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Oliva Chow’s Win Was Foreseeable

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“There is no such thing as not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard’s vote.” ― David Foster Wallace, Consider the Lobster and Other Essays.

Despite a field of 102 Toronto mayoral candidates, last night’s election was a two-candidate battle—proving the need for rank-balloting—between Ana Bailão and Olivia Chow. Chow narrowly won.

Statistics from yesterday’s Toronto mayoral election:

  • Number of eligible voters: 1.89 million
  • Number of voters who voted: 724,638
  • Voter participation rate: 38.34%
  • Winner (number of votes, percentage of votes, in brackets): Olivia Chow (269,372, 37.17%)
  • 2nd place: Ana Bailão (235,175, 32.45%)
  • 3rd place: Mark Saunders (62,167, 8.58%)
  • 4th place: Anthony Furey (35,899, 4.95%)
  • 5th place: Josh Matlow (35,572, 4.91%)

Chow being elected as Toronto’s 66th mayor was no surprise to those following the polls; however, Bailaó’s performance was.

As Toronto’s mayor Chow takes on some significant “big city” issues—a $1 billion deficit, a crumbling transit system, growing homelessness, sporadic violent crime, and the increasing housing affordability challenge.

Despite 102 candidates vying to become Toronto’s next mayor, only Olivia Chow read the room correctly, which is an innate ability needed to succeed in politics. Chow knew, better than any of her opponents, this was a change election for Toronto.

Besides reading the room correctly, none of Chow’s opponents offered convincing arguments for why they would be a better mayor than Chow, whose polling from day one made it clear she was the candidate to beat.

Also in Chow’s favour was Toronto’s current electoral system of first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting, where the candidate with the most votes wins. Ranked-choice voting would have significantly changed the outcome of this election; especially given that an overwhelming majority of Torontonians voted for conservative and moderate candidates.

Vanity candidates, fringe candidates, and candidates seeking their 15 minutes of fame, who combined received less than 10% of the votes cast, dominated the field of candidates.

Chow ran a textbook campaign. 

Chow’s campaign was reminiscent of the Turkish saying: The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.

Love her or hate her, it cannot be said Chow did not run a class act campaign, which is not surprising given her years of political experience. In contrast to other candidates, she did not engage in political attacks, ignored her haters and distractors, and was strategic in her appearances and endorsements.

While her opponents created a circus-like frenzy, attacking Chow without explaining why they were better options, Chow walked her campaign path almost Zen-like. As much as her opponents and haters brought up her having lived with her late husband, Jack Layton, in Toronto Community Housing or made unsubstantiated claims that Chow has ties to the Chinese Communist Party and is a CCP asset or warned that Chow will raise property taxes through the roof, it was all ignored by her and her supporters.

Each candidate had one job: Introduce themselves to Torontonians and provide compelling reasons why they were the most qualified to be the mayor of North America’s 4th most populous city. However, Chow’s opponents spent most of their time and energy attacking her instead of explaining how they were qualified to be Toronto’s mayor.

Had the Three Right-leaning Forerunnering Candidates United… 

Chow’s less-than-runaway victory was undoubtedly due to the egos of right-leaning candidates Ana Bailão, Anthony Furey and Mark Saunders. Their egos prevented them from adopting a political strategy that would have kept “a conservative” in city hall, of uniting behind one candidate; hence they split the vote and gave Chow her win. Had Furey and Saunders dropped out before advance polls and endorsed Bailão, yesterday’s election results would have been quite different.

On the other hand, Chow immediately united progressives and the left. (Josh Matlow’s campaign literally evaporated once Chow filed her nomination papers.)

What I find fascinating, especially from a strategic perspective, is how Chow did not make promises—she did not even provide a costed-out platform as Mitzie Hunter and Josh Matlow did. Chow connected with voters by telling stories… her stories. Chow’s political acumen enabled her to read the room and identify that voters had heard enough of politicians’ “promise numbers.” Voters now wanted a mayor who understood their immigrant struggles (In 2021, 46.6% of Toronto’s population were immigrants.), represents Toronto’s diversity, and is politically experienced enough to navigate Doug Ford’s government for the city’s benefit.

While Chow’s campaign methodology was an undeniable success, the downside of her storytelling campaign is that no one knows, other than her closest advisors and confidants, exactly what she has planned for Torontonians for the next three years.

The promise of higher taxes is no longer a candidate’s death knell.  

I believe this election was a referendum on Toronto’s two most recent conservative mayors’ fiscal austerity. Toronto has gotten to such a state where many residents, whether rightly or wrongly, believe low taxes—in comparison to municipalities across Ontario—is why Toronto’s infrastructures and social services have become inadequate.

Once upon a time, candidates for political office would not even think of suggesting tax increases, let alone promise them outright, as Chow did throughout her campaign, without mentioning how much. The divisiveness between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ left-leaning politicians have created has made increasing taxes something the have-nots want to hear and see… “Tax the rich!”

Paying more taxes, as “your moral obligation,” to help the greater good is how left-leaning politicians sell higher taxes to those with the financial privilege to pay more taxes. Voting for a candidate who openly states they will raise property taxes, which will be passed on to renters (Landlords will not absorb tax increases.), indicates being financially privileged or believing that other people’s money can create your utopia.

Inevitably, higher property taxes will make owning a home or renting an apartment in Toronto more costly. Holistically, Torontonians have yet to reach their breaking point regarding Toronto being affordable and where they begin embracing austerity measures. Toronto still has a way to go before becoming as expensive as North American cities such as New York City, San Francisco, Vancouver, or Seattle. (Economic pressures beyond the mayor’s control—no need to increase property taxes—will eventually make Toronto just as expensive as these cities and many others worldwide.)  

Affordable Housing Was This Election’s Number One Issue

The law of supply and demand dictates that a product’s availability impacts its price. When it comes to real estate and housing, this is especially true.

More than rising crime (as a city population grows, inevitably, the number of crimes will increase) and unreliable public transit, affordable housing is the top-of-mind issue for Toronto residents. As I write this, per the Rentals.ca June 2023 Rent Report, the average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment in Toronto is $2,538, up 17.5% from last year.

The pace of people moving into Toronto far outpaces how rapidly housing can be built. Not even Chow can build housing fast enough. (Chow says she is going to build affordable housing “fast.” However, she did not give any specifics because she has not figured it out yet.) According to a Toronto Star article three years ago, The population of the Toronto area will hit 8 million in the next 10 years. People are literally pouring into Toronto!

Canada has raised immigration targets. (Canada plans to accept up to 505,000 new permanent residents by 2023, 542,000 by 2024, and up to 550,000 by 2025.) With most newcomers settling in Toronto, Vancouver, or Montreal, Toronto’s housing shortage will undoubtedly worsen.

How many housing units can be constructed in a year? Which of these numbers looks realistic? 5,000? 7,000? 10,000? 15,000?

Toronto is at a crossroads of either its residents acknowledge the fact that living in Toronto—a choice one makes—means accepting housing costs “are what they are,” just as residents do in any major city, or Torontonians continue kidding themselves that affordable housing can be built fast enough so one day supply and demand are in sync meanwhile complain about how expensive it is to rent or buy in Toronto.

Suggested reading: If you build it, they can come, by Toronto mayoral candidate Sarah Climenhaga.

If the affordability to rent and own in Toronto is not really a concern, which I presume is the case since Chow promised to hike taxes, although by how much is unknown, what does keep Torontonians up at night?

The city’s direction.

Once considered an affordable, model city, Toronto headed into this election facing the same problems as all big cities. Chow’s victory, even though it is mainly the result of the top three right-leaning candidates splitting the votes, does represent a shift that many Torontonians—albeit not the majority, as Chow only received 37% of the votes cast—are now willing to see how Toronto will look and feel like under progressive policies that emphasize social justice, addressing homelessness and climate change.

If there is such a thing as “motivational science,” then logically, considering 62% of eligible voters did not turn out to vote, knowing Chow was leading in all polls the entire election and was likely to win, one could conclude Torontonians were okay with Chow being their mayor. In other words, 62% of eligible voters were not motivated enough to vote against Chow.

Over the next three years, no one can predict how Toronto’s story will play out or what it will look and feel like with Chow as the heroine. Depending on how the “Toronto Story” unfolds from now until the next election in 2026, Torontonians may finally learn that elections have consequences.

________________________________________________________________

 

Nick Kossovan, a self-described connoisseur of human psychology, writes about what’s on his mind from Toronto. You can follow Nick on Twitter and Instagram @NKossovan

 

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As sports betting addiction takes hold in Brazil, the government moves to crack down

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SAO PAULO (AP) — “King” doesn’t disclose his real name. Even clients of his Sao Paulo newsstand have to call him by his moniker. The Brazilian online sports gambling addict lowered his profile after a loan shark threatened to put bullets in his head if he didn’t pay up.

Broke and embarrassed, King sought treatment and support earlier this year.

“I was once addicted to slot machines, but then sports betting was so easy that I changed. I got carried away all the time,” he told The Associated Press.

King’s story is that of many vulnerable Brazilians in recent years. The country has become the third-biggest market in the world for sports betting, following the U.S. and the U.K., a report by data analysis company Comscore said last year. But unlike those countries, rampant advertising and sponsorship have been coupled with an unregulated market. The government is now — belatedly, some say — striving to get a handle on the epidemic.

On a recent evening, King’s Gamblers Anonymous meeting took place in an improvised classroom inside a church, with coffee and cookies to keep everyone awake, and supportive messages scrawled onto the blackboard. One that’s become ubiquitous in Brazil and beyond: “Only for today I will avoid the first bet.”

King and other attendees, all Christian, started a prayer and the meeting began.

King said his financial problems arose from his addiction to online sports betting, chiefly on soccer.

“I miss the adrenaline rush when I don’t bet,” he said before the gathering. “I have managed to stop for a couple of months, but I know that if I do it once again, even a small bet, it will all come back.”

Driven by the pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic was a key driver for Brazilians embracing sports betting. King said he transformed almost every sale during that time into a bet. His hook was the non-stop advertising on TV, radio, social media as well as sponsorship of local soccer teams’ jerseys. He asked for bank loans to pay his gambling debts and then, to cover those, went to the moneylender. His total debt now amounts to 85,000 reais ($15,000) — impossible to pay off with his monthly income of 8,000 reais.

Digging oneself out of debt in Brazil is especially daunting with its sky-high interest rates. Loans from Brazilian banks could add interest of almost 8% per month to the borrowed sum, and from loan sharks could be even more.

Four Gamblers Anonymous meetings attended by the AP in October featured discussions about difficulties paying down debts, forcing working-class members to postpone housing payments and cancel family vacations.

Some members of impoverished Brazilian families have used welfare money for betting instead of paying for groceries and housing, official data suggests. In August, beneficiaries of Brazil’s flagship program Bolsa Familia spent 3 billion reais ($530 million) on sports betting, according to a report from the central bank. That was more than 20% of the program’s total outlay in the month.

A host of gambling related problems

Sports betting was made legal in 2018 in a bill signed by former President Michel Temer. The subsequent turmoil has recently been setting off alarm bells, with addicts venting on social media and media reports of people losing huge sums.

On Oct. 1, the economy ministry prevented more than 2,000 betting companies from operating in Brazil for having failed to provide all the required documents. Soccer-loving President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said in an interview on Oct. 17 that he will shut down the entire market in Brazil if his administration’s new regulations — presented at the end of July— fail to work. And Brazil’s Senate on Oct. 25 opened an investigation into betting companies, focusing on crime and addiction.

“There’s tax evasion, money laundering of organized crime, the use of influencers to trick people into betting. These companies need to be audited,” Sen. Soraya Thronicke, who proposed the inquiry, told journalists in Brasilia.

Sérgio Peixoto, a ride-sharing app driver in Rio, is one of many lower-middle-income Brazilians who have reduced their spending due to sports betting debt. Peixoto’s debt currently amounts to 25,000 reais ($4,400). His monthly income is four times less than that.

“It stopped being a game, it wasn’t fun. I just wanted to get the money back, so I lost even more,” said Peixoto, 26. “I could have invested that money. It would surely have given me more benefits.

Pressure to bet

Pressure on people to gamble is everywhere. Current and former soccer players, including Vinicius Júnior, Ronaldo Nazário and Roberto Rivellino, are among the poster boys for local and foreign brands. All but one of the top-tier soccer clubs have betting companies among their main sponsors, with their name and logo emblazoned on their kits. There have been cases of kids and teenagers setting up accounts using their parents’ personal information and money, multiple local media outlets have reported.

Brazil’s economy ministry estimates that Brazil’s sports betting market had $21 billion in transactions last year, a 71% increase compared with the first year of the pandemic, 2020.

The ministry’s newly presented regulations include facial recognition systems for gamblers to bet, the identification of a single bank account for transactions involving sports betting, new protections against hackers and the government-authorized domain, bet.br, which will host all betting sites that are legal in Brazil. Once they are in place, come January, between 100 and 150 betting companies will continue to operate in the South American nation.

The changes in Brazil have prompted some companies to take preemptive action. A report by Yield Sec, a technical intelligence platform for online marketplaces, said several betting companies voluntarily restricted their operations in different places after the latest editions of the European Championships and Copa America in the hopes of presenting “the best possible license application face to the Brazilian authorities.”

Magnho José Santos de Sousa, the president of the Legal Gambling Institute, a betting think tank, said Brazil is currently “invaded by illegal websites that have licenses in Malta, Curação, Gibraltar and the United Kingdom.”

De Sousa expressed hope that the new regulations for advertising, responsible gambling and qualification of sports betting companies will transform the country’s deregulated arena into a more serious one that doesn’t exploit the vulnerable.

“The whole operation could turn from water into wine,” he said.

Gamblers Anonymous in high demand

Meantime, the demand for Gamblers Anonymous meetings in Sao Paulo has grown so much in recent years that the weekly gathering, in place since the 1990s, was no longer enough. Many groups have added a second day in the week to help new people recover, mostly sports bettors.

Earlier in October, a group on Sao Paulo’s northern edge admitted a man who was struggling with sports betting and card games. The 13 other people in the room stressed that he wasn’t alone.

“Welcome,” one long-time attendee said, in a greeting that has become a regular for the group. “Today, you are the most important person here.”

___

Dumphreys reported from Rio de Janeiro.



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Saskatchewan’s Jason Ackerman improves to 6-0 at mixed curling nationals

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SAINT CATHARINES, Ont. – Saskatchewan’s Jason Ackerman remained undefeated on Wednesday with a 7-4 win over Newfoundland and Labrador’s Trent Skanes at the Canadian mixed curling championship.

After going down 3-1 through four ends, Ackerman (6-0) outscored Skanes (3-3) 6-1 the rest of the way, including three points in the seventh end.

Alberta’s Kurt Alan Balderston also earned a win, defeating New Brunswick’s Charlie Sullivan 9-2 in another matchup in the final draw.

The win improved Balderston’s record to 4-2 and sits in third in Pool B.

The top four teams from each pool will play four more games against the survivors from the other pool. The remaining three teams from the pool will play three more seeding games to help set the rankings for next year’s event.

The championship final is scheduled for Saturday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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Oilers fall 4-2 to Golden Knights in McDavid’s return from injury

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EDMONTON – Noah Hanifin had a pair of goals as the Vegas Golden Knights won their first road game of the season, coming from behind to shock the Edmonton Oilers 4-2 on Wednesday.

Jack Eichel had a goal and two assists and Mark Stone also scored for the Golden Knights (9-3-1), who have won two in a row and six of their last seven. The Knights entered the game 0-3-1 on the road this year.

Brett Kulak and Zach Hyman replied for the Oilers (6-7-1), who have lost two straight despite getting captain Connor McDavid back from injury earlier than expected for the game.

Adin Hill made 27 saves for Vegas, while Stuart Skinner managed 31 stops for Edmonton.

Takeaways

Golden Knights: With an assist on the Knights’ second goal, William Karlsson has recorded at least a point in all five games he has played this season (two goals, four assists).

Oilers: McDavid was a surprise starter for the Oilers, coming back just nine days after suffering an ankle injury in Columbus and initially being expected to miss two to three weeks. The star forward came into the contest with 11 points (three goals, eight assists) during a six-game point streak versus the Golden Knights, but was held pointless on the night.

Key moment

With just 48.4 seconds left to play, the Golden Knights won a race to the corner and Ivan Barbashev was able to send it out to a hard-charging Hanifin, who sent a shot glove-side that beat Skinner for his second goal of the third period and third of the season.

Key stat

It was Hyman’s third goal in the last four games after the veteran forward went scoreless in his first 10 games this season following a 54-goal campaign last year. Hyman now has five goals in his last six games against Vegas.

Up next

Golden Knights: Head to Seattle to face the Kraken on Friday.

Oilers: Travel to Vancouver on a quick one-game trip to clash with the Canucks on Saturday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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