in the city of Toronto, we are in the midst of a mayoral race. Now, mayoral races over the past

decade have varied wildly in level of voter engagement. Tori's sudden resignation has prompted

an even more sudden, an unexpected mayoral by-election. So about a year, or is it less than a year?

I can't even remember when the last election was. It was last fall. It was like November. Right, right. So it's a lot less than a year? I can't even remember when the, uh, the last election was.

It was last fall. It was like November. Right, right. So it's a lot less than a year. He was only,

yeah, he was, he only won for like three months. I'm conflating it with the provincial election we had

last summer. And it was a notable election too because the entire Ontario establishment had been

settling in for basically permanent John Tory rule,

you know, rule of someone like John Torrey. Yeah, I mean, the provincial government,

Doug Ford's provincial government, basically gave John Torrey all these strong mayor powers.

And I stress, these are not strong mayor powers in the sense that American cities have a strong mayor system.

This was not some sort of civic reform that created a greater differentiation between like a stronger

executive with a representative body in the form of city council operating as well.

This was something where the mayor, if they got a third of city council, was just being able to basically

do whatever they wanted. I mean, it's crazy. It was tailored entirely to John Torrey and the idea

that there was just going to be a sort of right-wing hegemony in the city sort of bolstered by

voter disengagement and low turnout in perpetuity. And this only works if John Torrey, it turns out, is in, because mayoral elections,

because we don't have a party system at a municipal level here in Toronto, officially they run as

an independent and they can't run as being a member of a party. So so much of it relies on name

recognition. And by far, the most well-known and popular name in the race right now is that of

Olivia Chow.

I've never seen a dead body before.

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