What are the top Toronto Mayoral candidates promising if elected?
Posted April 21, 2023 3:15 pm.
Last Updated June 15, 2023 2:34 pm.
The Toronto Mayoral Byelection is fast approaching on June 26 and candidates have launched into full campaign mode.
Here is a running list of the promises some notable candidates have announced so far.
This list will be updated as more announcements are made.
Ana Bailão
Former Toronto city councillor Ana Bailão announced she was running for mayor on March 17.
Housing
- Establish a specialized Anti-Displacement and Evictions Prevention Unit with 30 staff within Municipal Licensing & Standards.
- Temporarily freezing new proposals that would demolish rental apartment buildings while undertaking a comprehensive city-wide review to provide greater predictability.
- Commit to ensuring that 20 per cent of all new homes built by 2031 – a minimum of 57,000 homes – will be purpose-built rental homes.
- Invest to speed up construction readiness for non-profit and co-op organizations’ pre-development activities.
- Making additional surplus municipal properties available for non-profit and co-operative housing available to build new affordable homes.
- Hold City Hall accountable and instruct the City Manager to publish semi-annual public updates on progress delivering our housing commitments.
- Champion reforms to planning regulations, zoning and land use to get homes built with a focus on “missing middle” housing, and housing of medium scale and density that meets the needs of residents between condos and single-family homes.
- Lead a Mayor’s initiative on residential intensification to develop incentives and launch new policies to support the delivery of 285,000 new homes by 2031.
- Double the number of modular homes built in Toronto to create long-term pathways out of homelessness with a goal of 1,000 new homes by 2031.
- Invest $5 million dollars to take a housing-first approach to move vulnerable residents living outside into long-term pathways out of homelessness.
- Expand the Toronto Community Crisis Service, which provides trained mental health professionals as an alternate response to police for people in crisis, to cover 100% of the City.
- Direct $5 million to rental assistance for women and gender-diverse people escaping domestic violence to receive immediate safe and secure housing.
Food Insecurity
- Investing $2 million more into the Community Partnership and Investment Program (CPIP) for organizations that serve equity-deserving communities and create a dedicated funding stream for food security and sustainability programs that
increase access and availability of food in Toronto; - Providing access to vacant city spaces for food banks, allowing them to lower their overheads and direct more of their funding to the important work they do;
Working with community partners to transform more underutilized green spaces where housing can’t be built such as hydro corridors, into community gardens where fresh healthy food can be grown to support community needs; - Connecting national grocery chains with community food organizations and pushing them to donate food rather than discarding it; and
- Launching an annual Food Drive from the Office of the Mayor, working with Councillors and community partners to benefit food banks across Toronto.
Roads
- Make sure the Government of Ontario, not Toronto, takes back responsibility for the Gardiner Expressway and the Don Valley Parkway.
- Get tough on rush hour ticketing and towing by making the successful blitzes permanent and city-wide, and increasing enforcement with twenty tow trucks ready to tow lane blockers.
- Increase the fines for vehicles caught blocking lanes or parking illegally, penalties which haven’t been increased in a decade.
- Automate enforcement of tickets for drivers who “block the box.”
- Work with Toronto Parking Authority to fast-track the five-year Bike Share expansion and focus on key areas
Recreation
- Support relocating the Ontario Science Centre to Ontario Place. She says the move would free up the land the Science Centre currently occupies and make room for new housing. The former Science Centre space would make room for 5,000 new homes, including 1,500 affordable homes.
- accelerate improvements and construction for splash pads, sport fields and playgrounds across Toronto – with at least one in every ward in Toronto.
Transit
- Bailão says she will push city cell phone contracts with major Canadian telecom companies to offer reliable mobile service on the TTC if elected in June.
- She would immediately redeploy and hire TTC staff to have more eyes and ears at stations and on platforms across the city.
- Increase security camera coverage across the TTC.
- Reverse all transit cuts and increase cleaning schedules across transit stations.
- Support amending subsection 269.01 of the Criminal Code to include all transit workers, not just operators, who face unacceptable harassment at work.
- Immediately fund the preliminary work needed to transform the SRT into a dedicated bus route, while continuing efforts to secure funding from the province.
- Reduce fares on the 501 streetcar and the Scarborough SRT on-street bus replacement to $2 for single rides until the Queen Streetcar is rerouted to Adelaide from Dundas, and the Scarborough BRT construction is
complete. - Prohibit lane closures on Richmond, Adelaide, and Dundas between Bay and Victoria until Ontario Line construction completes.
Seniors
- Provide 70,000 seniors with preventative care where they live, using hundreds of community ambassadors from local organizations that were used to increase COVID-19 vaccine rates.
- Door-to-door health and wellness checks from health ambassadors – formerly Vaccine Ambassadors – who will also promote nearby mobile health clinics;
-
Mobile health clinics set up near seniors’ buildings in partnership between Toronto Public Health and Toronto Paramedic Services, which will provide health screens on-site including for blood sugar, blood
pressure, medication, post-op follow up, and mental health; -
Referrals to follow up health services if they are needed; and
- $10 million for food hampers for seniors who are most in need.
Brad Bradford
Toronto councillor Brad Bradford announced on March 29 that he will be running for mayor.
Housing
- Increase housing supply:
- Deliver the “missing middle” and make mid-rise possible
- Unlock government-owned lands
- Streamline approvals:
- Empower the Development and Growth Division
- Reduce delays, over-consultation and drawn-out appeals
- Simplify the rules, eliminate red tape and hold staff accountable
- Convert empty offices into homes:
- Provide as-of-right approvals for office conversions if the building isn’t getting bigger
- Ensure relief from guidelines and other rules that make it difficult to convert office floor plates into housing
- Eliminate the requirement to replace all office space foot-for-foot as long as new development includes 20% affordable housing.
Accountability at City Hall
- Publicly issue mandate letters to the heads of municipal divisions and departments. The mandate letters would set expectations for proper performance. By transparently introducing basic standards of performance, through clear direction and
regular evaluation, he intends to reorient Toronto’s municipal government to ensure that Torontonians’ needs are met.
Community Safety/Mental Health
- Establish dedicated Bail Compliance Units by working with the Toronto Police Service to keep tabs on alleged criminals who the courts have released into our community (68 new officers, with an average of four per Toronto’s 17 police divisions).
Taxes
- Vows to keep property taxes at or below the rate of inflation
Transit
- Call for the head of Metrolinx to be held to account and for a provincial guarantee the Eglinton Crosstown chaos and that it won’t repeat itself with the Ontario Line as a portion of Queen St. is set to close for construction.
- Install platform edge doors at subway stations;
- Boost security & safety patrols across the TTC
- Create There For You Toronto, a new agency to improve mental health resources for people in distress
- Finally, bring cell reception to subways across the network
Roads
- Appoint a Congestion Relief Commissioner with a mandate to end the traffic chaos and coordinate all construction and maintenance work across Toronto.
- Re-deploy 200 parking enforcement officers to unclog intersections and keep traffic moving.
- Accelerate the reconstruction of the Gardiner Expressway, shaving years off projected construction timelines and reducing gridlock in Toronto. To achieve this, allow construction on the Gardiner rebuild to be done 24 hours a day, seven days a
week.
Olivia Chow
Olivia Chow announced she was running for mayor on April 17 and said she wanted to build “an affordable, safe and caring city, where everyone belongs.”
Housing
- Create the Secure Affordable Homes Fund with a $100 million annual investment to stop renovictions by helping purchase, repair and transfer affordable rental apartment buildings to not-for-profit, community, and Indigenous housing providers.(i.e. land trusts.)
- Build 25,000 rent-controlled homes on city-owned land. There will be a minimum of 7,500 affordable units, including at least 2,500 rent-geared-to-income units.
- Double the reach of Toronto’s Rent Bank and nearly triple the reach of the Eviction Prevention in the Community program for those with complex needs.
- Invest in strengthening RentSafeTO to make sure tenants live with dignity and scale up the Tenant Support Program to help tenants organize to fight evictions and above guideline rent increases.
- Establish the Toronto Renters Action Committee that will work on anti-renoviction bylaws, advocating for real rent control, reviewing existing policies and programs related to renters, and holding the City accountable to renters.
- Raise the Municipal Land Transfer Tax on luxury homes, with new graduated rates on purchases of homes valued at over $3 million.
Libraries
- Expand library hours and ensure every Toronto Public Library (TPL) branch is open seven days a week.
Mental Health/Community Safety
- Expand the Toronto Community Crisis Service (TCCS) city-wide
- Establish an Emergency Response Transformation Team to improve 911 wait times.
Ontario Place
- Halt the plan to move the Science Centre. Instead of adding yet another amenity downtown, the Ford government should consult with the local community on how to improve the Science Centre in its current location, said Chow.
Transit
- Create a dedicated, off-street bus rapid transit line – or busway – along the Scarborough RT corridor. Stops will include Kennedy Avenue, Tara Avenue, Lawrence Avenue East, and Ellesmere Road.
- At Ellesmere Avenue, buses will transition to the already planned on-street bus lanes that connect to Scarborough Town Centre
- The total cost of the dedicated bus rapid transit route on the existing RT corridor is estimated at $60 million.
- Change the Gardiner East to an at-grade boulevard from Cherry Street to the DVP to save the city upwards of hundreds of millions of dollars and open up 5.4 acres of land to develop upwards of 8,000 units of housing.
- Get cell service for everyone on the TTC and restore workers in TTC stations to be the eyes and ears of the system.
Mitzie Hunter
Ontario Liberal MPP Mitzie Hunter confirmed she was running for mayor during a speech at a Toronto event on March 21.
Culture
- Exempt from all property tax increases all creative facilities and arts sector small businesses
- More live and work spaces for working artists
- Place public parks at the heart of renewing the creative city
- Dedicate 25 percent of the Municipal Accommodation Tax to arts and culture
- Appoint a new Culture Commissioner to spearhead and coordinate support for our world-recognized arts community as well as nurture and create spaces for young emerging artists.
Housing
- Plan to reducing homelessness by opening 24/7 warming and cooling centres for people experiencing homelessness year-round and add 400 new shelter beds to address a system permanently over-capacity, doubling the capacity of street outreach
programs. - Increasing housing stability by creatin 2,000 new supportive homes with permanent funding for supportive services for residents;
- Increasing eviction prevention services by expanding the Eviction Prevention in the Community (EPIC) Program and raising mental wellness by doubling support for street outreach services.
- Establish five new Housing Outreach Program Collaboration (HOP-C) teams to support the mental wellness needs of young people, including those who are marginalized, Indigenous and racialized. This will mean increasing assistance from peer
support workers as well as clinical support from psychologists and social workers to address the physical, mental health, and safety needs of young people experiencing homelessness. The focus will be on utilizing family reunification efforts
whenever possible when it is safe to do so. The total investment per team is $250,000. - Invest in community partners by increasing support for the City of Toronto’s Community Service Partnerships (CSP) program, specific to mental health, youth homelessness and violence prevention organizations, which provides funding to non-profit
and charitable organizations, to a maximum grant amount of $100,000 per year, an increase from $75,000 per year. Our community partners are the first line of support and we must commit to investing in their sustainability. - Unlock public lands for more new affordable housing
- End the multiplex ban
- Add rental apartments on major streets and near campuses
- Speed up building approvals and construction
- Protect renters and save current affordable housing.
Intergovernmental Affairs
- Work with the provincial government to achieve the following things:
- Ending double transit fares
- Leading a coalition of mayors seeking one poing of the HST
- Securing funding for refugee-related costs
- Building more transit
- Recouping health expenses
- Securing equitable federal support for new affordable housing.
Roads
- Clear our streets of snow faster by increasing the budget for snow clearance by more than 10 per cent and investing in more modern snow clearing equipment.
- Fill potholes faster by doubling the budget for pothole maintenance and investing in modern equipment to repair roads.
- Make roads safer by fixing the most dangerous intersections and roads where the most accidents happen by boosting the Vision Zero Road Safety Plan.
- Reduce road congestion by taking aim at bottlenecks and improving traffic flow.
Transit
- Eliminating all TTC fares for seniors and all users of Wheel-Trans to help our most vulnerable and those living on fixed incomes with the rising cost of living and boost ridership, starting this September ($57 million estimate in 2024)
- Reversing the TTC fare hikes that took effect in April 2023 to save transit riders more than $20 million a year
- Reversing the almost $53 million in TTC service cuts that reduced service frequency by about 10 per cent and increasing Wheel-Trans service to accommodate increased demand
- Fully-funding TTC’s operational costs, while advocating for greater support from the Provincial and Federal governments
- Negotiating with the Province to reach a fair deal for Toronto to eliminate the dual fares paid by transit users when they switch between the TTC, GO and transit systems in neighbouring cities.
- The above plan is expected to cost $144 million when fully implemented by 2025.
- Build the Eglinton East LRT extension to the University of Toronto Scarborough and Malvern, with the City’s one-third share coming from the existing Scarborough Subway levy funds given that those funds are no longer needed because the subway is
now fully funded by the Province. - Commit to building the Waterfront East LRT to extend streetcar service along the waterfront and transfer the City’s share of funding to a new and dedicated fund.
- Champion and advance the planning for the North York Scarborough Subway extension along Sheppard, connecting Line 4 to the new Scarborough Subway Extension in the east and to Sheppard West on Line 1.
- Advocate for the additional Cummer Station to serve the Newtonbrook area of North York as part of the Yonge North Subway Extension.
- Be a fierce advocate with Metrolinx to ensure as we grow our City and build new transit that it is done in a way that is more transparent, minimizes and coherently coordinates road disruptions, and provides real benefits to communities impacted like improvements to public spaces, trees and relief for small businesses.
- Social workers paired with transit officers: De-emphasize sole focus on enforcement by transit officers and emphasize public safety.
- Launch a community ambassadors program in addition to law enforcement on subway trains.
- Transition to installing glass sliding doors on all subway platforms for enhanced safety. This both prevents people from being pushed onto tracks and is also a suicide prevention measure.
- Listening to riders, public information, and data collection.
- Listening to TTC staff and employees and their representatives.
Climate
- Residential Flood Protection Program: Protecting homeowners and thousands of Torontonians living in basement apartments.
- Extreme Heat Protection Program: Enhancing protections for the vulnerable, including seniors, lower-income people and those with at-risk health conditions.
- Create the position of Chief Resiliency Officer: Appoint an official who understands the risks of severe weather such as flooding, extreme heat, ice loading, and extreme wind and advises on mitigation strategies.
Libraries
- Open 16 new Youth Hubs that offer welcoming drop-in places for teens after school and in the summer, to bring the total citywide to 40.
- All libraries will be open on Sunday for six hours including ones currently closed
- Use existing municipal assets to create a ConnectTO, which will be a municipal broadband network that encourages competition to lower prices for all and provides low-cost internet services to high-priority communities.
- Distribute 1,000 free Internet Connectivity Kits of laptop and hotspot each year.
- Double the Seniors Digital Literacy Program to improve seniors’ digital literacy and enhance connectedness.
Mental Health
- Hire a Chief Mental Health Officer (CMHO)
- Re-launch Toronto’s Mental Health Support Strategy (MHSS)
- Create a long-term, comprehensive Mental Health and Addiction Strategy
- Increase the Community Service Partnerships (CSP) program fund
- Creating a technology fund to modernize the integration of city and provincial mental health and addiction services.
Ontario Place
- Hunter says any redevelopment of the space needs to be driven by public input. She added while the current proposal is “ambitious,” it needs significant adjustments.
- Does not agree with moving the Ontario Science Centre to Ontario Place.
Restaurants
- Cancel application and permit fees for outdoor patios and sidewalk cafes and amounts already paid will be refunded.
Josh Matlow
Josh Matlow, currently a councillor for Ward 12 Toronto-St. Paul’s and a vocal critic of former mayor John Tory, confirmed he will run in the June by-election on March 21.
Housing
- Establish ‘Public Build Toronto’ with $300 million in seed money to build affordable homes at cost;
- Establish rent control in all units that receive any city funding, enforce the Residential Tenancies Act at the city level;
- Introduce colour-coded RentSafe signs, similar to the City’s DineSafe program, to provide landlords with an incentive to make necessary repairs.
- Review density and height limits on major arterial roads where it makes sense to accommodate more people.
- Fast track development applications that provide meaningful community benefits, such as affordable housing.
- Invest $56.1 million in supporting unhoused Torontonians, including improving the shelter network and open a year-round respite service instead of opening warming centres during extreme cold weather.
- Double the land transfer tax on the purchase of a second residential property for foreign and domestic buyers, with exemptions such as joint tenancy with your children
Climate
- Invest $200 million annually in new money to accelerate Toronto’s progress towards reaching net zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2040, as outlined in the 2021 TransformTO Net Zero Strategy. It will be used to:
- Build smarter by mandating all new large residential and commercial construction runs off electric energy by 2028. Buildings are responsible for 58% of Toronto’s emissions – the largest source of emissions in Toronto.
- Retrofit existing buildings in Toronto, including switching buildings from fossil fuels to electric energy, which has the ability to run on renewable energy. This includes expanding the Tower Renewal program to encourage physical retrofits.
- Move forward with a TTC ridership growth strategy that includes improved service and lower fares; build more pedestrian-friendly communities; and connect Toronto’s bike lanes to make a true city-wide network.
- Electrify the City’s vehicle fleet, including TTC buses; require all taxis and ridesharing vehicles be electric by 2030; mandate electric charging stations in all new housing developments and install them on public land, including schools
and libraries.
Community Safety
- Will fund a $115 million Community Health & Safety Fund to address the root causes of violent crime. The Community Health & Safety Fund will be financed by stabilizing the annual police budget of $1.16 billion for three years.
- Will fund an open neighbourhood schools’ program so that they will operate as community centres on evenings and weekends. The community hubs will connect local residents and provide recreation programs and continuing education courses for
Toronto residents of all ages. - Increase access to the Toronto Public Library and its vital services by opening all 100 branches on Sundays. Funding will come from the Community Health & Safety Fund.
- Will fund an open neighbourhood schools’ program so that they will operate as community centres on evenings and weekends. The community hubs will connect local residents and provide recreation programs and continuing education courses for
Greenbelt
- Bring together local mayors and Indigenous leaders to form a Greenbelt Leaders council. The council will work with the federal government to safeguard farmland, forests and water sources and protect the vital Greenbelt from development.
Ontario Place
- Put a halt on the Ford government’s plan for a private spa by “withholding the 16 acres of city-owned property” that the province needs to go ahead with its proposal. If elected, he would instead support plans for a revitalized park.
- Urge the government to reconsider moving the Ontario Science Centre to Ontario Place and meet with parent groups and community leaders in Thorncliffe, Flemingdon Park and the wider Don Mills area.
Property Tax
- A dedicated property tax that will cost the average homeowner $67 a year and raise over $390 million dollars over five years to improve the services our communities rely on.
Roads
- Increase total investment in Toronto’s fact-based Vision Zero Road Safety Plan by 150 per cent, including a doubling of the capital spending on road improvements within the first two years.
- Replacethe current request-based system for Vision Zero improvements with an automatic process when there are major civil works occurring.
- Shift the budget focus from operating investments in behavioural modification measures like signage, distracted driving and red-light cameras to capital investments in infrastructure and street improvements that make it safer to walk, bike and
drive. - Create a Safety on the Scene rapid-response team, the SOS Team, responsible for collecting on-site collision data and coordinating interdepartmental communication in the wake of a traffic fatality, so that unsafe locations can be identified and
targeted for improvements.
Transit
- Restore TTC service to full pre-pandemic levels by the end of this mayoral term
- Invest $50 million from his recently announced City Works Fund to fully reverse the cuts made earlier this year. In subsequent years, a combination of funding from the City Works Fund and new climate action levy will secure the remaining amount
of the up to $183 million needed annually to restore full service. - Create a new Eglinton East LRT with 23 stops from Kennedy Station (Lines 2,5) to Malvern Town Centre, including University of Toronto Scarborough.
- Create a new Sheppard East LRT with 9 stops from McCowan subway station (Lines 2,4) to Neilson Road and connect it with the new Eglinton East LRT and the provincial subway extension.
- Create a new Scarborough Rapid Busway to run quick and efficient buses on dedicated, congestion-free bus lanes along the separated corridor used by the RT from Kennedy (Lines 2,5) to Ellesmere Road, connecting to Scarborough Town Centre.
- Restore the frequency and reliability of TTC bus routes in Scarborough by reversing recent transit cuts as announced in Matlow’s transit plan. Ten of the 13 most drastic wait-time increases are on Scarborough bus routes.
Mark Saunders
Former Toronto police chief Mark Saunders confirmed his candidacy on March 1, 2023.
Housing
- Cut the time for approving applications to one year, while still ensuring resident voices are heard and respected.
- Make builders and the City accountable to one another by introducing a system of performance measures to ensure that progress is tracked and measured. Accountability must be a two-way street.
- Designate one City staff member to navigate an application through the City’s process and give staff authority to ensure that the applications are processed by all departments in a timely manner.
- Remove silos between departments at City Hall, ensuring that they all operate to the same standards and timelines.
- Digitize processes that are currently paper-based.
- Work with local unions as well as the federal and provincial governments to encourage more people to join the skilled trades.
- Call on the federal government to ensure our immigration system is supporting the skilled labour needed now, especially in Toronto’s skilled trades system.
- Permit 1-2 more floors per rental or condo building – or up to 20 additional units – where appropriate.
- Change the current requirements for the Housing Now program, which make it very difficult for builders to get financing to build affordable housing.
- Take the property tax off affordable housing units in future developments to help spur the rapid development of more homes. This will have no impact on city finances.
- Press the federal government to waive the HST on all new large-scale purpose-built rental housing projects.
- Explore the possibility of tax and other incentives for purpose-built affordable rentals.
- Review Toronto’s development charge framework to ensure that monies collected are being directed toward their intended purpose. If they are not, look at reallocating some funds to community improvements in underserved areas.
Bike Lanes
- Remove the bike lanes on University Avenue.
- Reverse the decision to make the Yonge Street bike lanes permanent pending a review of the data and consultation process.
- Deprioritize the Bloor Street West bike lane expansion.
- Immediately suspend all bike lane expansions pending a renewed approach to accountability and community consultation for both residents, local businesses and business improvement areas.
- Establish an accessibility and disability rights group to ensure people with disabilities can get around their own city.
- Explore the impact of bike lanes on snow clearing around residential and business areas.
Community Safety
- Immediately meet with the Prime Minister to call for urgent reform to the bail system and Criminal Code to prevent ‘catch-and-release’ release policies, push for an end to a reverse onus at bail hearings for violent and repeat offenders,
including those with firearm charges; - Ensure that bail hearings for the most serious firearm offences are heard by a judge of the Superior Court;
Transit
- Increase the number of Special Constables to at least 200 to start, enhance mental health training for TTC Special Constables, provide body-worn cameras, and new ‘assist buttons’ on subways, buses, and streetcars to identify emerging incidents.
Culture/Restaurants
- Agrees with moving the Ontario Science Centre to Ontario Place.
- Waive this year’s application and permit fees for the CafeTO program.
- Reduce red tape by simplifying the application process for CafeTO and look at ongoing ways to advance the program’s transition from a temporary pandemic initiative to a sustainable and permanent one that transforms city streets without impacting the operations of other nearby businesses along with traffic flow.
- Promote Toronto’s restaurants and neighbourhoods by working collaboratively with the restaurant sector as well as local Business Improvement Areas
Roads
- Limit the number of road closures in the city at any one time.
- Stop the weekend “clean-up” closures of the Gardiner and Don Valley Parkway and requiring work repairing and cleaning be done during the night.
Safe Injection Sites
- Immediately turn the City’s focus on street cleanliness and moveability in residential areas around supervised injection sites and redirect any underutilized cleaning resources to these areas in a surge capacity;
- Adopt a zero-tolerance policy toward needle disposal outside of supervised injection sites, including by strengthening standards and expectations of cleanliness within funding and operating agreements with facilities;
- Introduce a colour-coded syringe system to enable the tracking of the needle’s source, to enable decision-making that focuses on areas and sources of discarded needles.
- Create a highly visible option within the 311 apps to report used needles, and dispatch relevant disposal teams on an urgent and priority basis when reports of discarded needles arise.
