‘We Are Not Resting’: Chow Touts Improvements After Storm Puts City Clean Up Efforts To The Test

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow took heat during a frigid stretch last winter when Toronto was walloped by snow it was seemingly ill-prepared to deal with.

A series of storms had dropped more than 50 centimetres of snow within the span of a week last February, and it stuck around far longer than it should have. Days — even weeks later in some locations — sidewalks remained impassable.

That led to a flood of complaints that Chow empathized with.

“The sidewalks are not plowed. It has been more than a week … it is not acceptable,” she said at the time.

In response to the embarrassing inability to deal with predictable winter weather, Chow called for a review of the contracts with private companies hired to do snow removal for Toronto. City council later approved an updated snow removal plan.

That plan was put to the test over the last few days when a winter storm blanketed parts of Toronto and the GTA with heavy accumulations.

Over the course of Wednesday and Thursday, around 22 centimetres fell at Pearson International Airport. Other parts of the region were hammered even more intensely.