Some say the Toronto mayor's seat may be won in this borough. Why the candidates are paying attention - Toronto Star

The former municipality, whose residents often feel forgotten by city hall, is set to play a potentially crucial role in the mayor's race.

Olivia Chow, with Celena Seusahai, CEO of Caribbean festival mas band Tribal Carnival, takes a turn at the grill during a barbecue hosted by the group in Scarborough on Friday night.

As the Toronto election entered its final weeks, Olivia Chow held a rally, and she set it to the sounds of Scarborough. 

The crowd of about 500 gathered at the Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Toronto on Sheppard Avenue East in late September were treated to a string rendition of “Starboy” by Abel Tesfaye, the Scarborough native who rose to global stardom as the Weeknd. There was also comedy by a local standup, and a performance by a Tamil dance group. 

Chow, who is seeking a second term in the Oct. 26 vote, delivered a campaign speech that doubled as a tribute to the eastern suburb, praising every inch of it “from the Bluffs to Rouge Park, from the shops and restaurants along Lawrence Avenue,” to “the families gathering in our parks and community centres.”

“So many cultures. So many languages. So much great food!” said Chow, whose walkout song was Canadian rapper Shad’s “Fam Jam,” an ode to immigrants. 

Chow’s rally may have been the splashiest election event in Scarborough this fall, but it was far from the only one. Chow and her main rival, Brad Bradford, have been making regular stops there — sometimes at the same time, just blocks away from one another — since the campaign got underway.

Jazz fusion group The Shuffle Demons known for the classic “Spadina Bus” song, among other transit songs. 

That’s because the former municipality, whose residents often feel forgotten by city hall, is set to play a potentially crucial role in the mayor’s race, with some predicting the contest will be decided by whichever candidate performs the best in Scarborough’s half-dozen wards. While residents there say the candidates’ attention helps shine a light on issues they care about, some worry that politicians’ desire to engage with them will fade once the ballots are counted, and that the election-season focus won’t translate into lasting support for Scarborough. 

“We’re obviously pleased that Scarborough is not an afterthought in this election,” said Larry Whatmore, president of the Scarborough Community Renewal Organization, a resident group that is hosting a debate Wednesday between Chow, Bradford, and mayoral candidate Chris Alexander. Scarborough has long felt like “the poor cousin” to the rest of the city, he said, but the election is a chance to change that through residents getting involved and being “squeaky wheels.”

Whatmore attributed candidates’ focus area this year to the 2023 mayoral byelection. Chow won that contest by shoring up support not only downtown, the traditional bastion of progressives like her, but by also taking five of Scarborough’s six wards. 

With a population of more than 620,000, Scarborough’s needs are diverse. About three quarters of residents are visible minorities — with sizable Chinese and South Asian communities in its northwest and northeast respectively — and while incomes are lower than the city average in many neighbourhoods, it also has a higher percentage of homeowners than Toronto as a whole.

Whatmore hopes the candidates address pressing local issues such as the lack of adequate transit — he acknowledged there’s been progress with the Scarborough subway extension — and protecting employment lands that are being gobbled up by development.

But Laura Hammond, a long-time Scarborough resident and local advocate, questions how committed the candidates are to Scarborough. In her experience, once the election period fizzles out, residents struggle to get responses from city hall, or updates on politicians’ funding promises.

“It’s crickets throughout the rest of the year,” she said.

She said Scarborough is facing ongoing issues around poverty, food insecurity and affordability and noted that many families rely on grassroots organizations for vital support such as food assistance. “I see the photo ops” but politicians never “actually address the issues afterward,” Hammond said.

Shane Beharry is a manager of Community Resource Connection at the East Scarborough Storefront.

Shane Beharry is a manager at the East Scarborough Storefront, a community service organization in Kingston-Galloway-Orton Park, a neighbourhood in Scarborough-Guildwood where almost a fifth of residents live below the low-income cut off.

He’s heard from residents there that their priorities are affordable homes, reliable transit, good local jobs, green space, access to healthy food and “communities where children and families feel safe.” But more than that they want “a meaningful say” in decisions that impact them. Their message to the candidates is to “listen to communities … recognize the wisdom and aspirations that already exist here, and work alongside residents to turn those aspirations into reality.”

In addition to her rally, Chow has been in Scarborough to announce plans for a weekly cap on TTC fares, hold a kitchen table conversation about affordability, talk about youth violence prevention, and mark the opening of the Scarborough busway. “I made a choice to invest in Scarborough, not neglect it like others have,” she said in a release about the busway, which was inaugurated more than six months ahead of schedule.

Bradford, who is councillor for Beaches — East York, has accused Chow of neglecting the east end, however. She and others at city hall often “forget that there’s a Toronto east of Victoria Park,” he said at a recent press conference. 

He has held events in Scarborough to announce his proposal to create a public water utility, and talk about how Toronto is failing skilled immigrants. 

Bradford has attempted to make a wedge issue out of plans for the Eglinton East LRT — a long-planned rail line that would run 18.6 km from Kennedy Station to Malvern Town Centre — and accused the mayor of prioritizing funding for the Waterfront East LRT, a downtown project, instead. He said he would make the LRT in Scarborough his “top transit priority” and within his first 100 days make the case to the provincial and federal governments to fund it.

Brad Bradford in Scarborough with residents before he announced his proposal to cut water bills by incorporating Toronto Water into a public utility.

Bradford has also accused Chow of making life less affordable in Scarborough and elsewhere by adding about $680 to the average Toronto homeowner’s property tax bill over her term.

For her part, Chow has said her administration is making progress on the Eglinton East LRT (which she has renamed the Scarborough East LRT), and has put $18 million into design work while the city attempts to secure funding. 

She maintains that she has improved affordability in Scarborough and across the city by freezing transit fares and expanding student nutrition programs, and has pointed to her support of local projects such as the new Rouge Valley Community Centre, Kidstown water park reopening, Milliken Community Centre expansion and a Tamil Community Centre.

Alexander, who is polling a distant third, said he’s been spending time in Scarborough learning about residents’ concerns. 

“Scarborough is the biggest part of this city by territory, and I would commit to making sure city hall starts listening, consulting and planning on the scale Scarborough deserves,” he said.

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Andrew Tumilty, who directed the war room for John Tory’s successful 2018 and 2022 mayoral campaigns, said Scarborough is “vitally important” to both Chow and Bradford.

If Bradford, a right-leaning candidate, can count on Etobicoke and parts of North York that usually vote conservative, and Chow can count on left-leaning downtown and the more urban parts of Toronto, “then that leaves Scarborough as the missing piece,” Tumilty said. “Because it could go either way based on historical trends.”

The city’s next mayor “is going be the person that has won the most votes in Scarborough,” he predicted.

Chow’s team also believes Scarborough could be what tips the election in its favour, according to a source on the campaign, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive political strategy.