The press invitation from Olivia Chow’s team Wednesday night promised their candidate would make a “signature campaign announcement” the following morning.
It was the first indication all election long that the incumbent might be set to present voters with something new. For months, Chow had mostly stuck to reiterating policies she’d drafted while in office.
Meanwhile, her biggest rival, Brad Bradford, has made a series of fresh promises. While some experts questioned the feasibility and necessity of a few of them, people familiar with Bradford’s campaign told the Star they believe his pitches are resonating with the electorate, given how Chow’s advantage has been shrinking in the polls. At a debate earlier this week, Bradford accused Chow of being “out of ideas and out of gas.”
On Thursday morning, when Chow took to a podium to make that “signature campaign announcement,” it was another recitation of an idea already put forward while she was in office: build 10,000 rental homes next year and 65,000 by 2030. The city already committed to the former target in June and the latter in 2023.
This is not the Chow of 2023, whom municipal politics expert Myer Siemiatycki said ran a “vision-driven” byelection campaign, coming up with novel solutions to the city’s problems and boldly calling for tax increases.
This, he said, is a classic incumbent vs. challenger situation. It is, after all, harder to critique the establishment when you’re in charge. As the incumbent, Chow’s record has become the target and her campaign has, understandably, prioritized protecting it and emphasizing her accomplishments, he said, rather than taking a chance promoting a new policy an opponent could poke holes in.
Early, positive opinion polling results may well have convinced Chow not to deviate from the way the incumbent role is typically played.
“From the launch of her campaign, she was polling significantly ahead,” said Siemiatycki who is a professor emeritus at the Toronto Metropolitan University. “It would have been a natural response to think the public seems to like and value and appreciate your performance as mayor, let’s keep reminding them of it. But those polling numbers have shifted somewhat. I’m not sure the deliverables of her three years in office have been as creatively or forcefully presented as they could have been by her campaign.”
What has Chow and Bradford been promising?
Last month, Chow promised to reduce the TTC fare cap from 47 rides a month to 10 a week. But she had already asked the TTC in December to plan to reduce the cap to 40 rides a month in 2027. (Forty rides per month is technically more generous, since it works out to 9.23 rides per week to hit the cap over the course of the year. But a weekly cap kicks in faster.)
This week, Chow said she would create a universal school lunch program by the end of her term, if re-elected. Regardless of the merits of the idea, council already approved her motion in 2024 to have staff create “a clear strategic path to achieving a universal lunch program no later than 2030.”
The Bradford campaign has no shortage of flashy pitches, even if some experts worry about how he might pay for them — especially since he’s promised a property tax increase below the rate of inflation next year. He wants to turn Toronto Water into an incorporated public utility, like Toronto Hydro. He also wants to eliminate the municipal land transfer tax on the first $1.1 million of a home purchase.
Still, not all his ideas are original. His promise to rip up some Etobicoke bike lanes was already on Premier Doug Ford’s to-do list. His announcement that he would support involuntary addiction treatment was made right after members of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario agreed at a conference near Ottawa to petition the province to allow it. His plan to build a police “substation” in Union Station is something police are already working on. And his pledge to have a third party review the city’s finances — which is how he says he’ll pay for some of his big-ticket items — is something Rob Ford already tried as mayor, without generating any significant savings for taxpayers.
And Bradford has brought up items he championed before at council, too: promising to build platform-edge doors at subway stations and get commuters refunds when the TTC is delayed.
With all this, Bradford is running a traditional challenger playbook, Siemiatycki said.
But there are risks to being a critic as well.
‘We’re left to rely on personal assurances’
Bradford is making an argument for decreases in taxation and levies, lowering the amount of money residents send to city hall, he said. “At the same time, he says he wants to expand services. He’s now being challenged to explain how the math works, how he can collect less yet spend more. We’re left to rely on personal assurances that he can find huge amounts of savings.”
Other ideas of Bradford’s are direct counters to proposals he supported as a city councillor. He wants to rename Sankofa Square despite voting to approve its current name. He voted in favour of the very bike lanes he now wants out. He would remove the priority bus lanes in Scarborough he advocated for in 2020. And he wants to hire 1,000 new police officers — a pledge Toronto’s police chief and union head don’t seem to think is necessary — despite voting to reduce the police budget by 10 per cent in 2020.
Bradford has said his willingness to re-evaluate his convictions makes him a good leader. Chow has argued it makes him untrustworthy and shows an eagerness to say whatever he needs to gain power.
Team Chow says she should be judged by her record
Spokesperson Zeus Eden said Chow has had a lengthy, successful career serving the public. Voters could look to her history of delivering on “ambitious promises” — including negotiating generous funding packages from higher levels of government and launching her school nutrition program — to determine whether she can be trusted with another term, he said.
“Chow knows what it means to manage a budget, secure federal and provincial partnerships and do the hard work to build affordable housing, invest in public transit and improve public safety,” he said in a statement to the Star. “You should judge candidates by their track record.”
Eden said Bradford’s promises are regressive and could be so costly they would necessitate cuts to key city services. Bradford has denied this.
Now is the time for Chow to make a ‘big swing,’ strategist says
Amanda Galbraith, a former John Tory spokesperson and campaign veteran who is not working on either the Chow or Bradford campaign, said the incumbent is running a “classic front-runner campaign” — playing it safe and not promising a lot beyond more of the same.
When you’re solidly ahead, Galbraith said, there’s less risk of giving your rival ammunition if you avoid courting controversy.
That’s the usual strategy for a mayor seeking re-election in a city like Toronto where incumbent mayors haven’t been in a fight as close as this, she said. The latest polls show Chow’s once considerable advantage over Bradford may no longer exist. The difference between them is now within the margin of error.
“If she has a big swing that will get people excited about re-electing her, now is the time to make it,” said Galbraith. “Often in politics when the tide has turned against you, you don’t know until it’s too late.”
