Chow Vows to Curtail Time for Election Campaign

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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In another campaign promise, key mayoral candidate for the upcoming municipal elections of Toronto, Olivia Chow, has announced to try and shorten the time candidates spend campaigning for the election. According to a statement issued by Chow on Tuesday, she said if elected as mayor, she will approach the province and convince it to push back the date candidates can register.

Chow mentioned that “I love speaking with people all across our city, but every day someone mentions how long the race is,” adding that “it makes sense that a municipal election be somewhat longer than provincial ones, but ten times as long is just too long. Having shorter elections better focuses debate about our city and better reflects the reality of mayoral races today.” According to this year’s municipal election schedule, candidates were allowed to start their campaigns as early as January 2, 2014, whereas Chow pointed out that many other cities, like Vancouver and Winnipeg, do not start registration much later in the year.

Chow stressed that “having almost a full year of campaigning doesn’t benefit our city. We elect federal governments in 36 days and provincial ones in 28. It shouldn’t take 299 days to choose a mayor.” Consequently, Chow proposed that candidates should be allowed to register themselves sometime around Canada Day. Although nominations are accepted from January 2 through to September 11, candidates are not allowed to post signs until Oct. 2.