Is this a change election? Can Olivia Chow be beaten? Key election questions answered
CBC Toronto’s Shawn Jeffords breaks down some of the byelection’s biggest questions
With just over a week to go until election day, Municipal Affairs Reporter Shawn Jeffords weighs in on some key questions about where the race to become Toronto's next mayor is going in the final days.
What's the last week of this thing going to look like?
We'll see more campaign announcements and a shift to rallies where candidates can project confidence and a sense of momentum ahead of election day. Campaigns will make last ditch efforts to sway undecided voters.
Behind the scenes will be a different story as each team's get-out-the-vote operations gear up to motivate, and sometimes literally deliver, their supporters to the polls on election day.
We keep hearing the phrase "change election." What does that mean and is that really what we're having?
We might only know the answer to this question in retrospect. This may well be a change election, but it probably doesn't fit the conventional sense of the term.
Under normal circumstances, you'd have an incumbent running under a status quo banner and other candidates advocating for change. In this race, all of the top-tier candidates are positioning themselves as agents of change. Whether they are, in fact, is in the eye of the beholder.
Toronto Metropolitan University politics professor Myer Siemiatycki argues this is a change election. In his view, Ana Bailão and Mark Saunders to a degree, are the candidates that most represent that status quo because of their records as a close ally of Tory and as police chief, respectively.
"I think it is very much a change election," he said. "It's certainly a change from a mayor who was elected three times."
"It was almost as if the personal appeal John Tory had papered over or supplanted any concern that Torontonians had about the state of the city, the issues we're now talking about like housing, the state of municipal services and transportation," he said.
Headlines like businesses having their CaféTO applications rejected hit the campaign trail this week. How much can a mayor really shake up that kind of bureaucratic process?
The mayor can have a big impact on programs like CaféTO. For evidence of that, you only need to look back at how Tory reacted to business complaints about the proposed CaféTO fee structure earlier this year.
There also seems to be a real appetite from councillors to make changes to CaféTO. I expect a new mayor will make significant changes to the system since so many candidates have been talking about it on the campaign trail, including promises to waive fees for businesses.
The polling, whether it should be trusted or not, has been pretty stable for a while now with Olivia Chow in the lead. Advance voting has wrapped. Do you think there's anything coming that could shake things up?
Never say never.
This is the kind of question I ask experts and analysts all the time and it makes them squirm, largely because it asks them to predict the future — something that's risky in politics. Look at Tory's shocking resignation, I don't think anyone saw that coming.
No one is prepared to say that something unexpected won't happen. But Chow appears to have a commanding lead in this race and nearly every campaign has pivoted to attack her in the final weeks.
Siemiatycki said barring a serious revelation that alters the course of the campaign, Chow's lead could be difficult to erode.
"I think it is desperation time for those who are playing catch up with Olivia Chow to try to find what's the key that unlocks that magic door," he said. "How do they make up ground? To this point nothing has taken hold."
Has John Tory endorsed anyone, or are you hearing anything about that?
There are candidates in this race that Tory has worked with closely like Bailão and Brad Bradford. They would be most likely to receive that endorsement, but to this point, Tory has not backed anyone. And timing may well play a factor in whether the former mayor weighs in.
I'll lean on Andrew Tumilty for help with this answer. He's a senior consultant with Enterprise Canada but has worked with Tory, twice serving as his campaign war room director.
He thinks a Tory endorsement is unlikely.
"I think at this point, late in the race, will his endorsement have an impact? You know, I have to question that since advance voting is already done," he said. "My best assessment would be that we're probably not going to see that endorsement given that it's unlikely to have an impact."
That said, on Friday, Tory's hand-picked deputy mayor Jennifer McKelvie endorsed Bailão, who also once served as his deputy mayor.
The councillors who are running – Josh Matlow, Brad Bradford, Anthony Perruzza – if they don't win, they just go back on council, right?
Yes, that's right.
But depending on who wins, they could still have important roles. If Bailão wins, for example, she may turn to Bradford as a key ally and keep him in his current position as chair of the city's planning and housing committee. If Chow wins, it's possible that Bradford is removed from that role and a new committee chair takes on that position. In the event of a Chow win, it's always possible she turns to Matlow to help in some capacity with her administration.
Or all three could end up as some of the new mayor's most vocal critics with an eye to running again in three years in the next municipal election.
The point is that the new mayor will control key committee chairperson positions and the make-up of Toronto's committee appointments. There could be a significant shake-up depending on who wins the race.
Last question, what's your coffee order?
I take my coffee black. And keep it comin' until June 26.