Torontonians have questions.
“Why can’t our young people afford a place to live?”
“Why is the TTC constantly breaking down?”
“Why is it no longer safe for our kids?”
For three years, Mayor Olivia Chow has been dodging the question.
She’s proven it over the last month of mayoral debates. It’s what she does. She dodges the questions.
She was asked point blank by rival candidate Brad Bradford during Tuesday’s Toronto Scarborough debate, “Mayor Chow, why did you choose not to sit on the police board?” She simply would not answer the question.
Many Torontonians might even support her decision not to sit on the police board. Many want to understand the reasoning behind it. She won’t give them a simple answer.
With only two candidates left in the mayoral debate, there’s not much room for Chow to hide. She is being forced to go toe-to-toe with Bradford, and the contrast is remarkable.
While Bradford glances at his notes from time to time, he is present and engaged in the room. He thinks on his feet and is trying to have an actual discussion about the city.
Chow, meanwhile, is stuttering, misspeaking, and mumbling her way through the prepared remarks and cannot answer any question of substance.
On Tuesday night, when asked how she would pay for an initiative, she began rambling about ideas she had in the ’90s while she was working in Ottawa.
At the Daily Bread Food Bank last month, when asked if Toronto should move to food stamps, the mayor didn’t even know what food stamps were.
Repeatedly, on almost any serious issue, she will not answer yes or no. “Throw out a pitch at the baseball game?” she’s your mayor. “Will you commit to a number on tax increases?” No response.
So it raises the question: why is Mayor Chow dodging all the questions?
The first explanation might simply be incompetence. In some instances, like food stamps, it’s reasonable to think she doesn’t know what’s going on.
In others, like the police board or the data centre question that was also put to her on Tuesday, she probably does know her answer. She likely just doesn’t want to say the answers out loud. She knows those answers will likely alienate a significant portion of her constituency.
This is the trouble, if that’s the case, a massive subset of Olivia Chow’s supporters are being mislead. It is not a big ask for the mayor to be honest about her policies. A massive part of her NDP supporter base hates data centres. She won’t give an answer. Torontonians deserve a clear answer. Do data centres belong in Toronto? Yes or no?
Leadership is about making tough decisions, not waffling in the middle.
Bradford knows some of his answers wouldn’t be popular with everyone, but at least he had the integrity to say: this is what I stand for, we might disagree on it, but I stand up for what I believe in.
There was one question that Chow could answer this week. It came in Monday’s debate, when both candidates were asked to finish the sentence: “Toronto is a city where…”
Bradford gave an answer. He said, off the cuff and under pressure, “Toronto is a city where you can raise a family, build a business, and unlock your full potential.”
Mayor Chow, on the other hand, said: “Toronto… It’s a city where… you can find the… most dynamic street festival ever… in… in… the world… Street festival! Taste of everything everywhere…”
It’s a good laugh but not enough is being said about what these answers say about the philosophies of these two candidates.
This, perhaps, is the real heart of the Toronto mayoral debate. It deserves more attention as a storyline.
Brad Bradford genuinely believes that Toronto should be a place where you can raise a family, open a business, and be prosperous. He believes that Torontonians can have a good, happy, meaningful life. The boring stuff. The essential stuff. Because that is what life is all about.
Mayor Chow, on the other hand, just wants to have fun. Her priority is street festivals. She likes to dance. She doesn’t seem to concern herself much with whether or not you can live in the city, whether or not it’s affordable for your children to live there. She doesn’t concern herself with whether or not you’re able to open and operate a business. She’s happy to fix transit during the FIFA world cup, but then abandon any findings as soon as the party leaves town. She just wants to dress up and dance around. It’s a disaster. She’s a disaster.
While she’s dancing, she just dances around and dodges the vital questions.
Chow will read off her notes, and when she makes a mistake, she looks to the back of the room for help and casts a death stare at her poor staff, who must be melting down by this point. Three years have not been kind to this mayor’s cognition. She practically never gets to the heart of the important issues.
Finally, on Tuesday evening, Bradford said it best himself: “She doesn’t want to answer the question. She’s never going to answer the question. She doesn’t take your safety seriously.”