Do we like Olivia Chow?
Our score: 8 out of 10. Decades of public service on the right side of our questions, marked down for one contested Gaza statement and a big run of property tax hikes.
Chow came to Toronto from Hong Kong at 13, and her mother worked as a hotel maid. She studied sculpting, religion and philosophy before becoming an activist, then a school trustee in 1985, four terms as a city councillor and four terms as an NDP MP for Trinity-Spadina. She became mayor in the 2023 by-election after John Tory resigned, narrowly beating Tory-backed Ana Bailão.
The big stoush is Gaza. At a National Council of Canadian Muslims gala on 1 November 2025 she said “The genocide in Gaza impacts us all.” Several Jewish groups demanded an apology or resignation, B'nai Brith asked the city's integrity commissioner to look at it, and a group called Tafsik filed a Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario case. Other groups praised her, and no apology was reported in the pieces we read. Where you land depends on whether you hear a mayor naming a humanitarian crisis or a mayor inflaming her own city.
On the harm check, nothing nasty turned up. Chow told Xtra back in 2014 that she fought for same-sex spousal benefits as a councillor, hired openly gay and trans staff and backed a trans rights bill as an MP. In 2023 she signed a climate pledge backing Toronto's net-zero plan, though advocates warned the city's budget hole threatened it. We found no harmful company or grievance slide, but we also found little recent reporting on her trans-rights record, so that part leans on her own account.
The recent chapter was a comfortable win: roughly 529,000 votes to about 401,000 for Bradford, with strength downtown and across Scarborough. Commentator Scott Reid suggested the Jewish vote shaped the result in places like Eglinton-Lawrence, where Bradford took about 63 per cent. In her victory speech she said “I am your mayor too,” which reads as an olive branch to those who didn't back her.
The knock that sticks is tax. Property taxes rose 9.5 per cent, 6.9 per cent, then 2.2 per cent, about 18.6 per cent in all, and Bradford calls it the biggest bait and switch in the city's history. Her 65,000-homes-by-2030 goal is a long way off, and her campaign's 15,000 homes under construction falls short of its 25,000 rental-homes promise. Critics also point to an unreliable TTC; her defenders say she is a skilled dealmaker with Queen's Park.
On the good side of the ledger, she delivered a renoviction bylaw aimed at landlords who evict tenants to hike rents, a fare cap for frequent TTC riders and a school nutrition program she wants to expand to lunch. The city broke ground on 5,271 city-owned homes with federal funding, and she struck a deal with Ontario that saves billions on the Gardiner and DVP. She also campaigned on a task force against bad landlords and a TTC fare freeze.