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A prominent Liberal adviser who helped Prime Minister Mark Carney to victory in last year’s federal election will play a leading role in Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow’s 2026 municipal campaign, the Star has learned.
Andrew Bevan — who was co-director of the federal Liberals’ 2025 national electoral push and a top aide to former Ontario Liberal premier Kathleen Wynne — will co-chair Chow’s re-election bid this fall, the mayor’s campaign confirmed. Michal Hay, the former Progress Toronto executive director who has been on parental leave as Chow’s chief of staff, will be the other co-chair.
Appointing Bevan to such a senior position signals a change in approach for Chow, a former NDP MP with deep ties to the party whose successful 2023 mayoral campaign was led by Hay and other strategists with New Democrat roots. It suggests that as she faces off in the Oct. 26 vote against a more conservative candidate — Beaches-East York councillor Brad Bradford — she’s pinning her re-election hopes on winning over more centrist Torontonians who often vote Liberal. The federal Liberal campaign that Bevan helped steer last year won 23 of the city’s 24 ridings.
Bevan’s involvement also sets up a municipal echo of the federal clash between Carney and his main rival, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre. While Bradford’s campaign includes strategists with links to both the Conservatives and Liberals, his campaign manager, John Sinclair, is Poilievre’s former deputy chief of staff.
How Olivia Chow’s path to victory will be different than in 2023
In an interview, Bevan said it would be an oversimplification to conclude he’s being brought on to help Chow court Liberal supporters. He acknowledged, however, that this year is “obviously a very different campaign” than 2023, when a record 102 people ran for mayor and the centre-right vote splintered between a handful of candidates. As the most high-profile progressive, Chow consolidated left-leaning support and won with about 37 per cent of the vote.
As of Wednesday, just over 30 candidates had signed up to run for mayor. While there is still time for one of them to surge to prominence or for a new big-name challenger to enter the contest, the 2026 election is shaping up to be a two-horse race between Chow and Bradford.
“You could win last time with a much lower percentage than is going to be required this time,” said Bevan, who was an adviser to former Scarborough Liberal MPP Mitzie Hunter’s mayoral campaign in 2023.
He said this time there’s a chance for Chow to assemble a winning progressive coalition that’s “made up of folks of many different political stripes, but especially progressive Liberals and NDP voters.”
“And so certainly I hope to be helpful on that front,” he said, adding that he believes Chow has already expanded her support beyond NDP backers.
Chow not abandoning NDP roots, Bevan says
Some of Chow’s progressive base might chafe at her teaming up with a strategist who recently helped elect Carney. The prime minister’s rollback of environmental legislation, embrace of pipelines, and reversal of tax measures aimed at the wealthy have sparked backlash even among left-leaning members of his own party.
However, Bevan, who is considered on the Liberals’ progressive wing, rejected the notion that his role on Chow’s campaign is a sign she’s abandoning her values. He argued he’s just one person on her team. “I’m not changing where the mayor is coming from or what she’s had on offer in the past and what she has achieved,” he said.
Chow’s campaign didn’t directly respond to questions about whether she plans to tack to the centre this election. Campaign spokesperson Shirven Rezvany said in an email they would have more to say about her team when she formally launches her campaign in the fall. While she registered for the race in May and has rolled out policies that appear geared for the election, she has said she remains focused on running the city.
“We have a strong team whose experience includes progressive campaigns here in Toronto and across the country,” Rezvany said in an email. Chow and Bevan, he noted, “have a long-standing working relationship” that goes back decades, and includes working on national child care together in the 1990s.
Bevan and Hay also worked closely in 2024 to deliver federal refugee funding for the city, when he was chief of staff to then-deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland, and Hay was in the mayor’s office.
Former McGuinty staffer also on Chow’s team
Bevan isn’t the only Liberal adviser helping Chow’s re-election bid. Lloyd Rang, a former communications director to Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty, will be a senior adviser.
Karla Webber-Gallagher, the mayor’s chief of staff, is scheduled to go on leave in the coming weeks to manage Chow’s campaign. She was previously principal secretary to Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath. Nadine Tkatchevskaia, a union and New Democrat strategist, will be chief financial officer.
Rezvany, the mayor’s deputy chief of staff and former media relations director with the Ontario NDP, is on leave from city hall to run communications for her campaign.
