After keeping Torontonians in suspense for months, Olivia Chow announced on Monday that she will run for a second term as Toronto’s mayor.
With municipal elections set for October, speculation has been rife since the beginning of 2026, while Chow has steadfastly evaded questions about another run. Inquiries about throwing her hat in the ring were most often met with responses that October is a long way off and there’s much work to be done before then.
So far, Beaches-East York Coun. Brad Bradford has announced his intentions to run for mayor, and long-time journalist Natalie Johnson has announced that she will run for the seat he vacates.
Chow assumed the position of mayor after a byelection win in 2023, following John Tory’s resignation. She is the first woman to serve as mayor since the city was amalgamated and the first person of Asian descent to hold the position.
Uploading the rehabilitation of the Gardiner Expressway to the province
The province announced in November 2024 that it was taking responsibility for the Gardiner Expressway and the Don Valley Parkway in Toronto as part of a deal with the city to help alleviate its financial problems. In exchange, Toronto conceded the province could move ahead with its plans for a redeveloped Ontario Place on the city’s waterfront.
While the agreement wasn’t without controversy surrounding Ford’s plans for Ontario Place, it paid off nicely when it came to a major rehabilitation project on the notoriously crumbling Gardiner.
Construction to replace a 700-metre section of the concrete deck and girders, along with other repairs between Dufferin Street and Strachan Avenue, began in March 2024 and was initially set to run until April 2027.
The construction on such a key artery proved to be a major headache, with one study finding that travel times on the Gardiner had increased up to 250 per cent in the morning rush hour (7 to 10 a.m.), and 230 per cent in the afternoon rush hour. Commercial drivers were also spending 80 per cent more time per day on the Gardiner, impacting businesses. Making matters even worse, the top three alternate routes — Harbour Street, Lakeshore Boulevard, and Cherry Street — saw an average traffic increase of 43 per cent.
With patience wearing thin, the Ford government dropped $73 million to accelerate the project, including allowing work to occur around the clock.
In the end, the project was completed in late October 2025 — a full 18 months ahead of schedule.
While the expedited completion of the Gardiner helped, traffic congestion has remained a key gripe throughout Chow’s time in office.
A recent Liaison Strategies poll found that traffic congestion is among the top priorities among Torontonians, with almost nine in 10 saying it is a serious problem, while 71 per cent say it has gotten worse in the past year, despite Chow’s efforts.
Those efforts included hiring 100 new traffic agents who are stationed at key intersections at peak times, making it more expensive for construction companies to close off lanes, incentivizing faster job completions, and hiring a Chief Congestion Officer and putting together a team to help better coordinate construction projects and speed up transit.
“Traffic is usually talked about as a car issue, but the poll suggests Torontonians see it as a performance issue,” said David Valentin, principal at Liaison Strategies.
“They want the basics managed better: fewer lane closures, faster construction, better signal timing, and transit that gives people a real alternative to driving.”
Return to office mandates haven’t helped, and a recent report finds the upcoming FIFA World Cup could cause downtown traffic to spike by up to 15 per cent.
When announcing Toronto’s new congestion management plan in late March, Chow said she empathized with drivers and would continue working to tackle the omnipresent big city issue.
“We’ve all been stuck on the Gardiner, staring at the same buildings for minutes on end, sitting in traffic, bottled up by construction zones taking up too many lanes,” she said.
“That frustration is real, and we’re fixing it. Toronto is moving in the right direction.”
While Chow and Ford have both cautiously coexisted and found middle ground on several key issues, including the Gardiner-Ontario Place compromise, they don’t see eye to eye on the province’s plans for Billy Bishop Airport.
In April, the Province introduced the Building Billy Bishop Airport Act, 2026, which looks to further develop the airport by extending the runway to allow jets to operate from the island facility.
If passed, the province will assume the City of Toronto’s role in the tripartite agreement between the City, the Toronto Port Authority, and the federal government that governs the airport.
It may also expropriate city-owned land at the airport, including one-third of Little Norway Park along Eireann Quay.
Along with the park, the province has listed seven other properties near the airport slated to be expropriated, but Chow is zeroing in on the greenspace as the battleground for the City’s fight against what she calls a “power grab” by the Ford government.
“We will not stand for it,” Chow said in late April. “This is not an empty piece of land. This park is alive, it is loved, it belongs to this community. And the province wants to pave it into a parking lot. Let that sink in,” she added, followed by chants of “shame” from the gathered residents.
“To the provincial government: you do not get to erase this park without a fight. And to the people standing here and to every Torontonian, we need your voice – talk to your neighbours, make some noise. This park belongs to you, and we are going to keep it that way.”
The words “affordable” and “Toronto” don’t go together very well, but Chow has made efforts to address that through new incentive programs that cut fees for developers in exchange for affordable units.
City council has also approved more types of housing, including four-plexes, six-plexes, small apartment buildings on major streets and larger ones on avenues and around subway stations.
Chow also raised the Vacant Homes Tax to stop speculators from leaving units empty as investments.
While homeownership in Toronto remains out of reach for many, the City implemented a new Renoviction By-law to support renters.
The City says the new bylaw is designed to protect tenants from “bad faith” evictions that happen under the guise of renovations.
Mayor Chow took heat during a frigid stretch of winter 2024/25 when Toronto was walloped by snow it was seemingly ill-prepared to deal with.
A series of storms had dropped more than 50 centimetres of snow within the span of a week in February 2025, and it stuck around far longer than it should have. Days — even weeks later in some locations — sidewalks remained impassable.
That led to a flood of complaints that Chow empathized with.
“The sidewalks are not plowed. It has been more than a week … it is not acceptable,” she said at the time.
In response to the embarrassing inability to deal with predictable winter weather, Chow called for a review of the contracts with private companies hired to do snow removal for Toronto. City council later approved an updated snow removal plan.
“We have improved snow response with better equipment, faster snow removal and more staff,” she said last winter after some heavy snowfalls. “There are more hands on the deck, more new equipment and faster snow removal, which means you’re getting better services.”
Citing affordability as a key priority, the 2026 budget included what Chow called a “modest” 2.2 per cent property tax hike as well as a freeze on TTC fares.
It marked the lowest property tax increase since 2020. Last year, a 6.9 per cent property tax increase was levied, while two years ago, a 9.5 per cent increase was levied on Toronto residents.
The budget also had measures to mitigate homelessness, open libraries seven days a week and add more funding to hire hundreds of new police officers and paramedics in a multi-year plan.
The budget also included a funding hike of more than $93 million for the Toronto Police Service.
With files from News Staff and The Canadian Press