Here’s why some Toronto mayoral candidates are vying for the job, despite their odds of winning

Toronto City Hall is seen in this file photo.

Incumbent Toronto mayor John Tory is running for a third term in the city’s municipal election and many experts and polls predict the well-known politician will easily cruise to victory on Election Day.

Ever since the 68-year-old announced his bid for re-election in March he has maintained that his experience in city-wide, provincial and national political dealings is key to getting priorities done in the city.

First elected in 2014, it’s no surprise that Tory is a tough opponent but 30 hopefuls are up for the challenge, despite their odds.

Many of the candidates are unknown and new to city politics but his biggest challenger is arguably prominent urbanist Gil Penalosa, even though this is his first time running in an election.

Another recognized challenger is lifelong Torontonian and mother Sarah Climenhaga, who ran against Tory in 2018.

Tory has only participated in two debates held by the Canadian Association for Retired Persons and Toronto Region Board of Trade.

FILE- Toronto Mayor John Tory speaks with media in Toronto, Monday, Dec. 13, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Cole Burston

Penalosa and Climenhaga also participated in those debates, along with a handful of other lesser-known but passionate candidates.

Jack Yan, 29, studied business in school and works in the technology sector.

Yan, who described himself as a “private complainer” about city-wide issues, decided to put his name in the ring to address the issues he has witnessed first-hand.

“Unless someone says or brings awareness to a lot of the issues that I've been speaking to on a platform I feel like Toronto is going down a very dark path here. And what sucks is that I think we have a lot of potential, we have all this land. But I think government policy and politicians have…not been active enough to really examine these core issues that are impacting the lives of everyday Torontonians,” he told CP24.com on Monday.

The first-time candidate said it was important for him to give the election a shot so he could say he tried, even if he’s unsuccessful.

“On a personal level, I could sort of say, you know, I tried at least. If I fail, it's fine. But I tried to help Toronto,” he said.

Courtesy: jack2022.ca

Yan said Tory’s popularity will help the veteran politician lead the race, even if voters don’t necessarily agree with his views.

“If you compare, you know, me or really any other candidate to Tory, who has a lot of political experience…he’s well-known at least and I think people just feel comfortable with that even though they're like, ‘okay, you know, there is a lot of things that I want the city to improve,'" Yan said.

“It's very hard to, I think, beat him without some massive scandal, at this stage I mean,” Yan added.

In order to get his name and platform, which prioritizes housing, across to voters Yan has spent a lot of his campaign generating social media content.

Yan said if elected he would improve housing supply by removing zoning policies in key areas of the city.

“For me, it's about letting the private sector do the work because they want to build higher because they make more money per meter of land,” Yan said.

“If you have more people building more homes then more people could be housed and things don't have to get so expensive,” he added.

Thirty-one year-old policy analyst Chloe Brown decided to run for mayor to help residents thrive and “reset public administrations so that it works in favor of the working class.”

“As someone who is making in like the $65,000 range, I'm often worried about people making less than me because it's like if I'm struggling, how the hell are they surviving?” Brown told CP24.com.

“I've been working with projects that are dealing with workers that have income insecurity, food insecurity, rental insecurity and I felt like the only way to fix that is to run for office, because there's only so much that I can say as a non-partisan agent,” she added.

Courtesy: cb4to.com

Brown is passionate about changing the way current elected officials operate in the city and said she wants to embrace different methods of governing to achieve a truly democratic society.

“There's only been one way of doing things and that's really been like a Western European way of doing things. I want people to start thinking about what if we use Western European and South American, Caribbean ways of doing things, Indigenous ways of doing things. Politics shouldn't be this versus that, it should be this and that.”

Brown, who ran for city councillor of Ward 2- Etobicoke Centre in 2016 and lost to Michael Ford, said despite her chances of winning this was an opportunity to represent her generation.

“There's a different way to do politics, and I just felt like, despite my odds, someone had to light a beacon and say ‘Yeah, I'm here. I'm listening. I know what you're going through and this is what it could look like if it was given a stage and a platform,’” she said.

Like Yan, financial analyst and co-founder of a real estate news website Stephen Punwasi, 37, said his main priorities if elected would be tackling housing affordability and economic opportunities.

Punwasi studies Toronto’s housing market and said based on his research a lot of residents don’t understand why real estate prices are sky-high while there are limited career opportunities.

“A lot of people felt that the opportunity in Toronto wasn’t there. Like they saw more expensive real estate but they didn't necessarily understand where their career would go or what they were doing in this situation. Like we were getting a city that was coming bigger, but no one really knows who it's being built for,” he told CP24.com.

Courtesy: stephenpunwasi.com

This is Punwasi’s first time running for mayor and he said he expects the election will be a “hard fight” against Tory.

His campaign approach has been to listen and appeal to young adults, who are a huge demographic among the voting public.

“Currently, there's like this demographic shift where Millennials finally have the opportunity to have a say in government and to form policy. And it's just not obvious sort of due to the way that polling biasing occurs,” he said.

“Surprisingly, our largest demographic of supporters is actually Gen Z and younger boomers who see what we're doing, who see our policies, and understand that this is sort of what they need for their kids. And that's been really cool,” he added.

Knia Singh, 48, is one of the more experienced hopefuls running for mayor.

The criminal defence lawyer first dipped into politics at the age of 23 when he ran for city councillor in 1997 and after his loss he took a break to focus on law, but returned to politics in 2010.

Despite this being his second time running for mayor, along with other attempts for a councillor seat, Singh remains committed to bringing more inclusion to city council.

“...I feel in a city as diverse as Toronto there needs to be more representation of various classes and various people. Our city council, not that diverse. And I think that's a problem because when you represent the city people have to kind of see that representation reflected in them,” he told CP24.com.

Knia Singh can be seen above.

Singh noted that the media plays an integral role in getting his message across to voters and winning against incumbent mayor Tory.

He said without coverage from the media his chances of securing the top job are “virtually nil.”

“Since I was excluded from debates and coverage for the most part in 2018, I thought in 2022- after more years being a lawyer, after higher presence on media and public events, just contributing- that I would not be ignored. But the two debates that Tory attended I was excluded from and it's really disappointing,” he said.

Singh said he believes he was excluded due to his ideologies, particularly his stance against COVID-19 mandates in workplaces, which have resulted in people losing their jobs if they’re unvaccinated.

“You know, usually people think because of race, people are excluded (from conversations) but I'm starting to understand it's really about my ideology. Because I call out injustice where I see it, and I'm prepared to hold people accountable. I think I'm not a desired type in politics or city hall,” he said.

He said addressing rising crime rates, ending vaccine mandates and combating homelessness will be his key priorities if he’s elected.

“...As the city's property values increase, if we don't get a check on the conditions that create violence there may be a tide that flows that's irreversible. And we don't want to see our city turn into how Detroit turned out to be in successful growth going down and having a lot of poverty,” he said.

If Singh is unsuccessful in his run this time around, he said he will “absolutely” run again in four years.

“Part of being successful is making the attempts and learning how it works and getting that public recognition.”

Election day is on Monday and polling locations will be open from 10 to 8 p.m.