Torontonians are headed to the polls on June 26 to elect their new mayor about five months after longtime mayor John Tory stepped down from the role because of an “inappropriate relationship” he’d had with a former staffer.
Polling throughout the mayoral race has mostly favoured former NDP MP Olivia Chow, who previously ran in the city’s 2014 mayoral byelection and placed third in voting.
With Tory not running for the first time in the city’s past three mayoral byelections, the left-leaning Chow will now seek to defeat right-leaning candidates like former Toronto police chief Mark Saunders and political commentator Anthony Furey.
Former deputy mayor Ana Bailão recently made jump in the polls, with a June 25 Mainstreet Research survey showing Bailão has about 30 percent of voters’ support across the city.
The same poll said Chow maintained her lead with 36 percent, while Mark Saunders, Anthony Furey, and city councillor Josh Matlow all had around 8 or 9 percent.
Taking up the rear among favoured candidates were former Ontario Liberal MPP Mitzie Hunter and city councillor Brad Bradford, who had 5 percent and 1 percent of voters’ support, respectively.
Last week, Ontario Premier Doug Ford endorsed Saunders for Toronto’s next mayor.
Polls will be open for voting at over 1,440 voting locations across the city on Monday, June 26, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
About 129,740 eligible voters already cast their ballots at advance polls between June 8 and June 13, representing an increase of 14,000 over advance voting in the October 2022 mayoral election. That election, which saw Tory elected for the third straight time, had a record-low 30 percent voter turnout.
Tory only stayed in the mayor’s office until mid-February, resigning after admitting to an affair with a former staffer.
The current mayoral candidates have spent the past few months campaigning mostly on addressing Toronto’s affordable housing crisis—which has a emerged as top-priority in a city struggling with sky-high real estate and rental prices.
Chow’s plan to bring down real estate and rental-housing prices across the city includes raising taxes on expensive real-estate purchases in Toronto and using the public revenue to build cheaper housing units.
Bailão says she will introduce “rental zoning” to ensure there are sites across the city that can only be used for rental housing units.
Saunders says he will remove property taxes from affordable housing units in future developments, while Furey proposes eliminating the municipal land-transfer tax for first-time home buyers in the city.
Tara MacIsaac and The Canadian Press contributed to this report.
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