Olivia Chow

Olivia Chow (; born March 24, 1957) is a Canadian politician who has been the 66th mayor of Toronto since July 12, 2023. Previously, Chow served as the New Democratic Party (NDP) member of Parliament (MP) for Trinity—Spadina from 2006 to 2014 and as city councillor in Metro Toronto from 1992 to the 1998 amalgamation and in Toronto from 1998 to 2005. Born in British Hong Kong, Chow was first elected in 1985 as a Toronto school board trustee. She ran in the 1991 Toronto election, where she was elected to Metropolitan Toronto Council and remained active in local Toronto politics until her election to the House of Commons in the 2006 Canadian election. In 2011, her husband of 23 years, Jack Layton, leader of the Official Opposition in 2011 and leader of the NDP from 2003 to 2011, died from cancer. Chow resigned her seat in Parliament in 2014, to run for mayor in the 2014 election, placing third to John Tory and Doug Ford. Following her 2014 campaign, she joined Ryerson University as a distinguished visiting professor. In the 2015 federal election, she unsuccessfully ran in Spadina—Fort York. Chow was elected mayor in 2023 following Tory's resignation, defeating former deputy mayor Ana Bailão and former police chief Mark Saunders. Chow is the first Chinese-Canadian mayor of Toronto, the third female mayor after June Rowlands and Barbara Hall, and the first female mayor post-amalgamation. Early life and career Chow was born in British Hong Kong, to Ho Sze, a schoolteacher, and Wilson Wai Sun Chow, a school superintendent. She was raised in a middle-class family in Happy Valley, a residential area in Hong Kong. She emigrated to Canada with her family in 1970 at the age of 13, settling in Toronto, where they first lived on the third floor of a rooming house in the Annex, before moving to a high-rise unit in St. James Town. Her father worked odd jobs, such as delivering Chinese food and driving taxis to support the family. Her mother became a seamstress and a maid, and worked in a hotel laundry. Her father suffered from mental illness and was physically abusive towards her half-brother, Andre, and her mother, but nurturing and loving towards Olivia.