Incremental gains, not radical change

Mayor Olivia Chow defies expectations after one year in office

- BEN SPURR AND MAHDIS HABIBINIA

Olivia Chow has found common ground with politicians of all stripes.

If Olivia Chow wanted a reminder of how much needs fixing at city hall, she got it last month.

During a late spring storm, rain started streaming through the roof outside the mayor’s office, forcing staff to cordon off the hallway.

“Oh, literally buckets of water coming down,” Chow said. “I thought, ‘oh my God.’ ”

Although it sounds like a toogood-to-be-true metaphor, Chow, who on Friday will mark one year in office, has spent the past 12 months trying to patch up municipal government.

While the scale of the problems she inherited were well known — a $1.8-billion budget shortfall and a crushing housing crisis among them — Chow has defied expectations.

Rather than the left-wing ideologue her election opponents tried to paint her as, the veteran NDPer has shown herself a practical leader, finding common ground with politicians of all stripes, and mostly delivering incremental, rather than radical change.

The approach has won her praise from some who don’t share her politics, and allowed her to push policy through a council whose members are mostly to the right of her. But at times it has also alienated her progressive supporters.

And for all the credit she’s received for her handling of major files, Chow has sometimes been tripped up by smaller issues, which to critics is evidence her office doesn’t have a firm handle on council business.

Chow insists she and her team remain focused on her progressive vision, and are committed to creating a “more caring, affordable and safer city.”

“I don’t think I’m tacking (to the centre),” she told the Star during a wide-ranging interview about her year in power, pointing to her record of freezing TTC fares and boosting funding to prevent evictions. “That’s pretty progressive.”