As Olivia Chow came to terms with her new title — Toronto Mayor — she received a call from a man who just days earlier had told an entire city she would be an “unmitigated disaster.”
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, and his housing minister Steve Clark, were among the well-wishers who called to congratulate Chow on Monday night.
As the mayor of Ontario’s largest city, she will be a key player in a range of the Ford government’s priorities, from the redevelopment of Ontario Place to new subway lines and thousands of housing units.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, mayor-elect Chow said she could “absolutely work with Premier Ford” in her new role.
“We both love this city,” she said.
The relationship between the two is unlikely to be plain sailing. In a lengthy critique of Chow days before Toronto went to vote, Ford predicted businesses would flee the city if she were elected and said, “workers should be terrified.”
Both were positive about their relationship on Monday. The two share a desire to lower the cost of housing and build thousands of new units in Toronto.
“We’re going to find common ground when we sit down because she’s actually quite a nice person,” Ford said at an unrelated announcement.
“I had a great talk with her last night and, you know, she’s been in politics long enough and during the election you throw some mud back and forth but I’ll tell you one thing, people expect us to work together and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”
Chow said she and Ford had already talked about the need to build affordable housing in the city.
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“We want to build more housing, because we’ve talked about that,” she told reporters outside city hall. “We know that Toronto will be welcoming a lot of immigrants coming to this city and we want to make sure that there are place(s) for them to stay.”
The Ford government is in the midst of an aggressive push to build 1.5 million homes by 2031. As part of that plan, the province has assigned 285,000 units to Toronto, one of 29 municipalities ordered to build new housing fast.
In her election platform, Chow promised to get the city to act as a developer and build 25,000 rent-controlled units over eight years.
She also said she would see that the city expedites approvals, waives a range of costs for developers including development charges, building permit fees, residential property taxes, parkland dedication fees and additional municipal fees — policies in line with the Ford government’s attempts to cut development bureaucracy and red tape.
Chow has pledged to increase service on the TTC, while the Ford government is forging ahead with an aggressive subway expansion plan that includes the Eglinton Crosstown LRT, the Ontario Line and an extension of the subway in Scarborough.
“There will be common ground. I look forward to working with Premier Ford and his cabinet ministers,” Chow said.
There are other issues, however, where the two are likely to butt heads.
The Ford government’s redevelopment of Ontario Place is a key area where the two continue to disagree.
During the campaign, Chow promised to “keep Ontario Place public” and oppose the province’s plans to build a luxury spa on the city’s waterfront. “Olivia Chow has a plan to stand up to Doug Ford and create an Ontario Place for all,” her campaign pledged.
A spokesperson for Therme, the company behind the Ontario Place spa plan, said an offer to discuss the project had been extended to Chow.
“We share the view that Toronto’s waterfront should be open, accessible and enjoyable for everyone, and look forward to continued collaboration with the City,” the spokesperson said.
Chow previously said she would refuse to hand over the sliver of Ontario Place land owned by the city and push for a public park on the island. “Keeping Ontario Place public, (a place) where my grandkids and I can watch the sunset and skim stones,” she said in her victory speech on Monday night.
Ford, however, was unmoved Tuesday morning.
“This is moving down the tracks pretty quickly right now,” the premier said.
“I respect that the host city is Toronto and we’ve been working hand in hand with the previous mayor, but this is a provincial site and we’re going to do what’s right for the province.”
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