Who are you voting for, Olivia Chow, Chloe Brown, or Josh Matlow? That’s the question on the docket. Technically there are 102 mayoral candidates. They are not exactly viable.

In these three candidates, we have a centrist (Matlow), centre-left (Chow), and a leftist (Chloe Brown). I’ll just describe my sense of these candidates and do some basic background stuff.

Matlow was a first-time councilor in the Rob Ford era. His ward covers Yonge-Eglinton. He was a thorn in John Tory’s side, and seems to have evolved from a milquetoast TO councilor serving the status quo to a man who can change his mind on positions. It’s a rare case of a popular Toronto politician moving leftwards. His tendency to go a bit rogue can be refreshing and, sometimes, alienate people he needs to work with.

Olivia Chow was a city councilor too, albeit longer ago, and was married to NDP leader Jack Layton (RIP). By far the most high-profile candidate, she has been leading the polls by a wide margin all along, which has conservatives voters, and especially lobbyists and strategists, freaking out. They’ve become accustom to being pampered by city hall under rob ford and john tory, and can’t bear the the idea of a Toronto leader outside the Conservative Machine. Chow was on the budget committee for a decade and has a solid grasp of the city’s nuts and bolts.

Chloe Brown finished third last election behind second place Gil Penalosa and Tory. She is a policy analyst who graduated from Toronto Metropolitan University and has worked for different levels of government. Unlike every other major political candidate, she doesn’t have a war room of party professionals and lobbyists backing her.

Her performance last election turned heads and got attention, rightfully so. She got 10% of Tory’s votes on a shoestring budget and no corporate backing. Her supporters insist she is being excluded from high-profile debates by the establishment who let three separate john tory clones (bailao, saunders, bradford) debate, but not Brown, who, again, finished third last election. The criteria for getting on stage shifts in such a way as to juuuuust include brad bradford but juuuust exclude Chloe Brown.

Her goal of poverty reduction is not exactly a historic priority in the cold, austerity city Toronto has become.

John Tory absolutely decimated Toronto by refusing to modernize the city. He took over from Rob Ford’s backwards approach to taxation, which determined the rate of property taxation before deciding what services to fund. Historically, Toronto did the reverse, assessing what services we needed to fund, and then setting property taxes accordingly.

Today, we have an absurd situation where Toronto property costs more than any city in Canada, except maybe Vancouver, but our property taxes are the lowest of any city in Ontario. You read that right! If you live in any other Ontario city, you pay a higher rate.

It’s funny and illustrative to me that “high demand” only applies to private sector prices rising, but is completely divorced from taxation rates. Put another way, conservatives expect the government to forcefully intervene and lower their property taxes by arbitrarily tying it to inflation, not the Free Market. And no wonder they expect it, that’s what Toronto has done for them for over ten years.

As a direct result of this approach, we have a situation where rent has basically doubled in the past decade, but property taxes have, to put it lightly, not. Yes, home prices have surged, but the idea that half of Toronto is subjected to shocking rents coupled with the decimation of rent control while homeowners invoke “affordability” to have government forcefully intervene on their behalf simply doesn’t make any logical sense.

A person can decide they want to vote for whoever will keep their taxes lowest, that’s their prerogative. But they can’t say subjecting the poorer half of Toronto to skyrocketing housing costs while homeowners watch their asset grow and taxation stays relatively flat makes sense.

The three candidates I named seem to understand this is what’s going on and are trying to address it in differently. The tory clones are absolute hacks using PR firms and polls to copy/paste platitudes into power for the backroom sharks who were the beneficiaries and architects of Toronto’s destruction. I know this sounds overblown and melodramatic, but it’s true!

I live downtown, and when people say garbage is overflowing onto streets, it’s not exaggeration. City garbages regularly spill onto sidewalks. I saw a bus shelter smashed by a car months ago, shattered glass all over the street and sidewalk. Months later, there’s just “caution” tape where the glass panel should be. I’ve seen literal duct tape on a TTC sign telling people when to expect the streetcar, which is coming increasingly late and is increasingly packed and potentially violent.

My specific view of the city crumbling is relatively privileged. People can’t afford groceries or housing. The city is rejecting more people from shelters and providing no alternatives for them to live, despite the city’s PR flaks.

It’d be easy to assume critics are overstating the extent of the damage. They’re not! The city’s basics are in pathetic shape and we’re in a $1-billion hole, and the previous mayor/Rogers adviser was more focused on spending $300 million to host a few World Cup games.

The Ontario premier has an astonishingly heinous and palpably corrupt plan to spend over half a billion dollars on a lakefront underground mega parking lot for a luxury spa that has more than a few conservative insiders on the board. Even a bullet list of his mega scandals would take up too much room here.

Doug Ford is a vulture picking off Toronto’s bones, yet he got re-elected. This is the first Toronto mayoral election in years where a staunch conservative isn’t the front-runner, and progressives have a few viable candidates. (Right-leaning Soknacki had good, original ideas in 2014 but, reading the polls, backed out before election day and Keesmaat in 2018 didn’t live up to expectations.)

The question is: will we elect someone who will fight Ford or cave? The establishment right ran on Toronto needing steady leadership only months ago when Tory won his third election. Now, jarringly, every mayoral candidate is running on the correct assumption that the city is on the cusp of collapse. The right wants to pin the blame on, you guessed it, someone else! This is their mess and voters seem to get that. Their usual PR feels transparently cheap this time around.

Olivia Chow is well ahead and, barring something wild last-minute, seems poised to win. Chloe Brown has worked hard to increase her profile and brought substance to the few debates and appearances that welcomed her. The establishment should be scared of her. It feels odd to have any viable candidate in an election, let alone three. I’ve been grateful for Matlow’s voice and position on high profile issues like the Gardiner.

I hope the next mayor, unlike our previous two, is open to sensible ideas that were modern in the late 20th century, like not sacrificing every single square inch of public space to cars. I don’t mean to jinx it, but I feel like conservative strategists anticipate losing their privileged place at the trough after dominating it uncontested for over a decade and are frantically making private post-trough arrangements. I hope the shady, uber-connected backroom hustlers suffer as the city thrives.

For this to happen, Chow will need substantial plans to build housing and realize her promises. That would be hard enough in neutral circumstances, but ford conservatives will stymie her ruthlessly and Postmedia will blame her, especially if she does a wonderful job. Hopefully she has enough energy to keep fighting after the election is over, because not being connected to Tory or Ford is enough for now, but the real war hasn’t begun yet.