TORONTO (AP) – Enough with the crack smoking, public drunkenness and outrageous behaviour.
After four years in which City Hall has sometimes been as entertaining as a circus sideshow, Toronto residents appear eager for something altogether different in their mayor: DULL.
Voters head to the polls today to elect a successor to Rob Ford, who announced last month that he would not seek re-election as he battles a rare and difficult form of cancer.
His brother, city councillor Doug Ford, is running in his place but is widely expected to lose to John Tory, a wealthy, straight-laced moderate conservative who stands in contrast to the pugnacious, populist Ford brothers.
Analysts say Olivia Chow, a leftist candidate and the widow of late popular Canadian politician Jack Layton, seems to have lost momentum as a candidate as people look to vote strategically to ensure Doug Ford doesn’t win.
City Councillor Jaye Robinson, a one-time Ford ally who is now supporting Tory, said folks just want to make sure a Ford isn’t mayor.
“People are literally counting down. Every door I go to, they are counting down. They are feeling that this is going to be transformative moment in our city where we right the ship, we focus on city building and we leave the sideshow, the circus, the distractions behind,” Robinson said.
If Tory wins, she said, “there will be a collective sigh of relief across the entire city”.
A record 161 147 people turned out for early voting this month, more than double the number in the last election, in 2010.
