TORONTO (AP) — A left-leaning politician popular in liberal downtown Toronto kicked off her campaign to replace Rob Ford on Thursday, setting up a showdown with the conservative mayor who vows his support in the suburbs will carry him to re-election victory despite the drug scandal engulfing him. Olivia Chow, who resigned from her Parliament seat earlier this week ahead of her campaign launch, made no mention during her speech of the incidents of drug use, drunken public appearances and erratic behavior that have given Ford international notoriety. The NDP, a union-backed party with socialist roots, took Canadians by surprise in the May 2011 federal election by winning official opposition status for the first time, sidelining the long-dominant Liberal Party. The competing interests of the suburbs and the core of Toronto have their roots in a 1998 amalgamation forced on the metropolitan area by the Conservative provincial government. An electoral map of the 2010 mayoral election shows that Ford's voter base resides mainly in those former suburbs. Overall, it's a more conservative constituency than the downtown electorate, encompassing many immigrants and abounding with commuters who rely on their cars rather than Toronto's less-than-comprehensive public transit system.
Reported by SeattlePI.com 5 hours ago.
↧