and pertinent analogy to the Saunders vs Furey dynamic is John Tory vs Doug Ford in the 2014 mayoral election. Saunders would be the analogue of John Tory, who also got the 'suburban rich area' vote and Furey would be the analogue of Doug Ford, who swept the 'Ford Nation' vote.

In addition to this, an analogy taking us back to the 2014 mayoral election reminds us how much times have changed in 9 years. Back then, most Torontonians voted for right-of-centre mayoral candidates and Doug Ford was the most right wing of them all. Today, most Torontonians appear to intend to vote for left-of-centre candidates and Doug Ford, who is now premier, is a moderate conservative as opposed to a hardliner.

[Upper Canada Tory]

I think odds are pretty good for Furey to finish a (distant, distant) second. He's running a stronger campaign than the two other right-wing candidates, and Saunders' pitch to "stop Olivia Chow" is only slightly more believable than Furey's pitch to "stop Olivia Chow"

Though a caveat: from my limited observation, I haven't really seen any Furey lawn signage yet--not that there *isn't*, of course, but most of what little non-Chow lawn signage I've seen is either Matlow or Bailao or Saunders (and I haven't really seen *Mitzie Hunter* lawn signage, either, even on a bus venture into Scarborough).

But if anything, I see the Saunders vs Furey dynamic playing out a little like federal PC vs Reform in the 90s, even in the likely vote distribution (Saunders plumped in "suburban rich areas",  Furey more spread-out and overachieving in old-stock Ford Nation blue-collar white-trash areas)

I think that a more recent and pertinent analogy to the Saunders vs Furey dynamic is John Tory vs Doug Ford in the 2014 mayoral election. Saunders would be the analogue of John Tory, who also got the 'suburban rich area' vote and Furey would be the analogue of Doug Ford, who swept the 'Ford Nation' vote.

In addition to this, an analogy taking us back to the 2014 mayoral election reminds us how much times have changed in 9 years. Back then, most Torontonians voted for right-of-centre mayoral candidates and Doug Ford was the most right wing of them all. Today, most Torontonians appear to intend to vote for left-of-centre candidates and Doug Ford, who is now premier, is a moderate conservative as opposed to a hardliner.

Except that the relative Saunders/Furey shares are likelier to be a la PC/Reform in the 90s (teens/high single digits) than a la Tory/Ford in '14--and in a similar way, Saunders is likelier to be in "polling station winning contention", while Furey'd be more evenly spread out because he's essentially "bottom feeding".

And except for functional, pragmatic purposes, I wouldn't look at Doug Ford as a "moderate conservative" even if Danielle Smith's moved the Overton window in that light.  In fact, his PCs got a lower share of the Toronto vote in '22 than he, himself got mayorally in '14 (and if the '22 PC vote was higher than his '14 mayoral vote in certain jurisdictions, it's because his party's bigger than its leadership)

I meant in the context of the mayoral race. Saunders, who ran for the Ontario PCs before and worked for the provincial government (and for whom Ford himself has even expressed tacit support for), is much more aligned with Doug Ford while Furey is more aligned with the hardline right. Even when Tory resigned as mayor, Ford said he wanted Tory to remain because a left-wing mayor would be worse, despite having campaigned hard against Tory in 2014 and having quarrelled with him a lot in 2018 over certain issues.

And while this is not relevant to the mayoral race itself so I'll avoid speaking about this on the thread more than necessary, but the Canadian conservative movement is not a binary between Ford and Smith. There are many different ideological positions in between.

[Upper Canada Tory]

Here are those numbers:

Chow 31 (-2)
Bailão 14 (-3)
Saunders 13 (-1)
Matlow 12 (+6)
Furey 11 (+2)
Hunter 6 (-2)
Brown 5 (nc)
Bradford 4 (+1)

Quito has given up on Bailão...

My hot take for the day is that the three main right-of-centre candidates (Bailao, Furey, Saunders) should each combine their strengths and merge into one candidate to defeat Olivia Chow.

I know this isn't physically possible, but hey, I can dream.  

[Upper Canada Tory]

Here are those numbers:

Chow 31 (-2)
Bailão 14 (-3)
Saunders 13 (-1)
Matlow 12 (+6)
Furey 11 (+2)
Hunter 6 (-2)
Brown 5 (nc)
Bradford 4 (+1)

Quito has given up on Bailão...

My hot take for the day is that the three main right-of-centre candidates (Bailao, Furey, Saunders) should each combine their strengths and merge into one candidate to defeat Olivia Chow.

I know this isn't physically possible, but hey, I can dream.  

That would never happen. Maybe you could theoretically get Furey and Saunders to join forces but Bailao is a big federal Liberal type who still pretends to be progressive. She’s never get behind a Trumpist like Furey

I know, like I said, it's a pipe dream.

Bailao is a centrist overall because of her socially progressive stances, but her proposals on economics and particularly housing definitely lean more to the right.

[Upper Canada Tory]

Bailao is a centrist overall because of her socially progressive stances, but her proposals on economics and particularly housing definitely lean more to the right.

That'd be like, in '11, Paul Martin beseeching Liberals to join forces with the HarperCons in order to stop the Jack Layton NDP.

Layton didn't have a chance of winning, though. Harper Cons were going to win that election either way without any help from other parties.

[Upper Canada Tory]

Bailao is a centrist overall because of her socially progressive stances, but her proposals on economics and particularly housing definitely lean more to the right.

That'd be like, in '11, Paul Martin beseeching Liberals to join forces with the HarperCons in order to stop the Jack Layton NDP.

Layton didn't have a chance of winning, though. Harper Cons were going to win that election either way without any help from other parties.

Not quite true, the way the NDP surged at the end of the 2011 campaign it was quite possible that the NDP could have formed a minority government with Liberal support. The zeitgeist at the time was very much about stopping Harper not stopping Layton and the whole Liberal campaign was based on who could stop Harper.

This is a bit off-topic, but I think you are thinking of the 2015 election campaign when Thomas Mulcair as NDP leader had a chance forming a minority government. In 2011 in all the polls between late March and early May 2011, Harper had a decent lead vs NDP.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2011_Canadian_federal_election

[Upper Canada Tory]

Bailao is a centrist overall because of her socially progressive stances, but her proposals on economics and particularly housing definitely lean more to the right.

That'd be like, in '11, Paul Martin beseeching Liberals to join forces with the HarperCons in order to stop the Jack Layton NDP.

Layton didn't have a chance of winning, though. Harper Cons were going to win that election either way without any help from other parties.

I'm referring to your Bailao logic.  That is, just "leaning to the right" in certain regards (much like "Paul Martin Liberalism") doesn't mean that prominent representatives of that Liberal right flank are going to be *openly* joining forces with the Conservatives.

And on that note, the Toronto Star has just endorsed Bailao.  If you think that means they'd endorse Furey or Saunders in Bailao's absence, you're out of your gourd.

Like I said, I know it would never happen, just a random facetious fantasy of mine.

[Upper Canada Tory]

This is a bit off-topic, but I think you are thinking of the 2015 election campaign when Thomas Mulcair as NDP leader had a chance forming a minority government. In 2011 in all the polls between late March and early May 2011, Harper had a decent lead vs NDP.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2011_Canadian_federal_election

I'm thinking of 2011. The final polls showed the NDP within 3-5 points of the Tories. Had the spread been that close, as opposed to the 9 point spread on election day, the Tories would likely have fallen short of a majority in which case there likely would have been some sort of NDP/Liberal CASA to get Harper out of power. In the dying days of the campaign there was A LOT of speculation about that. Of course its now all counterfactual history and on top of that Layton passed away just three months after the election.

Apparently Layton also said he had no plans for such an agreement.

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.976620

I'm going to cease discussing this now as it is off-topic.

[Upper Canada Tory]

Bailao is a centrist overall because of her socially progressive stances, but her proposals on economics and particularly housing definitely lean more to the right.

That'd be like, in '11, Paul Martin beseeching Liberals to join forces with the HarperCons in order to stop the Jack Layton NDP.

Layton didn't have a chance of winning, though. Harper Cons were going to win that election either way without any help from other parties.

I'm referring to your Bailao logic.  That is, just "leaning to the right" in certain regards (much like "Paul Martin Liberalism") doesn't mean that prominent representatives of that Liberal right flank are going to be *openly* joining forces with the Conservatives.

And on that note, the Toronto Star has just endorsed Bailao.  If you think that means they'd endorse Furey or Saunders in Bailao's absence, you're out of your gourd.

Like I said, I know it would never happen, just a random facetious fantasy of mine.

Well, as affirmed (on paper, at least) by the current Tory/McKelvie/Torstar endorsements, if it were all about "stopping Chow", there'd be a greater likelihood of Saunders supporters gathering in the Bailao camp than Bailao supporters gathering in the Saunders camp, much less the Furey camp.  So this current endorsement spree is probably key to the difference btw/"Safe Chow" and "Likely Chow".

I don't think that the Torstar/Tory/McKelvie/Nunziata endorsements are enough to make Bailao a threat to Chow in an election where Chow is over 20 points ahead even from 'safe' to 'likely'. Unless anything drastically changes over the next 5 days, Chow has this election in the bag.

[Upper Canada Tory]

These endorsements could be the difference between Saunders finishing 2nd vs Bailao finishing 2nd, but it's hard to see how anything threatens Chow's lead, unless we learn tomorrow that Olivia Chow has a history of strangling small animals for fun.

I don't live in Toronto but as far as I can tell, a good chunk of news coverage of this election has just been "Chow up by ___ points in a poll conducted by _____" - ironically, not too dissimilar to how in the 2022 provincial election, much of the coverage was about how the PCs had a seemingly insurmountable lead in the polls. That election had noticeably less coverage than the one in 2018, in large part because the media loves a good horse race, and there really wasn't one in 2022. Many on the left accused excessive media coverage of polls, perhaps at the expense of more important things, of making 2022 seem like a foregone conclusion and depressing NDP/OLP turnout. I think the same will happen here, only this time favouring the left-wing candidate.

I don't live in Toronto either but I'd have to disagree with this.

In this election campaign, unlike most election campaigns, the media has done a surprisingly good job of giving coverage to 'underdog' candidates. We had Bradford, Furey, Matlow and others appear on CP24 for an interview on several occasions. I don't think Furey in particular, a total newcomer to Toronto municipal politics, would have the momentum he has had without his media exposure and multiple interviews on CP24.

With that said, Chow has the name recognition and the 30 years of political experience that no one else has, so she has a huge advantage even if, frankly, her platform is not the most well thought out.