Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow is speaking out about online “trolls” who have been targeting her with “personal vicious attacks.”
In a new video posted to her social media accounts, Chow reads and responds to some of the more egregious comments directed at her.
A familiar one, she says, is “Go back to China.”
“I’ve heard that a few times, by the way, I came from Hong Kong, but are you serious? What kind of racist crap is this?”
Her accent is also a frequent target.
“Did you know that for half of Torontonians, English is our second language?” she asks. “I was born in Hong Kong and came here when I was 13. My first language is Cantonese, like many Torontonians. So I have an accent if you don’t understand it, come on.”
Chow also said a medical condition has sometimes led to accusations of inebriation.
“She’s drunk, I can’t understand what she’s saying,” reads one of the comments.
Chow addresses comments on her speech
Chow first came forward about having Ramsay Hunt syndrome, a neurological disorder that can affect speech, back in 2013.
“The reason… my enunciation sometimes isn’t perfect is because, hey, I have facial paralysis … so my lips are not working fully well.
“I had it after my husband [Jack Layton] died because my immune system was down, I burned out, I worked too hard. I’m fine now, but sometimes it’s hard for me to move that part of my face; it’s hard to enunciate perfectly sometimes, especially in the morning.”
Chow says her tenure at City Hall is defined by hard work, and she took offence to a comment suggesting otherwise.
“I’ve never seen her at City Hall, never at work. GET BACK TO WORK!!” the comment read.
“Are you kidding me? I’ll just challenge anyone who works as hard as I do. I’m here at City Hall at 6:45 a.m. every day,” she stressed.
Chow keeping an open mind
Chow, who became the first woman to serve as mayor of Toronto since amalgamation, says she works 14 hours a day on most days, and frequently wears out her staffers as they try to keep up with her jam-packed schedule.
That doesn’t mean she’s averse to having fun, though.
When one commenter called her the “party mayor,” she hardly objected.
“Yeah, people are really sad if they don’t know how to dance or party,” she said. “This is what the city is all about — where people come together and celebrate each other’s culture, heritage and language. That’s what makes the City of Toronto so special, because we are diverse, we support each other no matter who we are or where we came from, and yes, we do party together. We call them festivals!”
Despite the cruel nature of some of the comments, Chow tried to empathize with certain frustrations.
“Sometimes when people lash out, it’s probably because they are feeling there’s some injustice and things are not fair. Well, find out why it’s not fair, maybe they have a point about … working three shifts and not being able to get ahead. I get it, but being racist and sexist or any of those things, being hateful is not going to get [us] anywhere.”
Even though she took the time to air the distasteful messages, Chow says she rarely reads comments directed to her on social media.
“I don’t have time for it,” she said.
“I ran for mayor to make life more affordable, to fix transit and housing, not to argue with some cartoon avatar.”
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