Olivia Chow: Thin Edge of the Liberal Wedge in Toronto?

Is Olivia Chow the Liberal candidate for Mayor of Toronto?

I betcha' by golly she is. But what a startling thought! A staunch NDP MP like Olivia running for Mayor of Toronto, as a crypto-Liberal. Imagine the slogan, "A Vote for Chow is a Vote for Wynne!" Would that constitute an endorsement of Wynne by Chow? Does that mean that Oliva is urging NDP voters to vote for Wynne in the next provincial election? Do NDP voters even know they are voting for Wynne?

Well, it doesn't matter much because heaven knows, people who vote on the left are used to being shafted by Olivia. Her and her late husband, Saint Jack Layton, ran an entire national election campaign on a socialist platform while fully intending to merge the NDP with the Liberals after being elected to Parliament as socialists.

That fell through, but I find myself wondering if Oliva still wants to be a "Karma Chameleon". She's a slippery old pol. The reason that I wonder about this is her vagueness in a recent statement to the press about the "Downtown Relief Line" to be added to the subway, a much fretted over development down at City Hall.

www.thestar.com...

The downtown relief subway line should not be an issue in Toronto’s 2014 municipal election campaign, mayoral candidate Olivia Chow says.

During a morning radio interview, Chow was asked about her commitment to building the subway line. Critics have accused her of waffling on her position since launching her campaign last month.

Chow said while she supports the line, she noted it is not projected to open until 2031, 17 years from now.

“Can we do it faster? Maybe, but it’s $8 billion, a lot of money, so we need to negotiate with the federal and provincial government on how we are going to do this,” she said in the interview on CIUT 89.5 FM."

Like she was campaigning for Bad Planning Poster Girl, Olivia assures those of her constituency that depend for their profits on bad planning, that she intends to hand the whip hand in planning to higher echelons of government, provincial and federal. This is a defacto declaration that the politics and profits of "bad planning" will determine transit plans.

“We need to determine what route and which alignment, which we’ll do this late spring and early summer, so once we have that, then we can begin to negotiate. But I don’t think it should be an election issue because . . . nothing is going to break ground for another four, five years, six years, because the study itself will take that long.”

This is classic "gubmint" thinking from somebody who knows nothing about nothing but about how the politics of corruption works in this city/provice/country. In the area of public works, as in so many others, TIME = MONEY. Olivia tells us that this is going to take a lot of time. Olivia has been out of city politics for a while. Will she be learning on the job at this important juncture?

Whatever the case, it seems obvious that Olivia is waiting for another player to get her ducks in a row on this issue. Is Olivia point person for Kathleen Wynne? Is it Olivia's job to derail the Ford transit plans in favor of ones preferred by the provincial government?

John Tory wants this subject, the relief line, on the table. He knows time is money. He knows that the issue is important. Rob Ford wants the relief to come in the form of lines in Scarborough and North York. Surely these are major dividing lines between the candidates and topics that should be aired thoroughly.

Mayoral candidate John Tory has made building a downtown relief line, which he calls the Yonge Street relief line, a key part of his platform.

Tory says that by 2031, Toronto will have “added between 1.5 and 2 million people in that period of time.”

“I said at my launch I would make the Yonge Street Relief Line priority number one. And I meant it,” he said. In a statement released Wednesday, Tory said Torontonians have “a very clear choice between Ms Chow and I,” as he is the candidate who “can get action on Yonge Street Relief Line.”

What is really going on with Olivia on this issue? Is she vague because she has been out of the city "loop" for too long? Is she waiting on financing and other details from Kathleen Wynne that she can take into account when putting her own position forward? I'm not implying skullduggery here. Politicians have to coordinate between governmental levels, If Olivia is coordinating with Wynne, it would appear that on this issue, she might be being muzzled by Wynne as well. Is that a good thing in a candiate for Mayor of Toronto?

Moving on.

When you are being campaigned at by a politician who advocates banning handguns, as Olivia Chow has done last week in the race to be Mayor of Toronto, you should ask yourself, as others before me have done, "Why does this person stop at handguns? Surely crime itself should be banned in the city?"

Somebody should ask this of Olivia's constituents. Don't bother to ask Olivia. She knows what I am getting at. She's all about something completely different.

What would be the effect if Olivia Chow were actually to be elected Mayor of Toronto and were actually to be able to convince enough people to ban handguns. Well, I can assure you that the persons who will be least inconvenienced by the ban will be the local criminal community. They will disregard the ban completely.

Law abiding citizens are the ones who will be inconvenienced the most by the ban. Those few of them who own handguns will lose their possesions. The rest of us will have to pay the increased costs incurred on the balance sheets for the police department, the courts and the prison system if Olivia's plan to ban handguns becomes law.

The question we should be asking about Olivia's policy here is just whom among her constituents is Olivia serving by advocating such a ban. Her proposed ban amounts to a "spending bill". The money it will take to implement the ban will be spent on the police department, the courts, clerical staff in the provincial justice ministry and in the institutions devoted to incarcerating the convicted.

Big unions will be on the receiving end of that money. You the taxpayer will be on the dispensing end of that money, if it is ever spent.

One group, Toronto's gun toting criminals, will be completely untouched by Olivia's proposed banning of handguns. If anything, life will be easier for the criminal community as the police will be off on a platypus hunt among the law abiding.

The policy of advocating the banning of handguns is just "snake oil". There is no chance such a ban will be enacted. Olivia knows this.

She is calling for a ban on handguns because she knows a significant chunk of people in her constituency will actually believe that she can deliver such a ban. Her constituency is not worried about things like COSTS, so that little bit of impedimenta doesn't even enter the discussion. If Olivia's constituents were in kindergarten, instead of the NDP, she would call for ice cream waffle cones for everyone. Once elected she would explain to the kids in a very nice voice that the waffles would be too messy, so they are going to get carrot sticks instead.

Don't vote for Olivia Chow folks. You'll be voting for a mess of trouble. Not piffling stuff like public drunkeness in the case of Rob Ford, or being caught in a "rub and tug" joint like Saint Jack, but major league, expensive to the tune of billions, trouble.

reply to post by ipsedixit


I can't really comment on this other than, "All politics are local."

But I must ask you, how would her election affect you? And would it affect the rest of us worldwide? I know being a Mayor is a stepping stone, but...

reply to post by TDawgRex

I think it would put a candidate into office who is far less qualified to do the job than the current office holder. The current Mayor is the first in decades to reduce the City Budget. Even if he only saved $10 dollars as opposed to the hundreds of millions he did save, it would be worth it.

Olivia Chow is guaranteed to get the budget back on track, which would be a bad thing.

Wow you sound like a speech writer right out of the PMO's office .Lay any charge you can to the NDP even claim they are secretly a liberal .I hope they paid you well for this ...I would vote for her in a minute if I was in Toronto .

reply to post by the2ofusr1

You sound like a typical NDP supporter, completely unaware of the efforts of the NDP leadership to merge the NDP with the Liberals.

reply to post by ipsedixit

I would think that because of Harpers promise to wipe the Liberals off the face of the Canadian Politic ,it may be the other way around and the Lib's will be forced into some sort of a coalition .Which in my mind would be ok and I am thinking it might just happen after the next election ...It's not like the conservatives wouldn't consider doing it ....

reply to post by the2ofusr1

I think Olivia is untrustworthy. I think she is a stooge for powerful interests that want Ford out of office. She brought her grandchildren into her campaign on day one. I think that is beneath contempt. I think the NDP is a fraudulent political party. They aren't real socialists. They are the "gimme my cut" party.

Ford has been our most effective mayor in recent memory. He comes with baggage but I'm willing to put up with it because I think he thinks of Torontonians first.

Chow is a political operator who has nothing but snake oil and bad planning to offer.

reply to post by ipsedixit

Well now that is something to point at and be suspect at ..Her bringing her child out ..Oh the humanity of it all ..Yea it would be much better to break out a case of crack pipes and have a go eh. lol

ETA You think Chow is untrustworthy but you know Ford is a lier ...Yea typical Con from the Harper regime .

reply to post by the2ofusr1

In view of the fact that her husband was caught in a massage parlour as a "found in" and nearly arrested and in view of the fact that the Toronto Sun tried to crucify him over it right before the last national election, despite the fact the the incident was years old, I think Olivia would have shown more character by taking the high road and sticking to real issues, not tittle tattle "shame on you" style sniping, while taking cover behind her grandchildren.

Olivia doesn't have that kind of character. She's an old style political muckraker.

the2ofusr1

ETA You think Chow is untrustworthy but you know Ford is a lier ...

Ford reduced the City Budget. I don't care what he says about his private life and I don't think his private life is anybody's business. I voted NDP in the last election because of the Sun attempts to smear Layton. I didn't know about his plans to merge with the Liberals at the time.

Olivia ran under false pretenses in a national election campaign. That's a much more pertinent lie.

reply to post by ipsedixit


She is first a politician and has had some success .Now after you bring up the fact that she brought her granddaughter with her and we should all be afraid you bring in the fact that Jack was at a massage parlor . MMMM now what does that have to do with her running for the mayor ? I mean really if that is all you got to show other then what you think ,you don't have much .

reply to post by the2ofusr1

I think the points I am making are clear. If you don't see them, there is not much I can do about it. Others can read and decide for themselves.

reply to post by ipsedixit


You don't care about other people personal life but you bring up a massage parlor ...hypocrite much ? Oh and the grand daughter yes we shouldn't forget that scary part ..

reply to post by the2ofusr1

I think you need reading comprehension lessons.

reply to post by ipsedixit


sorry you are right I did need to re read the massage parlor quote .I think it's still lame of you to use the granddaughter to try and make your point .It's only the Mayors office in Toronto we are talking about anyway and I don't think Chow is a crook and she should end up with a good team to work with .Lets face if if what has gone on the past while with Rob in office ,and it didn't seem to affect the decisions that were made in order for the city to function ,I don't think Toronto will be any worse off with her as the Mayor .

With all the corruption that has gone on before in other cities ,the people are much wiser and watch things closer .

Now I don't have a dog in this fight and don't know what the NDP is or who Olivia Chow is but I do see a bit of hypocrisy from the OP.

I don't care what he says about his private life and I don't think his private life is anybody's business.

But then,

In view of the fact that her husband was caught in a massage parlour

Can't really have it both ways.

personally I think a massage parlor is better than smoking crack but just my opinion.

I'm talking about big politics here and billions of dollars. This transit spending, which will entail allied spending of all kinds that will involve not only government contracts but private investments, is probably already causing a huge feeding frenzy.

You have to look at some of my other threads on Toronto and Canadian political issues to understand where I am coming from on this.

My main point in all of this is that competition for these billions of dollars, among very big players, governmental and private, left and right politically, dictated that Ford must not be elected mayor. I believe that the Toronto Star acted as the political hit team to make sure that Ford's first campaign for office, The First Fordic War, as I call it, ended in defeat for Ford.

When he was elected, the Star and other media went after him, but none so relentlessly as The Star. I think there is big power behind this anti-Ford campaign. They don't want him influencing how the transit and private investment money is spent.

They want a political operator that they can control, like Olivia Chow, in office. It is possible that the Liberals are going to do to her what Pierre Trudeau did to Alberta Conservative, Jack Horner, bring her into the fold for their own political purposes. She'll be destroyed politically in her NDP base, as Horner was destroyed in the Conservative base, and they will get the transit system and spending recipients that they want.

This joke from the Norm MacDonald podcast discussion comments is wildly exaggerated but it kind of makes my point in a funny way:

www.youtube.com...

In the style of Norm: Hey, did ya hear about that crazy mayor of Toronto? Man, he's crazy. In the paper it says that he's a crazy, drunk, cxxxk smokin', hooker bangin', wife beatin', gang banger who spends all of his time smokin' cxxxk, bangin' hookers, drinkin', beatin' his wife and bailin' his friends out of jail. That's not good for a politician ya know. A mayor of a big city like Toronto shouldn't do that. If he spends all of his time drinkin', smokin' cxxxk, bangin' hookers and runnin' around at night with his high school friends, who are all criminals, he's not gonna have TIME to do the real job of a mayor of a big city. You know. . he's not gonna have TIME to do all those under the table deals with crooked contractors like a regular, respectable mayor does. No wonder they want him outta there.

She uses catch phrases regarding the public's purse, but she is very vague and has never actually said she will not raise taxes. As far as I am concerned, she is not forward-thinking and will, eventually, look to property taxes (cash cow) to move her agenda forward.

reply to post by InTheLight

It was her reticence on the "relief" line for the subway that caught my attention. I think on those sort of issues she is not speaking out of her own body of thought on the subject. I suspect she is speaking for the Provincial Premier . . . when and if she speaks at all.

I think that Olivia Chow is a Trojan Horse for the provincial government.

reply to post by ipsedixit


It's not like we don't know that BIG $ play into political decisions .Think the F35 and the Conservatives trying to push that one through .And we know the Conservative's move very easily to Bay Street even in the case of questionable ethics .Think Duffy and Nigeal Wright .or Jim Prentice to CIBC and to the Big oil lobby for the pipe lines .Yea we know there are big bucks and there are big actors but just maybe little Olivia might just think of the little big actors in this case ....