OP-ED: Olivia Chow’s socialism is running out of other people’s money
"A good friend suggested last week that he suspects Mayor Olivia Chow feels buoyed by Zoran Mandami’s win in New York and will follow the same template when she campaigns for re-election in 2026."
A good friend suggested last week that he suspects Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow feels buoyed by Zoran Mandami’s win in New York and will follow the same template when she campaigns for re-election in 2026.
I tend to agree, although many of Mandami’s policy proposals have already been implemented by Chow and the Marxists/poverty activists surrounding her.
Although I disagree with everything Mandami stands for and abhor his Jew hatred, he is so green, so inexperienced he will soon find out that the freebies he’s promised cannot be funded without driving the very wealthy from the Big Apple.
But what is Chow’s excuse?
She’s been on the public teat, in municipal and federal politics, since the 1990s
but still doesn’t get it (and probably never will) that, as Margaret Thatcher famously said, “the problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people’s money.”
Sadly, her approach to dealing with a complex city hasn’t changed from 25 years ago, when she and her late husband Jack Layton pushed their homeless crisis mantra to guilt everyone on council to not only spend oodles of money but to create a homeless/poverty/affordable housing infrastructure at City Hall, which has grown exponentially.
Yet nothing, absolutely nothing, has been solved.
Encampments are permitted with impunity, just like Mandami has decreed in NYC.
The poverty and homeless activists blame the economy and lack of affordable housing as they did 25 years ago.
They would never admit that it is our politicians who have made the city unaffordable.
Truly, it has been the poor judgment of Chow’s predecessor, John Tory, who invited anyone and everyone — including undocumented workers — into Toronto’s Sanctuary City to get back at Donald Trump.
It’s not just Free Free Palestine but Free Free Handouts and Free Free Drug Kits.
Chow took up where he left off by celebrating the arrival of refugees — even those from Gaza who hate Jews — into the city.
Then she has the gall to wring her hands in despair
Some 9,262 people are being accommodated in Toronto’s emergency shelter system as of this past week.
City figures show 40% of them are refugee claimants.
Now, a politician who is truly concerned about the drain on the city’s taxpayers, its finances and policing resources would curb the refugee claimants.
But socialists never do that because more people needing handouts means more voters and more jobs for the activists and unionists who prop up the homeless industry.
Chow and the collection of activists and teat suckers from Progress Toronto who surround her really don’t want to solve the homeless crisis despite their phoney claims that they really care for the downtrodden.
Chow and her councillors have a list of 22 new or refurbished emergency shelters on the books for next year and 2027.
This is on top of the 100 shelters already in place—shelters that were supposed to be used on an emergency basis only.
And lest the poor folk who come to these shelters not be treated with kid gloves, every single shelter has been given the green light to offer harm reduction so that addicts can continue to be addicted to their drugs of choice.
The radical leftist Toronto Board of Health drug policy even recommends that drug addicts help with the “safe” injection process because they understand addiction.
The harm reduction shelters come with their own drug dealers outside who are kind enough to sell the addicts what they need.
Chow and her merry band of Marxists use the same tired line about taxing the rich to fund this lunacy.
Before the Christmas break council voted to impose a “luxury tax” on homeowners with homes valued at $3-million or more.
Chow’s official cheerleaders at Progress Toronto (all living off handouts) declared their glee at what they called the “Mansion Tax”.
Their tweet sounded petty and Mandami-like.
For her part, Chow claimed it would be just a tiny bit more, and why should rich people care?
They have more money than they need.
I wouldn’t dare suggest that the hypocrite is living off four pensions from her previous days on the government teat, plus her Mayor’s salary.
Perhaps she could give a little to help the cause.
Now, any sane person would consider the council’s crazy enabling behaviour and the attacks on the rich another nail in the coffin of what was once a clean, beautiful and welcoming city.
What happens when those with homes valued at more than $3-million pick up and leave because they can no longer stomach the crime, the anti-Semitism, the filthy streets, the war on the car, the drug addicts and homeless shelters stuck without consultation into their lawful neighbourhoods.
I’ve heard too many stories of how low-barrier shelters have turned once quiet neighbourhoods into disaster zones.
Not only will Chow run out of other people’s money but tourists will be afraid to visit Toronto and residents will no longer want to patronize downtown restaurants and entertainment.
I saw it already this past summer.
Really, who wants to be bothered or put themselves in harm’s way running a gauntlet of Jew haters, drug addicts and homeless tents.
Does mrs dressup still live in the city funded condo, intended for the needier, that she and Jack weedled their way into decades ago as their primary residence? It was well publicized back then.