Raymond Cho and Doug Ford are teaming up to take a part of Scarborough away from Ontario’s Liberals.
Cho, a local councillor in the Scarborough-Rouge River area since 1991, says he’ll seek the riding’s Progressive Conservative nomination on June 4.
And former Etobicoke councillor Doug Ford – rumoured to be interested in running there for the PCs himself – wants to be Cho’s campaign manager.
“I actually urged him to run, he’s a very popular man, and he urged me to run,” Cho said Thursday, May 19.
The Scarborough councillor, who ran for the federal New Democratic party in 1988, and later joined the Liberals, surprised many by becoming the riding’s PC candidate in 2014.
He finished third, and when PC Leader Patrick Brown asked him this spring to try again in a byelection to replace Cho’s longtime Liberal rival Bas Balkissoon, Cho refused.
But on Thursday, Cho said the party kept asking, and a local poll for the PCs suggested Cho had the best chance to win the riding for the Tories.
That, coupled with Ford’s promise of support, Cho said, has changed his mind.
“It’s a good offer,” he said, recalling just a few weeks ago he invited Ford to breakfast and tried again to get him to run in Scarborough-Rouge River.
“I thought I convinced him,” said Cho, who was seen by some colleagues as left-leaning in the past and may seem an unlikely partner for the right-leaning Ford.
Both, however, have their loyal supporters in Cho’s constituency, where Ford’s 2014 mayoral campaign did well.
“Doug Ford has a lot of respect for me, and vice versa. We’ve been good friends,” Cho said.
Balkissoon’s sudden resignation as the local MPP in March gave Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne six months to call a byelection.
The PC nomination next weekend may be contested, but though the provincial riding association promised to release a list of candidates by late Friday, there are so far no declared PC rivals for Cho to beat.
Born in 1936, Cho tried to seek the provincial seat as a Liberal in 2005, but was denied the chance.
Balkissoon had held the riding since, but though the appeal of Liberals in Scarborough-Rouge River has deep roots, Cho said he’s confident enough people are finally getting tired of the provincial party and its recent scandals.
Cho said he supports extending the proposed Crosstown East light-rail transit line north from University of Toronto Scarborough to Malvern Town Centre.
He also repeated his support for a Sheppard subway extension as far east as Meadowvale Road, despite a lack of funds for the project. The province has planned and funded another LRT line, the Sheppard East, in the same corridor, but two years ago it delayed the project.
Brown hasn’t said he’ll fund a subway extension on Sheppard – always a touchstone project for Ford and his brother Rob Ford – but Cho said Brown “listens” so he would consider it.
“I’m all for subway, and will fight for subway once I get elected,” said Cho.
Neethan Sha, who ran against both Cho and Balkissoon in 2014, and also ran against Cho in two municipal elections, seeking Cho’s council seat, is set to be acclaimed the riding’s New Democratic candidate Thursday, May 26.
The riding’s Liberals will nominate their candidate Sunday, June 5.