Toronto Mayor John Tory abruptly resigned on Friday after saying he had a relationship with a staff member, only months after cruising to reelection on a pledge to fix a housing crisis in North America’s fourth-largest city.
(Bloomberg) — Toronto Mayor John Tory abruptly resigned on Friday after saying he had a relationship with a staff member, only months after cruising to reelection on a pledge to fix a housing crisis in North America’s fourth-largest city.
“During the pandemic, I developed a relationship with an employee in my office in a way that did not meet the standards to which I hold myself as mayor and as a family man,” Tory said at a press conference. “I’ve decided that I would step down as mayor so that I could take the time to reflect on my mistakes and to do the work of rebuilding the trust of my family.”
Canada’s financial capital is facing a number of challenges, including the lingering financial effects of Covid-19 lockdowns, a potential recession and a housing affordability crisis. Tory’s promise to fix the latter was one of his main campaign pledges when he won an unprecedented third consecutive term in October.
Canada saw some of the fastest house price inflation in the world, while Toronto was named the world’s biggest housing bubble last year by Swiss bank UBS Group. The city has not been building homes fast enough to keep up with immigration-led population growth and a lack of supply is seen as the main cause of soaring prices that, while off their peak, remain lofty.
Tory had proposed a major policy shift that would open residential land reserved for single-family homes for the development of multiplexes and small apartment buildings, with mid-rises on commercial streets.
During Friday’s news conference, Tory said he began a relationship with an employee in his office during the pandemic. The staffer left City Hall to work elsewhere during the affair and the relationship ended “by mutual consent” earlier this year, he said. He took no questions.
“I think it is important, as I always have, for the office of the mayor not to be in any way tarnished and not to see the city government itself put through a period of prolonged controversy, arising out of this error in judgment on my part, especially in light of some of the challenges that we face as a city,” said Tory, who was elected to the office in 2014.
Even-featured and gray-haired, Tory, 68, has long been a public figure in Toronto — a former leader of a provincial political party, business executive and talk radio host. He hails from an established Toronto business family, whose name adorns a storied law firm, Torys LLP, founded by his grandfather. He has been married for more than 40 years.
Tory said he will work with the city manager, city clerk and Deputy Mayor Jennifer McKelvie to ensure an orderly transition. An environmental geoscientist, McKelvie was first elected as a city councilor in 2018. Under Ontario legislation governing the city, it will hold a special election to fill the mayor’s office in the coming months.
Read more: Low-Key Mayor Floats Fix for World’s Biggest Housing Bubble
–With assistance from Shiyin Chen.
(Updates with addtional details beginning in the sixth paragraph)
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