The three leading candidates to be the mayor of Toronto clashed over property taxes, the affordability crisis, city finances and more Tuesday night in a hotly contested debate.
Incumbent Olivia Chow, Coun. Brad Bradford and former federal cabinet minister Chris Alexander squared off for an hour in front of a lively crowd at the Isabel Bader Theatre downtown in the second debate among the three.
The event was hosted by the Toronto Star and the Toronto Region Board of Trade.
“We’ve benefited from decades of fast-growing population, and our economy has flatlined,” said Giles Gherson, president and CEO of the board, in his opening remarks.
“We’re losing ground, and we can’t afford to. To top it off, we are now thrust into a spiralling trade war. Perhaps no region in Canada is more exposed to a tariff storm than Toronto.”
Moderator Nicole MacIntyre, the Star’s editor-in-chief, agreed, noting: “This city is at an inflection point. Who we choose (as Toronto’s next mayor in the Oct. 26 election) is going to take us to what’s next, and there’s a lot at stake.”
MacIntyre posed questions — and opened the floor for the candidates to debate each other, at times speaking over each other — about how each candidate would, among other things, manage the city’s economic development, address data centres and get housing built at a time where most renters say they think they’ll never be able to afford a home.
There was even a surprise campaign announcement.
There was also a question for the kids, on trees — the only time everybody in the room appeared to be laughing with each other rather than at each other.
There are more debates to come, including another co-hosted by the Star, and there are a total of 53 mayoral candidates.
Here are some major takeaways from Tuesday’s debate:
Bradford announces partial tax pledge
While debating the city budget, Bradford revealed — for the first time — what his tax rate would look like, at least for the first year.
“I am going to freeze your property taxes for the first year,” Bradford said, when asked what he would cut “to make the math work” on some of his costly policy promises so far. “Then I’m going to go through diligently, thoroughly, and do that line-by-line review that I’ve been calling for for years, but the mayor has been voting against.”
Bradford announced earlier this week he would order an independent review of every city division, agency and program — the first since 2011.
In 2011, under mayor Rob Ford’s direction, outside experts found the city’s spending was already lean and the next year recommended major cuts to services including libraries, child care, housing, snow removal and the zoo. The next year, Ford tried to make significant cuts but council opponents added money back to the budget.
In a press release earlier this week, Chow contended Bradford’s pitch means the same as Ford’s — “cuts to city services people rely on.”
Bradford has, so far, pledged to hire 1,000 more police officers. He has also committed to installing platform edge doors, which cost an average $55 million per station, at “priority” stations. He’s pitched a TTC refund policy for lengthy delays, which last year city staff pegged at upwards of $50 million in annual operating costs and as much as $30 million in capital.
Chow rebounds among downtown crowd
Polling has consistently shown that Bradford’s support is based in Etobicoke and Chow’s is in downtown. At Tuesday night’s downtown debate, similar to the debate at Daily Bread’s Etobicoke headquarters, that appeared to be borne out.
At the debate last week, Chow was booed by an audience that, at times, yelled at her to answer the question directly or heckled Chow over her side-stepping why she did not attend the antisemitism debate-turned-forum.
On Tuesday, Chow was met with frequent, loud cheering, whistling and clapping from what seemed like almost half of the sold-out crowd — whether it was pointing at her record or taking jabs at Bradford, her closest challenger.
“Because I’ve eliminated most of the development charges, that our friend Councillor Bradford had levied while he was on council, it’s now saving a couple $35,000 if they buy a new home,” Chow said.
“I think in the middle of an affordability crisis, we have to make it cheaper for people to ride,” she said at another point, before pointing to her promise of a weekly TTC fare cap.
Data centres
Candidates were asked yes-or-no questions about data centres at last week’s debate, but weren’t given the chance to expand.
Local governments are under increasing pressure to limit the development of AI data centres amid public pressure, and several U.S. cities and states have passed moratoriums on building them. Opponents object to data centres’ large demand for power and water, as well as their greenhouse gas emissions, noise and limited job creation.
The federal government, however, has prioritized the creation of local data centres in an effort to shore up ”digital sovereignty,” arguing that failing to do so leaves elements of this world-shaping technology under foreign control.
Both Alexander and Bradford said they’re open to the idea, but regulations are needed.
“I think it’s infrastructure that’s important for the city’s future,” Alexander said. But, “there does need to be neighbourhood consultation and buy-in … It’s part of the response to tariffs and a changing geopolitical landscape. We need be able to keep and process our data here.”
“It would be irresponsible to blindly oppose infrastructure projects that create jobs, support the internet and email, things that we use and rely on every day,” Bradford said. “And there’s an opportunity for Toronto to gain a competitive advantage.”
Chow did not have a chance to speak. At last week’s debate, she was between “yes” and “no” on whether she would allow them, saying the city is still studying the facility’s environmental impacts, electricity and water use and costs of upgrades, the tax revenue as well as jobs it would create and noise levels.
Building housing
Housing was one of the issues the candidates sparred over the most.
Alexander, who was met with more applause this debate, pointed to declining housing starts in Toronto for three straight years.
“We need to build tens of thousands of co-op affordable housing units,” he said. “I will go to Ottawa. I will strike a deal with the federal government and we will start this for real.”
Bradford said the city, in Chow’s first year in office, promised to approve 65,000 rent-controlled homes but has so far only built a fraction of that. According to the city, more than half that goal is approved but only over 4,200 homes have been built and about 14,300 housing units are under construction.
Chow defended her record, pointing to cutting development charges, the thousands of homes under construction, speeding up approvals, and the $2.7 billion from Prime Minister Mark Carney to build rental homes.
The trees, for the kids
In a first-of-its-kind vote, the city is inviting children to choose the “tree of the year” for an initiative called Kids Vote Weekend that municipal officials hope will plant the roots for future electoral participation.
The candidates were asked what is the “ultimate Toronto tree.”
Bradford said his favourite is the London plane, from his time in undergrad doing tree maintenance work for the city of Cambridge.
Alexander, who said he was a tree planter once upon a time, said the maple tree — “how could you possibly have anything but?”
Chow, whose late husband was NDP leader Jack Layton, said she likes the Jack pine for its name but the oak tree is a close second.
