A new poll shows Olivia Chow falling way behind

23 thoughts on “A new poll shows Olivia Chow falling way behind”

1. Go figure: The people of Toronto do not want to elect someone who loves to max-out expense accounts, raise taxes, and reward her public sector buddies with money taken from the hard work of people in the private sector.

   Perhaps after she loses she can take her TWO pensions that she is currently pulling and run for Mayor of Detroit.

2. You give the people of Toronto too much credit. Chow has run an embarrassingly bad campaign, Tory has avoided pulling a John Tory and the patience for another Ford more years is too thin for Doug to win this. Construing this as any other kind of rejection of Olivia is just the usual comment section nonsense.

3. Actually, I think it was Rob Ford and John Tory who want to max out expense accounts and raise taxes by building a Subway in Scarborough that is not justified by the population density and could be replaced by an LRT that would serve more people and have more stops for $1,000,000,000 cheaper.

   That’s thier actual stated position. Not an imagined one like the one that you have attributed to Chow.

   I mean, she will almost certainly not win. If a lot of voters are believing in the same made up boogeyman nonsense that you are spouting, it’s not hard to see why.

4. I don’t agree with your first and last points, but Toronto taxes are low, the lowest in the region, and for a City that wants to build more infrastructure, something will have to change. Our infrastructure is embarrassing. Someone from Michigan pointed out that Toronto has the worst roads he’s seen since his state. The Gardner is a disaster and is becoming unsafe with spalling issues that are barely being coped with. The TTC has outdated signaling technology and isn’t even accessible in 30% of its stations.

   Oshawa’s tax rate is 1.62%; Guelph tax rate is 1.12%; Kingston is 1.42%. Toronto? It’s 0.723%! half as much as others.
   And Toronto gets subways, 100 libraries, free pools, free skating rinks, free recreation, tons of parks and playgrounds, cheap green P parking with flat rates, a water front, sidewalk clearing in North York

   Everyone else gets what? Oh yay… ditch maintenance and roads cleared and MAYBE 2 library branches and old-ass parks and crappy bus systems.

   Suck it up Toronto, or hand in your title of World Class City and join the ranks of Thunder Bay. You’re certainly doing your best to ruin how good you have it out there. There is a reason people envy Toronto. Don’t give them a reason to laugh at you.

5. World class costs. Agreed. (and the sad part is we dont even pay what places like Oshawa pay. Kinda sad.).

6. Oshawa, people OSHAWA. Granted, they are pursuing some big transit expansions, but that’s the cost.
   Also, no shade thrown at Oshawa, you’ve come a long way, we know you’re trying.

7. Agreed respect for the ‘Shwa (home of Teddys one of the best family diners of all time) but it illustrate the point.

8. The point about her maxing out expense accounts is not a statement she made it is an action she took repeatedly in each of the public sector jobs she held.

   Has she proposed one program that she would cut or scale back because of non-performance? Does she believe certain City workers are over-paid for the job they do when compared to the private sector? She even admits privatization of garbage saves millions/year with BETTER service, but she refuses to expand it in the City because of its impact on the unions.

   You want someone like that controlling the purse strings? It appears that 80% of the City’s voters do not.

9. It is inherently disrespectful to the taxpayers and just plain wrong to not FIRST find every efficiency possible and cut every non-performing program (are they ever audited for results on the dollar?) before even considering raising taxes for more revenues.

10. I thought that Rob Fords KPMG study which you paid for did that. Have you read it ? Yes or no? If no, then please do.

11. The tax rate between cities is very misleading, because they move in tandem with the assessment value of properties. Toronto has half the tax rate of Kingston because Toronto’s assessed property values are likely close to double what Kingston’s are. You would do better to figure out what the “average” property taxes paid are like between the cities you list.

12. Even assuming everything you have said or implied is true, that doesn’t change the fact that it’s extremely disingenuous to complain about “expense accounts” when the other two candidates are explicitly supporting an unnecessary BILLION dollar expense that dwarfs anything Chow has proposed.

    Why do you care about the hypothetical spending Chow might do, but you don’t care about the REAL spending Ford and Tory are explicitly saying they WILL do?

13. Chow’s biggest mistake was opening her mouth, she had the lead originally.

14. That may have mattered more when housing types were limited to single detached homes, but Toronto condos are on the same price point as detached homes in Guelph, Kingston ect, +/- 400K. Many homes in the surrounding GTA area, particularly Markham (which still have far higher tax rates than Toronto) are pushing averages of 600K.
    While the average single detached home Toronto in 2013 at 880 k, is more expensive than other homes the GTA is closing the gap in terms of price and still has higher taxes, close to 1%. For what Toronto offers in terms of services, it is a bargain.

15. You believe a subway is unnecessary and therefore call expenditures for it wasteful. I believe more buses on the street would be short-sighted and believe the costs for same and the unionized drivers associated with it would be wasteful. These are policy differences.

    My point, again, is that she has NEVER in her public life ever shown an inclination to look for savings or to be careful with the spending of other people’s money. Say what you will about Rob Ford (and I know you do), but he did lead by example by cutting millions off his office budget and donating back his salary. Something like that would not ever even cross her mind. My Lord, the woman ADMITS that privatization of garbage saves millions/year while delivering better service but is still against it because of the impact on the unions. That kind of person is not someone I and it appears 80 % of Toronto want in charge of their taxes.

16. Yes, my argument does lie on the premise that building the Scarborough subway is unnecessary. However, I think this is a well supported premise because:

    1. It has fewer stops than the LRT.

    2. It serves fewer people than the LRT.

    3. It would not improve the traffic congestion compared to the LRT (since neither runs on roads).

    4. It would take longer to plan and build than the LRT, which is already fully planned.

    5. It’s proposed in an area whose population density does not warrant a subway.

    If we can’t agree that this is a waste, then I’m not going to convince you that Ford is very much guilty of wasteful spending. Please remember though, we’re not talking about spending $1,000,000,000 for a subway or an LRT. We’re talking about $1,000,000,000 MORE for a subway, which is AT MOST, marginally better (and actually worse IMO).

    His office budget and salary are peanuts compared to this. It’s a nice gesture perhaps, but it’s not really significant. Also, it’s not generally reasonable to expect city councilors and other politicians to do this, since they don’t all come from wealthy families with money to spare. They are doing a job and getting paid for it.

    As for your 80% claim: Chow is indeed doing poorly, no denying that. However, it’s reasonable to think that some of Tory’s support is in the strategic “anyone but Ford” vote. There’s a good chance I will even vote for him for this reason, even though he is not a particularly appealing alternative to me. I would also argue that she is doing poorly mainly because she ran a poor campaign, not because people are afraid of her political leanings. She was initially the front runner, and her politics were already known at that time.

17. Yeah her low numbers have nothing to do with the fact that a huge majority of voters want the Fords gone and would immediately shift to her if she started looking like the Ford slayer.

18. Yeah because we haven’t heard that promise over and over and over again from right wing politicians only to be disappointed when they come up with tiny savings vs our expensive infrastructure needs.

19. If you, say, cut back library hours/cut library staff, got rid of some school lunch programmes for low-income kids, got rid of indoor plants (and watering) at City Hall, even got rid of Councillors salaries and pensions, you’d be able to basically patch the Gardner up one year sooner. “Funding Mechanism”, call it what you want, Toronto pays low taxes for the services it gets let alone wants more of…

20. Excellent summation. People (especially Ford Nation voters) seem to be so penny-wise and pound foolish when it comes to taxation and spending. I too will likely vote for Tory just to be safe, even though I’d rather not.

21. Crap! I mean i DO agree with your first point – the ones about maxing out expense accounts… is there no edit button for Discuss postings?
    Sorry about that

22. Good points except one. Heavy rail such as subways, can carry up to 10 times the capacity as light rail.

    You are correct however that makes sense to simply replace the current fleet of vehicles on the Scarborough LET which are twenty years old, with new light rail vehicles, running on the same tracks to the same stations.

23. Chow’s transit plan to keep 20 year old buses on the road, is so lacking in vision, agitation and initiative that she is not ready to lead a major world class city such as Toronto.

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