The Paul Wells Show - Encore: Olivia Chow Wants Toronto to Work

Episode Date: August 6, 2025

When John Tory resigned as mayor of Toronto, Olivia Chow decided to take another shot at the job. Despite much of the establishment lining up against her, she won. She talks to Paul about that campaign, and about trying to implement her vision for the city on a shorter-than-usual term, while dealing with a $1.5 billion deficit from COVID. This episode was recorded live at the University of Toronto’s Munk School. It episode originally aired on November 22nd, 2023, a few months after Chow's election.

Hi, it's Paul Wells. Here's another encore episode of The Paul Wells Show. Olivia Chow thought she'd never get a second chance to run for mayor of Toronto. But then John Tori suddenly resigned. You can look at it that I have three years. For me, I missed a year. I don't have four, right? I need four.

So I crammed a whole lot of things in. Today, Olivia Chow, and whatever you thought you knew about Toronto's mayor, you're in for a surprise. I'm Paul Wells, the journalist fellow in residence at the University of Toronto's Monk School. Welcome to the Paul Wells Show. Everyone knows Toronto is big. Only four provinces have a larger population than Toronto, and the Atlantic provinces together have a smaller population. Everyone knows it's a hard city to run. People have been trying to run it since it was formed with, I think, mixed success.

And everyone knows your chances of success are probably better if you know before the election starts that you're going to be running in it. Olivia Chow didn't have that advantage when she ran most recent time, when she won earlier this year, in a surprise election for mayor. and yet it's going decently. She said that she was almost late because she had to stop for selfies on the way in. That is a high class problem and one that you'll miss, I'm sure, at some point. And she has grappled the considerable problems

of running Canada's largest city in post-pandemic jumble of confusion and worry. And she's heading into her biggest challenge so far, which is coming up with a budget. She's about to begin public budget consultations. I grew up in a small town not far from Toronto. I've always had a little bit of inferiority complex when I come to Toronto. It's good to see familiar faces when I'm here, and it's especially good to see an old familiar face from Ottawa. Now back home. Olivia Chow, welcome. Thank you.

When you came to Ottawa, when you ran for Parliament 1, 2006, did you expect that you'd be going back to city politics at any point? No. I went to Ottawa because in all the things I did in this city at the time before I ran for being a member of parliament. And I wanted better child care services. Kids have something to eat and not go to bed hungry, build some housing. All of those things needed money from the federal government. So I went to Ottawa to push for a national child care program, better public transit. I did this national transit strategy. All of those things, I thought, well, since the federal government have more money, a bit more power, that's what I could do. So I did that for quite a few years, eight actually. But then I left. And it didn't go great the first time, as Peter pointed out,

but sometimes in life we get a second chance. When Mayor Tori announced that he wasn't going to be serving out his entire term, on that day, did you think he'd be running again? Nope. No, I was very happy teaching. I started an institute, called Institute for Change Leaders. It takes one of the Harvard Kennedy School professor, Marshall Gans, teaching on political organizing really and using public narrative

to touch people's hearts in order to bring people together to make political change. So I started this institute. We've trained over 10,000 people. it was doing well. I have a lot of instructors and facilitators. We have funds, and it was flying. And then the opportunity came forward. And it started to go really well. And then an awful lot of influential Torontoans

and Toronto institutions started lining up behind one of your opponents. Oh, you mean during the election? Yes. Yes, I did end up jumping in. And then suddenly a bunch of the liberal MPs in town start saying we'd really rather have Anna Bailow when the Toronto Star endorses Anna Bailow, did you start to worry that it was all going away for you?

No. Well, you never know during election. For me, it was really about connecting with people on the street. And I knew I was connecting. and maybe it's okay I can roll back a little bit there was an incident in Toronto some of you would remember a young man called Gabriel Magalise

16 years old was in a subway station Q subway station and he was with some friends and he was stabbed to death by a stranger His story touched a lot of Torontoians because it was in a subway station. It was stranger. And I attended a, this is before election, and I attended a visual. And we were holding candles coming down, a high park, and walking into the station.

Everybody was somber, but it was under control. We walked in, and then the mom, Andrea, started wailing. I thought, oh, my God, the anguish she was experienced was just heartbreaking. And yet, if you listen to her, whether it was on radio or TV in tears, she said that we have to take better care for each other. She wasn't saying, lock them up for away the key. And she said, we need to collectively, as a society, need to create space for people that won't get into that crisis situation.

So that gave me the energy to say, look, our city, have people like her, fundamentally really believe in caring for each other. I thought, okay, we need a caring city. And a lot of the problems that people face is because life is so unaffordable that there were homelessness, people on the street, this guy was homeless, he has mental health issues, in and out of jail, and it was just a complete mess. There was not enough service to help him.

So for me, winning on losing, for me, it's important that I talk about a caring city, making life more affordable and making life more safer because people were really anxious in getting into the subway. So I walked into the election, have a very clear idea what I want to accomplish, partially because I spent 14 years in the city. So I knew how city operated. And I knew what financial challenge was facing the city. So I walked in feeling quite confident that I can connect with people and that I have some of the solutions collectively with people in Toronto that we could get ourselves out of this terrible situation and make life more affordable and get the city to be more caring.

So yes, I had establishment, so to speak, endorsing my political opponent. but I felt good. I felt that a lot of people hurt the message and that they were going to come out to vote and thank God they did. And then you become the mayor, it's like jumping into a race in the middle. You know, the luxury of a transition time

and reaching out to people and hiring up staff and so on. No, no, we didn't have any of that. The people who ran your campaign were back in many cases, were back at their city jobs the next morning. Was that a huge job? to? No, no. Partially, as I said, I had a fairly clear idea what I wanted to do. I looked at the budget ahead of time. I knew, well, this is the thing about municipal elections. You're pretty wow to say what you plan to do. So I already had a plan. So I came in. I knew we were facing a

$1.5 billion budget deficit. So we need to find money. Okay. Well, my thought was, let's look at the recommendations from the staff, but I picked key ones, like people that are buying houses, they're free, $5, $10 million, $20 million, they can pay a bit more when they purchase the house. If you are a speculator and leave your unit, an apartment unit empty, they can see tax. You're going to pay a bit more because we're in the middle of housing crisis. You're leaving your apartment empty, so you wait for the right time to build, excuse me, pay a bit more. So I was able to start on that role, and then I was very clear that I want to put money into public transit,

restore the cuts to TTC. I wanted to hire more officers so that eyes and years in TTC, so more people can take TDC. and I needed to create housing. So I came in saying, here's how I'm going to find some money. Here is what I need, so we put in money to purchase old buildings. We can then convert them, get the tenants, form land trusts, and be able to have a secure home. So I did a whole lot of things very, very quickly because I knew, well, having 14 years of experience helped.

I knew what needed to be done. So I went straight in and did a bunch of things. Hopefully people like what I did. And I'm nowhere near finish. No. You've got, I mean, three more years before the next election. I mean, you've got at least the luxury of a certain amount of time to make things happen. Yeah, but there are some things that I felt were so important.

I have one last year. So you can look at it that I have three years. For me, I missed a year. You don't have four. I don't have four, right? I need four. So I crammed a whole lot of things in. We released a big plan, a housing roadmap on how to build 65,000 units of housing, rental units, right?

A lot of it affordable. So a lot of those things I'm set to. stage up to say that we really want to build a city that's affordable, that's caring, where people feel that they're part of it. One of the most reliable instincts when someone comes into office at a moment of difficulty, at a moment of complexity, is to sort of hunker down with a small commando of trusted advisors, one or two counselors, three or four staffers, and then send out message when you feel like you're good and ready. There's at least a couple of leaders in Ottawa who are following that

roadmap as we speak. You've been fairly resolute in doing almost the opposite. Absolutely. Bringing in stakeholder groups that are used to protesting in the showing on the outside. Yeah, absolutely. Bringing them inside the clamshell, I think, is the local turn of phrase. And not having pre-baked answers to fundamental questions. What's the tax rate going to be? What are the list of priorities? You're about to sort of go barnstorming around town and ask Torontonians that. Some of my colleagues at City Hall can hardly believe it

because it's a high risk thing. What if the things they ask for are contradictory? What if they cost more than the available money? They certainly will. Why are you sticking to that slightly looser governing method? We live in a time that... People are losing faith in institutions, in governments, because we no longer have rituals.

We have social media that is very short. There's no nuance. It's not really participatory. It's not that democratic. We need institutions that bring people together rather than divide them. And with a city, I mean, if you think about the service we do. First thing in the morning, open the tap, the water is clean,

your garbage come and get picked up, and then you take the public transit, or you hit some potholes on the road, and that road is not that well maintained congestion, public transit, you take the kids to daycare, all of that, right? And where it's parks, police, ambulance, fire, public health, you name it. We do it.

And that is one institution in a unique position to bring people together, to say that this is our institution, this is our city hall, this is our local government. You can't get more local than all the things I just described. Where does your kids go to community center to swim, you know, the waiting pool and all of that? So I think it's critically important in these times that you open up your budget, how you operate, bring people in, especially those people that don't have a voice, often maybe because they speak different languages or they don't have time to participate

or they feel that you don't care. Those are the voices that we really need in order to run a good service. If not, your service, it's come up from, whatever, from administrators, politicians. My concept of what politicians really are is a conduit. You have the public, you have public servants. What do we do? We are the conduit.

We bring the public and the public servants together to make sure that the public servants are delivering the services the public needs and want and desire. So the first thing I did was I spoke to all the city councilors to find out, It doesn't matter which political strike. What's the passion? What do they want to accomplish in, say, three more years?

What makes them get up in the morning and say, I want to do this, right? So once I found out what people really want to do and accomplish, what are they passionate about, then I went about to make sure that everybody have a role to play. I want to do the same thing with people that, wants to participate. So first you have to listen about the ideas, find out how they want to participate. Can we find some ways for people to participate? Which is why the open budget process, which is why the renters committee, 50% of the residents are renters. They're not homeowners.

They don't feel that we hear them. So we establish a renters group to advise you. the city what to do. So it's always been the way I function. Way back, I started the Toronto youth cabinet, a group of young people to give advice is now 25 years. And they did amazing things. So I know it worked before and that's what I want to continue to do. It's a slightly different political concept may be, I don't know. Because I can't say that I know all the solutions. And I'm a firm believer that we are stronger together. That's what democracy is about. It's not my way or the highway. So by nature, I'm a bit of a worrier. And it seems to me that whenever you come out with

your plan, whenever you've talked, we've opened the city, we've opened the doors, we've talked to the people, and here's what we've come up with. There will be at least some people who say, I didn't ask for that, or I asked for more, or I asked for something over here and you're doing something over there. Is that a risk? And is it? Yes, of course. Of course. But if they understand the city finances, they will see where that $1.5 billion came from. It wasn't because someone was wildly spending money. It was because during COVID, we had to run the bus at the subway. So the essential workers have a place to go to get to work. We had to have our shelters because people are losing their homes. So those things cost a lot of money. And that's why we ran up a deficit.

So we need to open up the books. We need to say that of the $100 that you give taxes to different levels of government, $8%, $8 of it come to city. The other $92 goes to other levels of government, but yet we do so much. And that of the city revenue of, say, $10, $3 come from the fares in the province, and then the other four comes from your property tax, and then $3 come from the user fees. And then there's, you know, so wow, that's why TDC fares are going up because don't have enough money. So I think people need to know where their money goes to because when you give taxes, it's something that we want to create some public service for each other.

So that when we go to the hospital, we don't have to pay a big bill, right? So I think it's important people understand and learn, hear from each other. Because I think we live in a society, sometimes we shout at each other too much, especially through Twitter, X, social media, right, Instagram. Sub-Tech. Yeah, sub-tech. Well, sub-tech is a bit more thoughtful, longer. so we are creating opportunities for people to hear from each other

so that perhaps they can share experience and not just form an opinion because we all have opinions but if we share our experience, our daily lives then maybe we can start hearing each other we can start seeing each other and maybe we can find a common ground to get to where we need to go to.

You and the Premier, Doug Ford, heard and saw each other after your election and before you announced that you were meeting. You met at least once before you made a show of meeting. You've known him for a long time, and I haven't always seen eye to eye. Were you resigned to having to work with him? Were you looking forward to working with them?

How has it gone? I look forward working with him because the 2014 campaign was, long. It was long. And he was a candidate. I was a candidate. And John Torrey was a candidate. So we got to know each other quite well. During the election period, he said I was in a mitigated disaster. It wasn't just a simple disaster. It was a surprise because he's usually he's... It was a mitigated disaster. I thought, okay, let me look up that word. Usually he's so given to understatement. Yes, yes. Premier Ford is known for his understatement, absolutely.

But he then called me on election night, let's work together. I say, yep, let's do this, right? Because he loved the city. He lives in the city. He's been a city councilor. He knows how he's run. So he wants the city to be successful also. He doesn't want to see all this congestion, right?

He wants more housing. He doesn't want to see all the homeless folks sleeping in tents and all in different parks. So we have common goals. Now, a way to get to accomplish the goals may be different. But certainly, if we can share some experience and look at the goal and say, okay, these are common goals, let's find a way to get there. You may want to go this way. I might go this way, can we meet somewhere in between?

So that's why we set up this New Deal working group. And after a month of meeting the federal government, say, oh, we'll go in too, because they were a bit reluctant at first. But now they said, okay, we'll come in. So I hope that the federal government will also understand. Because, you know, Paul, you've heard this before. I think the Federation of Canadian Municipalities at least, I don't know, 15 years ago had this big campaign, one cent solution, you know, one cent of GST going to municipalities.

Well, Mr. Harper at the time, the Prime Minister said, sure, we'll cut GST, except we won't give it to you. So there was a big campaign during that time. we are now at a stage that every municipality is like you interviewed the mayor of Ottawa Mark Secliffe yeah almost every mayor from close to close to close are saying the same thing we need support we need infrastructure funds we need to build more housing we need help in policing those that don't have our SMP as their service so same kind of ask, and we're asking the federal government that help with the refugees, there's 54% increase. They are just arriving every night. We have to turn them away from our shelters, right?

So we need to find a solution. We need to build housing. We need to fix our public transit. Those subway cars, last time we bought new ones, were the Leighton Martin deal. That's how long it was. Those were the north-south subway cars. The east-west subway cars are getting really old. We need to buy new ones. We need to keep TDC in a state of good repair. So all of that combined, you're looking at something like 800 million a year of operating dollars,

and about $650 million capital budget. So whichever way it can come, infrastructure funds, one cents gas tax, give us the power for income tax, just like Philadelphia gets it, New York has it. We are a big metropolis. So we'll take the blame in terms of the taxing. if the federal and the provincial government doesn't want to do that.

If they don't want to transfer the dollars, transfer the power. So we need a good, serious dialogue, and we are having that right now. Do you think that's why the feds finally joined the working group? At first you had a letter from Minister Freeland saying, talk to the province. And then I think she was a little astonished and nervous to discover that you were. And so after about a month of your city manager and his deputy minister of finance, she told her deputy minister of finance to get on the next...

To join in. Yeah. There's a French expression, Les Absin, Tours, The Absent are always wrong. It might translate in English as the absent often have to pick up the tab. Do you think that's why she decided to get the deputy minister down here quick? Yeah, we were actually doing that. We didn't say that, well, that's federal responsibility, refugees. and that's that's federal yeah infrastructure yeah they have infrastructure fund coming out they just

finished the infrastructure fund last year they're supposed to have a new one well you know Ontario needs 38% of the dollar because we have 38% of the population where is the new infrastructure fund yes being absent means you know when you go to a family dinner if you show up late sometimes you get fallen toad what you're doing, right? So maybe it's a better, well, as I said, let's all talk together. And then I talked about stronger together. We need each other, all three levels of government, to work well together so that the service can be as best as it can be.

Because I think people are tired of everybody saying, oh, that's responsibility. and then, you know, mental health, that's federal, no, federal. Mental health, you know what? We see it here in the city. People call 911, they have a mental health crisis. We now have Girsten Center, mental health workers going to provide support to them. But you know what? Mental health is not, shouldn't come from your property tax base, right? But people don't know that, The people don't think about that. So if we don't have the money to deliver the service, when people call up 911 or 211,

we don't deliver the right kind of service. Because the fire department shows up. The firefighters said, we don't know what to do. The police show up. We don't know what to do. We're not psychiatrists. We're not social workers. And then sometimes tragedy happened because of that.

So we have started a real, good community crisis respond team and is showing amazing results. We just recently extended it all across the city. But that's mental health. We need help in supporting it. So I think the more we cooperate, the more we work together, the easier it is for the best service to come forward. And because we are so in touch with everyday lives, I dare say that the service we deliver, especially the pilot project, is the best it can be. I'll give you an example.

Sure. You know, teeth, when you have a toothache, hurts like heck. So many years ago, the medical officer of health started saying, let us fix children's teeth. So in the city of Toronto, if the kids can't afford to pay or seniors, we have free dental clinics for children and seniors. Guess what's happening in the federal government? They are providing, in a different format,

good dental, free dental programs, eventually, hopefully to everyone. So if you look at a lot of things that we do, children's breakfast programs, meals in school. We started that in 1985, now feeding 220,000 kids. Hopefully the federal government would then come in and say, yeah, we need a national food program, since we are the only G7 country that don't have a national food program. Let's join in. So we start these pilot programs that works well.

and if the federal and the provincial government come and say, yeah, we'll do a review, evaluate it. If it's working, why not make it happen? Make it universal. The sums of money that you're talking about are kind of vast. You talk about a billion and a half. That's to... The capital and the operating. Yeah, the billion and a half is for this budget cycle.

But your city staff talks about 46.5 billion... Over 10 years. Yeah, that's the capital deficit. 7.5 for operating 9.5 for increased debt. 29.5 billion for unfunded capital. I know. I know. We need a lot of help. Yeah. And about 60% of it comes from other levels of government in the sort of rough calculation that your staff is sending around.

That what we need. Yes. Right now, we only get of the $10 revenue. you, we get three of it from federal and provincial. It needs to be something like six. Yeah, because property tax is not progressive kind of tax. It's a homeowner. How much can you pay? We can, it only like one percent of property tax is only 40 million. we are $1.5 billion in deficit and we can't even run the deficit you don't even want to do the math of what kind of property tax increase you people people will have to sell their homes that's that's impossible but what about income tax right of all the tax you pay if only $8 of $100 of tax you pay only come to the city that makes no sense because we covered probably 90% of the service you get

An income tax transfer to a municipality would be a super creative and very novel solution. Not in, not around the globe. In Canada. In Canada, yes, absolutely. But, you know, there's a lot of American cities, European cities, Rome, as I said, Philadelphia and New York. I can name a whole lot of cities, a bit in the metropolis, that rely on income tax. You're eloquent about Toronto as a welcoming city for newcomers, people from all over the world. You lead by example in that front.

Do you think sometimes that the feds ramped up immigration levels very rapidly, in short order, without thinking enough about the repercussions of those choices? More talking to the local government would help. But the city, if you talk to local residents, they're ready to have more immigrants to the city. We need more immigrants because our pension, we have an aging population, right? So for economic growth, never mind all the other humanitarian and all the good reasons. And something that is so unique in Toronto, nowhere. else in the world? Do you have a city this diverse and people living in such harmony?

Even when times are tough, when people are, you know, knocking heads, it's still a very, very peaceful, harmonious city. Let me tell you, every weekend, right through the summer, at least two or three festivals, we call it taste. of little Italy, taste of Danforth, taste of little India, taste of Thailand, Vietnam, taste of Ukrainian, taste of everything everywhere. And it's a big street party. Thousands and thousands of people come out celebrating each other, culture, language, food. Oh my God, the joy that people have is stunning. You don't see that in anywhere else in the world that you would have this kind of street parties every single weekend in every corner of the city,

celebrating every culture. But, you know, Taste of Danforth is supposed to be Greek town, supposed to be just Greek. Oh, no, if you look at who shows up, everybody shows up for each other festivals, which is spectacular. So we are, and our arts and our culture is so excellent because we have these diverse voices coming together, feeling a sense of belonging and they could create. And that's so unique, right? If you look at our arts and culture, and as you love music, you know what I'm talking about. So more immigrant is great. but we are in the middle of a housing crisis. We haven't built affordable housing for 30 years.

There was a wrong political ideology that said only private sector can build housing. No brick and mortars. I remember Brian Maroney saying that, former prime minister. That was wrong. You're seeing the housing crisis right now. We used to build thousands and thousands units of affordable housing.

That was the David Lewis Minority Government with maybe Pierre Trudeau or something like that, right, in the 70s. There was a national housing program. CMXC was doing a spectacular job. And there wasn't people sleeping on the street in the 70s. People were feeling hopeful. And it all stopped at mid-90s. And everybody stopped building. The government walked away.

The city is walking back in. We, at those times, built 32,000 units of housing. We did it before we can do it again. Now, we need financial support. And we are boldly saying, we have a plan, we have the land. Come on, work with us. We can do this. So we're coming back to build housing,

which totally connect with an immigration. immigrant coming into the country. Because the first thing immigrant wants, whether it's buying a home, finding shelter, renting a place, then they can settle, then they could find a job and do all that. But housing, critically important. If the rent is too high, look at our food bank. One out of 10 Tronians rely on a food bank. That's not healthy.

That's not a city and a country that is absolutely going to a wrong direction. but all of it is because that we stop building housing. We need the immigrant. Let's get the housing built. We need refugees because we need to open our doors to people that are, say, looking for refuge. From the potatoes famine during the Irish famine, we welcome refugees into our countries. But for God's sake, make sure they don't sleep on our street. help find shelter for them and pay for it.

One more question for me. Maybe not the kind of question I always ask. Do you ever wish you could update Jack Leighton on what you're doing? That wasn't the question that I was expecting. Do I update what? Do you wish you could tell, Jack? Oh. Hmm.

I haven't thought of that. I do occasionally, he wrote this book on Homeless. I was assisting him organized chapters and looking at the research. I thought, maybe he knows. How do you know he doesn't know? None of us know. I wish he could be the prime minister. That would make a lot of negotiating a lot easier, wouldn't you think?

But since he isn't, wasn't, well, you know. I will take whatever knowledge, the spirit that he has, which is be more loving, hopeful and optimistic. We can change the world. And he always quote Tommy Douglas, friends, dream no little dreams and courage, have courage, etc. So not too late to change the world. So it's an open invitation for all the Torontoans and Canadians, people that listen to your a podcast to work together to change the world. Wouldn't that be marvelous?

Thanks. Thank you, Paul. Thanks for listening to The Paul Wells Show. Today's episode is recorded live at the Monk School. The Paul Welles Show is produced by Antica, in partnership with the University of Toronto's Monk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. Our producer is Kevin Sexton.

Our executive producers are Laura Ruggare and Stuart Cox. Our opening theme music is by Kevin Bright, and our closing theme music is by Andy Milne. We'll be back next Wednesday. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.