Mayor John Tory has announced his intention to resign from office after admitting to having a relationship with a staff member.

Tory made the announcement late on Friday night, telling reporters at an abruptly scheduled press conference at city hall that his resignation would take effect in “the coming days.”

• 'I am deeply sorry': Tory resigns as mayor of Toronto after having relationship with staffer

Under the City of Toronto Act, Deputy Mayor Jennifer McKelvie will now take over the job until a byelection can be held.

She is likely to remain in the job for a period of months, as the City of Toronto Act requires that candidates be given a minimum of 30 days and a maximum of 60 days to file their nomination papers after a byelection is formally declared. 

Election day would then come 45 days later.

However, before anything happens city council must first meet to declare the office vacant. 

Here is what you need to know about the councillor who will soon become mayor:

A relative newcomer to city hall

McKelvie was first elected as the councillor for Ward 25 Scarborough—Rouge Park in 2018 and just recently began her second term at city hall. She currently serves as chair of Toronto’s Infrastructure and Environment Committee, where she is responsible for helping to implement the city’s Vision Zero road safety strategy. She also sits on the Toronto Hydro Corporation Board of Directors and the Toronto Zoo Board of Management.

Professional Geoscientist

Before entering politics, McKelvie was employed as a researcher at the Nuclear Waste Management Organization. During that time she served a project manager for geoscientific site assessments that were conducted in five northern Ontario communities. She also managed research and development that was focused on the prevention of microbiologically influenced corrosion of used nuclear fuel containers, according to her Linkedin profile. She holds a PHD in Geology from the University of Toronto.

She has a long history of community service

McKelvie was the first president of the Scarborough Community Renewal Organization from 2016 until her election in 2018. She has also served as a citizen member of the Toronto Region Conservation Authority and on the University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC) Campus Council, among other organizations.

Was re-elected handily in October

McKelvie was narrowly elected in 2018, defeating incumbent Neethan Shan by just 154 votes. But in October she got more than 72 per cent of the vote in Scarborough—Rouge Park, defeating her nearest challenger by nearly 11,000 votes. She was then named as Tory’s statuatory deputy mayor in November, replacing departing city councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong who held the job during Tory’s first two terms. At the time, Tory said that McKelvie shared his commitment to “getting more housing built as quickly as possible” and “making sure the nuts and bolts of municipal government work.”

Entrusted with the city’s Vision Zero strategy

As chair of the infrastructure and environment committee, McKelvie was positioned to oversee the city’s Vision Zero strategy and the $64 million that was spent on it in 2022. She has championed the continued expansion of the city’s automated speed enforcement program in that capacity, including the recent addition of 25 more cameras. She has also pushed for other, more subtle, improvements to the way roads are designed.

“There were some structural difference across the city but we are finally starting to make those investments,” she said of Vision Zero during an interview with CP24 in December. “In Scarborough, for example, we have six or seven lanes that pedestrians need to navigate and we often have long distances between signalized crossings but we are starting to put in more signalized crossings so you don’t need to jaywalk and there are more crossings that are available as well.”

Lobbied for the Scarborough subway extension

McKelvie repeatedly pushed for the construction of a three-stop subway extension to the Scarborough Town Centre prior to entering politics, even as that project faced criticism over escalating costs. In February 2018 she wrote an op-ed for the Toronto Star in which she argued that the line will be “a catalyst for investment” that will revitalize Scarborough’s commercial centre and “allow it to flourish and become the vibrant and dynamic place it was intended to be.” During the recent election campaign, McKelvie also said that she would fight for provincial and federal funding to build the Eglinton East LRT.