Olivia Chow — a regressive politician who will oversee Toronto’s downfall
“Chow has made it clear she will follow in the same footsteps as the doomed mayors of San Francisco and Seattle.”
On Monday, Toronto voters will have the chance to elect a mayor who can save the city from the same spiral of decay and despair that’s claimed cities like San Francisco and Seattle. That mayor is not Olivia Chow.
The issue at hand isn’t about partisan politics, but her gravely outdated understanding of the city’s problems and her orthodox approach in a time that demands truly bold action.
Doom loops — a phenomenon where one problem worsens others, which in turn worsen the first, spurring a perpetual cycle of decline — are taking hold of urban centres across the United States. With its multitude of interconnected crises — from housing affordability to crime, a wholly insufficient transit system, brain drain and a downtown core that hasn’t recovered from the pandemic — Toronto risks joining them.
Notably, cities in doom loops have something in common: a history of rigidly “progressive” mayors whose ideological puritanism rendered them incapable of responding to key issues.
I put “progressive” in quotes because, while these leaders’ stances may have once been considered so, their tendency to think backwards rather than forwards makes “regressive” a more accurate description of their politics.
This mentality afflicts politicians on both sides of the aisle, but can be more insidious on the left because of the enduring stereotype that leftists are inherently progressive. This fallacy has delayed much-needed introspection, modernization and reform on the left.
Both San Francisco and Seattle suffered from years of local rule by mayors and councillors determined to stick out archaic progressive attitudes and policies that clearly weren’t working.
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