Olivia Chow has finally “decided” to run for mayor

Olivia Chow’s long “decision-making” process is almost at an end: after months of steadfastly refusing to confirm the obvious, her campaign has finally set a date. Chow resigned her seat on Parliament Hill today and, on Thursday, she’s expected to launch her mayoral bid with a “change”-themed platform.

With her entry, the mayoral race will begin in earnest. One gets the sense that her many right-leaning rivals have been saving their energies for the moment they can begin angling to define themselves against her NDP-tinged political record. Already, David Soknacki and John Tory are attacking her over a mailer she sent to residents of her federal riding, which identifies her as an MP. The allegation against Chow is that the mailer, apparently sent at taxpayer expense, is in fact a covert advertisement for her mayoral campaign. (Mayoral candidates aren’t allowed to raise or spend funds until they’ve filed their nomination papers, which Chow hasn’t yet done.)

Unless the mailer somehow broke the law—and it doesn’t appear that it did—it’s doubtful that this minor flub will blow up into a scandal. But the campaign is only beginning, and we’re sure it’s only a matter of time before someone finds another Kyle Rae retirement party to flog all the way to the polls.