Olivia Chow became the first Chinese-born mayor of Toronto Monday.
Voting tallies show Chow winning 37% of the vote, with former deputy mayor Ana Bailoa taking 32%.
She is the second woman elected to lead Canada’s largest city. She will succeed John Tory, who was re-elected to a third term just last October but resigned just four months later after he admitted to an extramarital affair with a staffer.
“If you ever questioned your faith in a better future and what we can do with each other, for each other, tonight is your answer,” Chow told her supporters during her victory speech.
The 66-year-old Chow emigrated to Canada at age 13 from Hong Kong. She is a former member of Canada’s parliament and a Toronto city councilor. The left-leaning Chow campaigned on a platform of creating 25,000 affordable housing units in the city of 2.7 million people, where homelessness is on the rise.
She is also facing a host of other problems in Toronto, including a crumbling transit system and violent crime.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse.
