Olivia Chow says immigrant past made her stronger, as she enters race to be Mayor of Toronto
As Hong Kong-born Olivia Chow takes on Rob Ford in the battle to be mayor of Toronto, she tells Kate Whitehead how surviving as a poor immigrant in Canada has steeled her for the fight ahead
Chow is a tough cookie. Looking self-assured in a yellow blazer, she launched her campaign for the top office in Toronto, Canada, by punching the air and shouting, “We need a new mayor!” The incumbent, of course, is Rob Ford, who has hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons, admitting last year to drink-driving and having smoked crack cocaine, “probably in one of my drunken stupors”.
She threw down her challenge six weeks ago and already the mud is beginning to fly ahead of the October 27 election – but Chow appears well-equipped for the battle.
Watch: Hong Kong-born Olivia Chow’s campaign ad
BORN IN HONG KONG to an education consultant father and a mother who was a teacher, Chow moved to Toronto in 1970, at the age of 13. The family wanted to leave behind the turmoil being sown in Hong Kong by political forces from the mainland, which was in the throes of the Cultural Revolution. From a comfortable home on Blue Pool Road, in Happy Valley, they found themselves struggling at the bottom of the ladder. Chow’s mother went from having a live-in helper to doing other people’s laundry.
The transition was hardest on Olivia’s father, who took his frustrations out on his wife by beating her.
Life at home was tense and the teenager grew up fast.