Toronto’s 2023 By-Election: Implications for the city’s youth

Chow won. Now what? Olivia Chow is the first Person of Colour to be elected Mayor of Toronto. She is inheriting an affordability crisis, public safety concerns and a large budget shortfall. She will also have the controversial Strong Mayor Powers, but has <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-mayor-byelection-2023-results-1.6888539" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">suggested</a> that she will not make use of them. Chow also led in mock elections run for students across the TDSB — it’s commonplace for schools to hold mock elections for students as part of their learning about representative democracy. In a seemingly bizarre outcome of the mock election for youth, the ‘comedic relief’ candidate Xiao Hua Gong came in a very <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2023/06/27/gong-gets-the-young-vote-as-more-than-20-of-toronto-students-voted-for-him-in-mock-mayoral-byelection.html" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">close second</a>. (Don’t worry — we’ll come back to this). <a href="https://medium.com/urban-minds/torontos-2023-by-election-implications-for-the-city-s-youth-eec21ee65bf2">Website</a>