True Patriot Love - Toronto’s Quiet Mayoral Race and the Incumbency Factor ft. Anthony Furey

00:00:00.000 in toronto and this is a truism everywhere but particularly in toronto incumbents stay in so

00:00:05.680 we've had mel lastman who was the first real mayor of toronto the first mega city mayor mel lastman

00:00:10.160 david miller and then john tory they all had cakewalk re-elections with no real major

00:00:15.280 challengers it never came close for any of them maybe we're going to be in a similar situation

00:00:19.360 here where where olivia chow just has such a strong incumbent advantage

00:00:23.360 well it's election time all across the nation and i'm lucky to have anthony fury with me today

00:00:34.400 anthony i want to talk about toronto because it's very interesting uh the mayor the the current

00:00:41.200 mayor olivia chow came out the other day and announced her candidacy late in the game um

00:00:46.720 and so now you know what really has been a very quiet election period or run up to the election

00:00:53.360 is now full tilt yeah it's interesting paul that olivia chow only just announced the other day

00:00:59.880 after labor day that that her campaign has started so you could register for toronto mayor starting

00:01:05.260 may 1st and the main challengers did uh right around that time she did register for mayor at

00:01:11.420 the end of may but she just did it to make it clear like yeah i'm gonna be running again but 0.89

00:01:15.560 she didn't launch until a couple days ago waiting after labor day so now we're only at about a seven

00:01:20.460 week campaign which is kind of interesting because in the past uh they've been very competitive for

00:01:25.820 many months the mayoral election i was a candidate in a few years ago that was three months of every

00:01:31.100 day hard work a three-month campaign she's looking at just a seven-week campaign the one that rob

00:01:36.940 ford won uh back in 2010 it started the day after new year's it went from january to october it was

00:01:44.300 a 10-month campaign i remember it was a very competitive there was a bunch of people they

00:01:48.940 thought george smitherman the liberal deputy premier would win he did not win it was a big

00:01:53.340 upset 10 months of these people's lives campaigning non-stop here we are only a seven-week campaign

00:01:59.660 and olivia i guess to her credit has been able to hold it off until now it's it's a really

00:02:05.900 interesting situation do you think anthony people have just i hate to say it given up because you

00:02:12.300 You know, I did a quick overview

00:02:15.840 of the recent federal by-elections

00:02:19.280 of the provincial by-elections

00:02:21.400 and the voter turnout was abysmal, right?

00:02:24.100 And so, and those were really, you know,

00:02:26.160 the federal election was to decide the majority

00:02:28.560 of the country, right?

00:02:29.520 That it was actually to get the liberals

00:02:31.020 their majority back.

00:02:32.340 And, you know, interesting ridings,

00:02:35.220 interesting areas that they went off at, no turnout.

00:02:38.380 Now, you know, we had debate on whether that was the summer,

00:02:42.220 People didn't want to come back off vacation.

00:02:44.840 But these elections, those elections were pivotable

00:02:48.240 in deciding kind of the future and the direction of the country

00:02:52.020 based on a majority government.

00:02:54.200 Here we are now talking municipal elections.

00:02:56.640 I think there's across the nation,

00:02:58.560 there's 100 politicians or areas, ridings will be up for vote,

00:03:05.380 multiple mayors across Canada.

00:03:08.920 And here we are in Toronto,

00:03:10.200 and there doesn't seem to be a lot of interest it's interesting you don't hear a lot about it

00:03:14.360 no one's talking about it um you know they're not happy with a lot of things going on

00:03:19.640 so you do hear you know people are unhappy with property tax over the last few years

00:03:24.440 the increase people are really unhappy about bylaw changes the crazy bylaw changes that

00:03:30.920 now allow these developments all over the city diminishing residents property values

00:03:36.600 so you hear a lot about these things so you hear factions but it's interesting you're not

00:03:41.240 really hearing a lot about it and is it just people have people disconnected because

00:03:46.440 they're burned out yeah i think there's a bit of that absolutely i think the the political class

00:03:51.080 people who are really into politics they're talking about this stuff non-stop and the

00:03:54.680 toronto mayor's race has been going on for like two years kind of the ramp up to it

00:03:58.680 uh sort of in the way that that they approach it but you're right the general public no they're

00:04:02.680 just tuning in now and how tuned in are they actually going to be i i don't believe this is

00:04:09.000 a change election in toronto for a number of reasons uh do i think toronto is going in the

00:04:13.720 wrong direction of of course i do there's a reason i i ran uh for the mayoral team myself but i i

00:04:19.480 think ultimately uh it's you know in in toronto and this is a truism everywhere but particular

00:04:25.560 in toronto incumbents stay in so we've had mel lastman who was the first real mayor of toronto

00:04:31.160 the first megacity mayor mel lastman david miller and then john torrey they all had cakewalk

00:04:35.720 re-elections with no real major challengers it never came close for any of them maybe we're

00:04:40.680 going to be in a similar situation here where where olivia chow just has such a strong incumbent

00:04:45.480 advantage yeah maybe well you know i i did watch the announcement so the other night i think i

00:04:51.240 mentioned to you i actually sat and i watched the announcement and i watched her speech and

00:04:55.960 how much did they pay you to watch that no you know it was very interesting because

00:05:00.920 it was it was a lot of discussion about social programs social support so you know one of the

00:05:07.080 things i think is on her side right now or you know number of things being the incumbent but

00:05:12.200 one of the things i think she does have her side on on her side right now is people are having a 0.83

00:05:17.320 lot of discussion about the safety nets that are there given the u.s terrace you know and in her

00:05:23.240 speech she did allude to that multiple times you know she did allude to trump she did allude to

00:05:28.360 you know being there to support people and being there to prop them up and being there

00:05:33.160 so there was a lot of that going which is kind of her wheelhouse right like you know coming from an

00:05:37.240 ndp background it has a very socialist feel to it as far as you know i'm going to make sure the

00:05:42.680 programs are there for your rent i'm going to make sure the programs are there for your housing

00:05:47.160 i'm going to make sure you know the job supports are there so like there's there was a lot of that

00:05:51.720 discussion and and it was interesting because right after it was done you know there was a

00:05:55.800 bunch of interviews i was joking with you you know there was a half an hour of interviews and i don't

00:06:01.080 know if they were planned it looked like they were planned quite frankly one after another people got

00:06:05.480 up and said you know we have to support olivia because you know she's going to provide us you

00:06:12.200 know subsidized housing she's going to provide us affordable food she's going to you know there was

00:06:17.000 just like one thing after another of things that she needed to be the reason she needed to be

00:06:22.520 supported for were because people were going to get something but it was interesting there wasn't

00:06:28.520 a conversation about uh you know bringing new businesses and new um economic trade and new

00:06:39.960 you know exporting development there was none of that discussion it didn't really play into

00:06:45.720 the communication that was going on so i was interested because i started watching it and

00:06:50.120 as a business owner i'm thinking okay are they going to talk about me in this conversation

00:06:55.000 like are we going to get our is a our small short answer is no our small yeah yeah it really is our

00:07:00.280 small to medium businesses are going to be are going to enter now developers let's talk about

00:07:05.640 that for a minute developers were talked about now developers were talked about from a perspective

00:07:11.800 of getting money from the government to do affordable housing right so that's that was the

00:07:18.040 perspective they took on doing that but you know it didn't talk about actually non-subsidized

00:07:24.760 developers getting anything to enhance building uh residential or industrial we didn't talk about

00:07:32.440 that but we did talk about affordable housing or she did talk about affordable housing in her speech

00:07:37.480 quite a bit which i don't know anthony am i a big proponent of no right i think i think the market

00:07:46.520 especially when it comes to residential and development you should let the market play out

00:07:50.680 on its own i think the more government dips their fingers in and gets involved in uh subsidizing

00:07:57.640 housing and homes and condos and apartments it just makes a mess of the marketplace and i you

00:08:03.400 know i've said that on multiple shows well and every new housing program further distorts the

00:08:07.640 market and then it gets us away from coming back to a normalcy where we can have have prices make

00:08:13.960 sense i mean rents uh should be falling in some degree they have yeah it's an original

00:08:19.560 not an original example but kovid's a great example that supply and demand is actually a

00:08:23.240 thing right because we had people uh we had no more international students went home a lot of

00:08:28.120 them we had no travelers so units weren't airbnbs anymore rents plummeted right i know i have a

00:08:33.640 rental property and we were like oh wow right like the rent we can get has massively dropped

00:08:38.280 so it was a great renter's market that like supply and demand happens so there's a lot going on right

00:08:42.280 now the feds decreasing the international student intake so that is softening rents as well it's

00:08:47.880 also softening developer housing so i think maybe that's why developers want to pivot from the free

00:08:53.160 market builds they have to getting the government to pay them to do you know social housing and so

00:08:58.600 forth but uh yeah it's all i mean i know you know uh all about you know appropriate capital allocation

00:09:05.080 and if you're allocating money to government housing you know that's that's disincentivizing

00:09:11.080 other things like the well for working people right for middle-class housing exactly so now

00:09:16.600 you've now you're starting to prop up one level of society and you're doing that through and

00:09:21.400 you're actually taking care of one level of developer right so this is a developer who

00:09:26.440 probably not a lot of them quite frankly either new developers or not savvy developers who get

00:09:32.280 into the marketplace to build these properties um and off they go because they're doing it all

00:09:38.200 the only reason their business model works is that you're propping it up to work it's not or

00:09:43.960 it's not organically or naturally a business model that's sustainable it's sustainable because

00:09:48.600 government is sustaining it and you can't how much of that can you do and that but that was the you

00:09:54.760 know the whole speech really did uh uh evolve or revolve around the fact that quite frankly

00:10:02.280 people were getting something and that's what concerned me now okay so you know what she's

00:10:07.960 confident right you know and a lot of the new the incumbent mayors across canada are right

00:10:14.440 but it's interesting because we're going through this no one seems to really want to step up

00:10:21.000 and call it out in a big way no one wants to step up and start to say

00:10:25.000 you know let's look at the track record let's look and and really make noise we're very polite the

00:10:30.280 way we're our politics behind the scenes can be very nasty that's the canadian way right we're

00:10:36.440 but in front of the cameras and everything no one's really coming off and really starting to

00:10:41.640 scream and yell and get excited about like you know and uh running as a candidate um you know

00:10:49.560 you've had brad bradford you hear a little bit from him he kind of comes and goes he kind of

00:10:54.280 cherry picks the issues you know is there uh and there's that other gentleman sorry i'm his name

00:11:00.280 is escaping me who announced his candidacy yeah chris alexander the former federal conservative

00:11:05.240 minister exactly so he came out in the middle of summer and but again you know she's pretty

00:11:10.760 confident right so brad bradford's dipping in alexander's kind of on the but they're not really

00:11:16.920 are they out there you know banging that drum you know saying look at this look at that i think brad

00:11:22.440 would say he is he's he's out there pretty fierce but but if your impression is that he's not making

00:11:27.160 an impact then i think that's that that's uh something that that tells you something anyway

00:11:32.120 exactly what coverage are they getting you don't you know again it's a very calm so far i know

00:11:38.520 there's still time to go and they can still throw issues on the table but if they're really passionate

00:11:44.120 about winning this election you think they would be not only knocking on the doors they'd be in

00:11:49.800 the media every day saying look at the results of this this this and this you my platform is this

00:11:55.400 this and this and you don't want this to happen well i think they're trying to because you know

00:11:59.480 i've had the experience where you call a press conference and you really gotta fight tooth and

00:12:03.240 nail to get people to show up right uh sometimes for legitimate reasons because they're all there's

00:12:07.800 a big event that they're at as well but other times they're they're making an editorial choice

00:12:12.680 to not not necessarily give you the attention you deserve so there's there's a bit of oh yeah that

00:12:17.880 going on in the mix for sure oh yeah there's well listen uh media's media does have their favorites

00:12:23.800 and you know they do pick them you know i the funny thing is you know you look at what we're

00:12:29.480 doing right now we're podcasting right you go up and you actually start your own podcasting or you

00:12:37.080 do your own channel or you do your own you know you get out there and you start to tell people

00:12:42.200 what you believe in what your policies are we've never even been contacted so and now we're one

00:12:48.280 we're one uh media network but quite frankly you know i don't see him out there every day

00:12:55.240 doing interviews with any of the other ones and maybe they don't want to do interviews with them

00:12:59.080 because he's definitely not getting the coverage but a lot of it may be anthony in my mind is

00:13:04.440 because people are disengaged if only 20 of the people are going to vote so the sad part is no

00:13:10.040 matter what even i guess how much effort all these candidates would put into this are they really just

00:13:15.000 going to get similar to what we've just seen in toronto we just saw the by-election it was 20

00:13:21.160 of that right very you know 80 000 plus people 20 of the people came out and voted that's what they

00:13:27.640 got so they're there so they're like okay you know so now they're playing a numbers game is this just

00:13:33.160 come down to the fact that you can win you know and i remember i you remember hazel mccallion

00:13:39.560 hazel mccallion quite frankly near the end of her career she had been and she was the incumbent but

00:13:44.360 she understood the numbers game right she had 75 000 votes they were compiled of the following

00:13:49.720 people that always support her um and quite frankly she knew no one else could probably get it like

00:13:56.120 she didn't campaign a lot you know she went out and she knocked on doors and spoke to people but

00:14:00.920 But quite frankly, it got to the point where the numbers game they knew, they knew the numbers game was so low.

00:14:06.840 800,000 people in that case were in Mississauga.

00:14:10.260 You needed 70,000 to win because no one else could beat you at 70,000, which seems bizarre.

00:14:17.320 Like it really is, does seem how bad this is.

00:14:20.140 Based on the 800,000.

00:14:21.440 Well, I think you put upon an interesting point.

00:14:24.240 Politics, even though it affects all of our lives, everybody over 18 has a vote.

00:14:29.000 It's actually a niche interest.

00:14:30.480 It should be an interest for everyone, and everyone has the right to have an interest,

00:14:35.180 and everyone is a shareholder by each having their own vote.

00:14:38.660 But yet, as a media organization, what are you going to do?

00:14:42.060 Cover a political press conference or cover the new Blue Jays trade or the Maple Leafs trade?

00:14:46.340 Because you've got more people engaged in the metric of turning up to watch the game

00:14:51.460 than you do voting in the election in terms of a percentage.

00:14:54.440 So as a business choice, as just giving the people what they want,

00:14:58.480 you're going to be doing that you're going to be doing the deep dives on on on the draft season and

00:15:03.440 the trades more so than you do the deep dives on how your tax dollars are spent even though they

00:15:07.460 are your tax dollars but there's just not as much of an interest in that conversation okay a lot in

00:15:12.020 that sentence right so i want to unfold a little bit so just and and for the viewers who probably

00:15:16.740 are engaged and i i'm i'm happy you are but quite frankly i want you to share this with each of you

00:15:22.740 share with one neighbor that's my new thing you know when i want something as a group i say ask

00:15:27.740 people to do me a favor, share this with one person. And that is get one additional person

00:15:34.660 to vote and explain to them what Anthony just said is because your vote is your shareholdings

00:15:40.700 in Toronto, right? In this case. So yeah, it is your shareholdings, you know, whether it be the

00:15:47.440 province, whether it be the federal government, your vote is your shareholdings in that entity.

00:15:52.340 And in this case, you know, if you're living in the greater Toronto area, right, frankly,

00:15:57.380 this is your opportunity to actually make your vote for your share only count a lot of people

00:16:03.660 don't get that i find that bizarre and and you know it's interesting because a lot of people who

00:16:08.540 come from different you know we're you know travel around there's no there's no secret you just got

00:16:13.880 to travel around toronto right now you meet a lot of people from a lot of places like i you know i'm

00:16:19.660 this morning quite frankly i've been uh etobicoke vaughn mississauga and i'll probably finish today

00:16:27.040 somewhere else i'm in five four or five different uh munis uh areas uh of toronto uh vaughn is

00:16:36.400 outside toronto but i'll probably be in four or five areas of toronto and i'll meet people from

00:16:41.600 probably 15 countries right on my travels you know because it's different people in the meetings

00:16:50.320 so you look at it and you think to yourself okay they're coming from countries where they didn't

00:16:54.800 have the right or the ability to vote in this manner and now they have it but they surrender

00:17:01.840 it so easy and i find it like and olivia who quite frankly you know she's from another country she

00:17:08.800 she understands right her you know immigrated here from hong kong yeah from hong kong she

00:17:14.240 understands you know and quite frankly one i think the advantage is probably is where she's resonating

00:17:20.320 in the polls is she's explaining to people and the people who are understanding what she's talking

00:17:26.200 about are valuing the ability to vote right so that's how she's getting her people out right

00:17:32.260 that's how she's drawing you know she's put it yeah you know she's culminating the fact that

00:17:36.380 they have the right to vote they have the right to get social services they have the right to get

00:17:40.340 supports so she's pulling that into a message if i'm a candidate on the other side or against her

00:17:46.840 quite frankly i'm doing the same thing explaining people the importance of voting and then i'm

00:17:52.440 talking about how to grow because that message isn't happening but yet they're not taking the

00:17:58.600 podium and actually presenting that which is interesting and i think that's where they're

00:18:02.680 leaving they might be complaining about things she's doing but they're not giving people a plan

00:18:08.120 of hope and prosperity and growth and employment and you know their kids getting uh having a home

00:18:15.960 and better things they're they're not sharing their ideas on that front no no absolutely and

00:18:22.860 you know to your point about people not appreciating the shareholders they need to

00:18:26.700 get involved in it people will say no i'm not a politics guy i'm a sports guy as if they're all

00:18:30.680 kind of on the same ledger and look hey i'm i'm a big jays fan and love love watching the games

00:18:35.020 with the kids but if if you're not if if you're saying i'm actually not going to pay attention to

00:18:39.680 baseball or soccer or or you know any or some other thing or comedy shows or whatnot nothing's

00:18:45.700 to happen to you like that's that's fine you're just saying here's a whole subculture or an

00:18:49.140 entity that i'm not participating in but the thing about politics i always say paul you may

00:18:53.780 not be interested in politics but politics is interested in you you and because you you are a

00:18:59.140 shareholder in that if you aren't exercising your your vote your proxy someone else is exercising

00:19:06.340 theirs and taking your space and making a decision about your life about your money about your street

00:19:12.660 about the the laws in your life what you and your family can and can't do and they're basically

00:19:19.380 take by you not voting you're giving double space to a person who is right no no you you're bang on

00:19:25.940 i i said this in a show uh recently it was an interesting uh i love that comment anthony the

00:19:32.020 i said listen whether i like the result of the by-elections or not and whether i like the fact

00:19:39.780 that only 20 percent of the people came out to vote in it they came out and they made that vote

00:19:45.220 they took their democratic right and they used it to their advantage so good on them right so now

00:19:52.660 you have to abide by that you have to uh whatever the outcome is and whatever happens next you can't

00:19:59.220 complain you can't say oh i wasn't part of that you were part of it it happened you didn't engage

00:20:04.180 in it in any fashion or form so quite frankly you've surrendered that and that that's yeah we've

00:20:09.860 done so i say that a lot about mark carney i always found it a little odd that he's he remains

00:20:14.900 very popular yeah you know he won the leadership but then he won the general election people love

00:20:20.420 him he was not living in canada like very shortly before he became prime minister he's never been an

00:20:26.180 mp i think he was out of the country for quite a while it's i think it's a little odd the whole

00:20:31.140 situation yeah but but he did it and he became prime minister so i say well you did it you're

00:20:35.940 the leader other people could have done it they didn't and there you go so you know to your point

00:20:40.900 even if one is thinks the situation's odd you gotta say well congratulations to the person who

00:20:45.860 stepped forward and entered the arena and and figured out how to navigate it all because there's

00:20:49.780 a lot of people who could get into the mix and could be in the game participating and choose

00:20:54.820 not to so mark carney says well there's a vacuum i'm going to fill the vacuum yeah yeah no no and

00:20:59.540 in this case what we're seeing on the municipal level is kind of this and and that's where i'm

00:21:03.780 going with this i think we're seeing kind of the same thing anthony you know the vacuum that's

00:21:08.260 created i know it's the it's hard to beat the incumbent but i think quite frankly you got to

00:21:12.100 fight 10 times harder to get over that hump but can't do it by just pitching out an issue here

00:21:18.100 and there doing a press conference right there i think they got to stand up and they got to really

00:21:22.500 really uh be um more active more in the media uh more out there if they have a chance if they don't

00:21:30.340 i think you're probably right it probably is uh easy for her um i think she's kind of acknowledged

00:21:36.500 that by her actions that she thinks it is yeah and therefore she's just going to walk into the seat

00:21:43.060 again i think you're right yeah well let's wait and see we're going to keep you updated on more

00:21:48.180 shows as anthony and i will keep doing this as we get closer all right thanks paul thanks

True Patriot Love - September 23, 2026

Toronto’s Quiet Mayoral Race and the Incumbency Factor ft. Anthony Furey

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