Ward 18 — Willowdale

Willowdale is dominated by the North York City Centre, a vertical downtown anchored by the Yonge Street corridor between Sheppard and Finch avenues, where more than a hundred high-rise towers have reshaped what was once a modest suburban strip into one of the densest residential clusters in the GTA. The ward also encompasses the lower-rise residential neighbourhoods of Willowdale East and West, Newtonbrook, and Lansing. With a population of roughly 117,000, the ward is one of Toronto's most diverse: Chinese residents make up 18 percent of the population, Korean 7 percent, and Iranian 7 percent, and more than 60 percent of residents are immigrants. Despite having one of the most highly educated populations in the city (55 percent hold bachelor's degrees or above), median household income sits below the city average — a pattern characteristic of immigrant communities whose credentials are not fully recognized in the Canadian labour market.

Willowdale was the only north Toronto ward that Chow won, and her tightest victory anywhere in the city: 8,293 votes (34.9 percent) to Bailão's 8,244 (34.7 percent), a margin of exactly 49 votes. Saunders placed third at 11.3 percent and Furey at 6.0 percent. Chow's deep roots in Toronto's Chinese-Canadian community — built over decades of advocacy, community organizing, and political representation stretching back to her time as a Metro Toronto school trustee in the 1980s — gave her a personal connection with voters in a ward where Chinese-language communities make up nearly a fifth of the population. The ward was scarred by the 2018 Toronto van attack, in which a vehicle was driven along the Yonge Street sidewalk from Finch to Sheppard, killing eleven people entirely within Ward 18. Councillor Lily Cheng, elected in 2022, had co-founded the We Love Willowdale community group in response to the attack.

Municipal Issues

The Yonge North Subway Extension, which will extend Line 1 nearly eight kilometres from Finch Station through the ward to Richmond Hill, was the most significant planned infrastructure project. Metrolinx issued a request for qualifications for the advance tunnel contract in April 2023, shortly before the by-election. Residents wanted the transit investment but worried about years of construction disruption along a corridor already strained by the pace of condo development.

The intensification of the Yonge corridor between Sheppard and Finch was the ward's most contentious planning issue. With 25 or more additional towers proposed or approved, adding thousands of new units to an area where infrastructure — roads, schools, water, sewer — was designed for a fraction of the current population, residents questioned whether growth was being managed responsibly. Pedestrian safety on Yonge Street, already a visceral concern after the van attack, remained urgent as pedestrian volumes continued to climb with each new tower opening.