The Portuguese-Canadian Ana Bailão announced this Friday that she will run for mayor of the municipality of Toronto in the mid-term elections of July.
“I decided to apply for mayor [presidente do município]. I have a plan to make municipal services more efficient,” the former councilor announced in a public letter.
On that same note, Ana Bailão, born in Vila Franca de Xira (Lisbon), who has been in Canada since she was 15, thanked all the community leaders, family members and friends who sought her out in recent weeks and “encouraged her to apply for to the leadership of the municipality”.
“Your words of encouragement and appeals to leadership were important factors in this decision,” he declared.
The Portuguese-Canadian was a councilor from 2010 to 2022, representing the electoral district of Davenport, and more recently the 18th neighborhood, due to the reformulation of the electoral districts, having won close to 84 percent of the votes.
“I’ve spoken to hundreds of Toronto residents over the past four weeks. They’ve all told me that they agree with me that city services are in urgent need of improvement. Affordable housing is out of reach for many. The cost of living is high. I intend (if elected) to improve public transport, namely its safety and efficiency”, he underlined.
Graduated from the University of Toronto in Sociology and European Studies, since 2010 she has been responsible for the municipal commission on affordable housing, having been appointed by the mayor John Tory vice-president of the municipality, also integrating the municipal executive.
Bailão also highlighted the passion for Toronto, which aims to “make services accessible, build more housing, make life more accessible”, promising on April 3 to present more details of its platform.
The Toronto City Council has scheduled for the next 26th of June the mid-term elections to choose a new mayor.
These elections follow the scandal of an intimate relationship between John Tory and a former employee of his office, which led to his resignation last month.
Registration for official candidates starts on the 3rd of April and closes on the 12th of May.