Olivia Chow and the ‘smear’ that won’t die
Brace yourself for one of the nastiest mayoral races in Toronto’s recent history.
That’s the warning that is emerging from the campaign teams of the top contenders in the race to defeat disgraced incumbent mayor Rob Ford in the October election.
And the main target in this election won’t be Ford, but Olivia Chow, the NDP MP who will
officially kick off her campaign on Thursday after resigning her seat in the House of Commons on Wednesday.
Indeed, Chow fully expects to be under constant attack from Ford Nation fanatics and the more vocal supporters of candidates John Tory, Karen Stintz and David Soknacki as a “tax-and-spend” downtown New Democrat who is supposedly out of touch with middle-class and suburban voters.
But the nastiest attacks will centre on a 1990 story about how Chow and her late husband Jack Layton were living cheaply in a subsidized downtown Toronto co-op housing building designed for low- and moderate-income families.
Chow and Layton’s combined income at the time was about $120,000. The rent on their three-bedroom apartment was just $800 a month.
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Olivia Chow and the ‘smear’ that won’t die: Hepburn | Toronto Star