At a ceremony on Wednesday at 11 a.m. ET, Chow will be sworn in as the city’s new mayor
Olivia Chow was sworn in as the 66th mayor of Toronto on Wednesday. Experts say she will use the ceremony to set a new tone at city hall.
Chow won a by-election for mayor on June 26. Since then, he has been going to briefings, meetings, and events as the new mayor-elect. In a recent interview with CBC Toronto, she said that she knows she has a big job ahead of her and that she will measure her success in many different ways at the end of her term.
“In three years, that kind of life will be cheaper, especially for people who rent,” she said.
“More kids and older people will have access to the services they need to stay healthy… That there would be as much life in the arts as there is now, or even more. And TTC is safe, quick, and reliable.”
These are just some of the most important problems that Chow has promised to solve when she takes office. She starts her job when the city’s budget is short by a billion dollars, its shelters are full every night, and it’s in the middle of an affordability crisis.
Experts say Chow should set a tone of hope
Myer Siemiatycki, a professor of politics at Toronto Metropolitan University, said that he thinks Chow will talk about these problems but also give people something to hope for.
He said, “I don’t think she’ll want to send a message of doom and gloom or of giving up.” “I think she’ll say it’s time for us all to roll up our sleeves and work together.”
WATCH | CBC Toronto went for a bike ride with Chow to get a sense of her leadership style:
Siemiatycki said the occasion gives Chow a chance to make an agenda-setting address in the style normally given at Queen’s Park or on Parliament Hill.
“It’s the equivalent of the speech from the throne that we are familiar with at the federal and provincial level,” he said of her swearing-in. “She will do a roll-call, naming the challenges and issues, as a way of signaling to Torontonians that she got the message from the public.”
Strategist and consultant Kim Wright said the ceremony will give Chow a chance to visibly “reset” the council term. It’s a rare opportunity and will mark a significant change in direction, she said.
“She can reset council, reset those priorities, and showcase that whatever one thought of ‘campaign Olivia Chow’, ‘governing Olivia Chow’ is a very different conversation,” she said.
Wright said part of Chow’s job will be to reassure Torontonians that she can begin to fix the many problems the city faces.
“All of those very fundamental fears and anxieties Torontonians are feeling about the future of our city really have to be looked at in a very different lens than they have been for the last decade,” she said.
Committee shakeup likel
Chow will likely appoint new chairs for key committees in the coming weeks and also elevate her allies into important roles. Former city councillor Joe Mihevc said the city might also start to get a sense Wednesday of where the fault lines lie for the new mayor when it comes to her allies on council.
To pass her agenda with 13 votes required, she’ll need to build a coalition. In reality, Mihevc said Chow will need around 16 councillors who she can regularly depend on to help her and ensure she has a healthy margin of support.
The new mayor’s staff have already been busy meeting with councillors and trying to find common ground, he said.
“She has to find sweet spots, she has to negotiate — she has to also define who her enemies are,” he said. “Who will be the minority of councillors that will be on the outside almost always?”
Mihevc said he thinks Chow will enjoy a bit of a honeymoon with voters and they’ll recognize that some problems will take time to address. Some issues, like the city’s financial challenges, have been around for years, he said.
“I think she gets lots of support and benefits of the doubt for at least a year,” he said. “I think it’s been the history of the city of Toronto, certainly since amalgamation, that you might even get the full first term.”
Siemiatycki said he thinks Chow will need some policy wins in her first few months to help ease her transition into the job. Otherwise, it could be a short honeymoon with voters, he said.
“I think she needs to have some quick deliverables,” he said. “They don’t have to be big-ticket items.”
Wright said as a new mayor, Chow will need the “space and grace” to make different choices and mistakes.
“Really, she’s got a council that is already six months ahead of her on some of these decision making,” she said. “So she’s going to be playing catch up.”