The race for city councillor in Ward 20–Scarborough Southwest is a rematch between Kandavel and Kevin Rupasinghe, an engineer and community advocate who lost to him by less than five percentage points in a 2023 by-election. While Kandavel has an advantage as the incumbent in a city that rarely unseats its councillors, Rupasinghe has the endorsements of the Toronto and York Region Labour Council and Progress Toronto, two organizations that have previously helped progressive candidates get elected to city hall.

This time around, Kandavel is also running a campaign amid an OPP investigation into allegations against him, led by the force’s anti-rackets branch. The provincial police have not made any details of the investigation public. And unless anyone brings it up, Kandavel is not about to.

“My lawyers asked me not to make any comments in regard to it,” he told The Local.

In this corner of Toronto, though, the OPP probe seems to take a backseat to a wide range of problems that residents face day-to-day, from food insecurity and deplorable rental conditions to inadequate public transit service, parking woes, and speeding drivers. For those here who say they plan to vote in the Oct. 26 municipal election, arguably one of the biggest issues on the ballot is the planning and development of their area of Scarborough. Many say they’re looking to elect the candidate who best shares their views on how this suburban ward should grow, who gets to build here, and for whom.

That fall, Kandavel and Hermann, his campaign co-manager at the time, told The Local their campaign office had been broken into, and that they’d reported it to the police. Hermann said the break-in appeared to be an act of sabotage by an unknown rival; valuables like printers and computers were left untouched, but the thief or thieves annoyingly took off with inexpensive yet necessary items like printer cables and tools to put up Kandavel’s campaign signs. Anonymous smear campaign flyers were delivered to residents’ mailboxes, with attacks directed at multiple candidates, Kandavel and Rupasinghe included. Meanwhile, at The Local we received anonymous tips, alleging various sordid schemes by other candidates that included claims of misspent charity funds and voter fraud. In the aftermath, we investigated, trying to verify these tips, but in the end, came up with only more questions than answers.

All of that is to say, when it comes to politics, things here can get a little wild. As Hermann put it, “Scarborough Southwest is not a sleepy little bedroom neighbourhood.”

Kandavel and Hermann said they never found out who was behind the break-in. And with almost an entirely new list of candidates running in the ward this year (seven candidates in total), both they and Rupasinghe said this race has, so far, been much tamer. For his part, Rupasinghe has largely refrained from bringing up the OPP investigation of Kandavel while campaigning. “I don’t know if we need to,” he said. “I think for the most part, we’d really like to stay focused on a positive vision.”

On May 10, with more than five months until the municipal election, Kandavel announced over Instagram and Facebook that he was “surprised to learn of an OPP investigation into allegations against” him, but gave no information as to what the probe or the allegations were about.

“I’ve strived to maintain the highest standards of ethics and integrity and will address any allegations that suggest otherwise,” he wrote. “I’m still learning more about the investigation and the nature of the allegations, and will share more as I can.”

In his subsequent social media posts and in weekly newsletter emails, he hasn’t shared anything more about it.

The investigation is ongoing, OPP spokesperson Tracey Mellersh said by email in September, and confirmed it was being led by the force’s anti-rackets branch, which investigates potential financial crimes, including fraud and corruption. But Mellersh said they were unable to provide further comment or details at this time.

The Toronto Star reported that the investigation appeared to focus on Kandavel’s dealings with developers, and that sources had told them Kandavel had been accused of soliciting bribes.

When I sat down with Kandavel for an interview at his campaign office on Kingston Road, he reiterated what little he’s previously said about it. “There has been no wrongdoing,” he said.

Kandavel told me the investigation did not affect his duties as councillor. He has recused himself on certain development matters, a move that he said was to ensure there were no conflicts of interest—or perceptions of conflict of interest. In those instances, he said his colleagues on the Scarborough Community Council had asked questions and raised concerns that reflected his own.

During his nearly three years at city hall, Kandavel has often sided with Mayor Olivia Chow. An analysis of all council votes by The Local shows he voted most similarly to Neethan Shan, Chow, and Josh Matlow. But he’s also resisted what he characterizes as downtown interests. At a Sept. 28 candidates forum at the West Scarborough Neighbourhood Community Centre, he boasted of opposing the expansion of Danforth Avenue bike lanes into Scarborough and fighting against a priority red bus lane on Kingston Road. His focus, he said, has been to balance “the realities of urban growth and suburban practicality.” For better or worse, he told the forum, Scarborough was built around the car, and so it’s important to protect the ability for families to get around by car, since it’s “impractical” for them to take their kids to soccer practice or get groceries by bike or bus—a statement Rupasinghe called “ridiculous.”

While in office, Kandavel has also opposed certain planning changes to increase densification and address “missing middle” housing, including sixplexes and new corner stores in residential areas in his ward. As a result of not allowing sixplexes as-of-right citywide, the City received $10 million less than expected from the federal government through its Housing Accelerator Fund, intended to cut red tape and speed up home-building.

If given another term as councillor, Kandavel told me that his main priorities would be road safety, and parks and recreation in the ward. The City’s overall direction is toward increasing housing density, he said, “But we can’t do that if we don’t have adequate green spaces, right?”

When it comes to increasing density, he said Scarborough residents are frustrated that this densification isn’t being spread out more evenly across the city. Rather, he said, there are “canyons of condos” being approved in the Golden Mile, near the Eglinton LRT line in Scarborough, but around the subway stations in areas of Old Toronto, like in Beaches-East York or Toronto-Danforth, “there’s been incredible protectionism and NIMBYism.” Kandavel said the disparity in where high-density housing is approved results in “well-protected” neighbourhoods where the upper-middle class live, and a concentration of “shoebox condos to house service workers.” In his view, the idea is to keep the latter in Scarborough, and have them travel downtown to serve those who are more privileged.

Kandavel said the result would lead to a vision of Toronto that he didn’t want to see, one of segregated neighbourhoods.

“You go to the Beach, it’s lily white,” he said, asking, is that the Toronto we want? “No, I think we need to think about that intentionally.”

Developers tend to focus on their individual sites, he told me, but the councillor’s job is to take stock of the bigger picture and identify and represent the community’s needs—“and try to make sure that we’re getting to the best outcome possible. Because otherwise, the change is going to happen anyway.”

When there’s development in a community, there is an opportunity to make things better, he said, pointing out that there are areas currently in need of more childcare facilities, community centres, libraries, and green space.

Rupasinghe had no shortage of ideas for his ward, from ensuring the throngs of riders catching buses at Kennedy station have wide, accessible walkways and shelter from the elements while the area is currently under construction, to introducing a bylaw to rein in above-guideline rent increases. (Rupasinghe said he lives in the ward and is a renter himself.)

He seemed undaunted when I shared what I had heard at the residents association event in Cliffcrest, about how much the homeowners there appeared to cherish the existing qualities of suburbia. When it comes to efforts like introducing gentle densification to their streets, people’s concerns come from a legitimate place, he said, but most of those concerns can be mitigated. “Part of it is about meeting people where they’re at, listening to their concerns, working with them one by one by one to address these concerns,” he said, adding that the alternative is unmanageable density with towers in limited locations that don’t have the infrastructure to support them. But working through their concerns takes leadership, he said.

And thus far, he said, leadership in his ward has been lacking. When I followed him as he and his volunteers canvassed a segment of the Birchcliffe-Cliffside neighbourhood near Highview Park, he made his case door-to-door for the need for stronger leadership. Several residents that afternoon appeared to agree, particularly those who expressed concerns about plans for an expansion of the STACK data centre nearby.

Kandavel had introduced a motion earlier this summer, asking for the City to do its due diligence on data centres, including considering their energy use and noise. While that motion passed, putting a pause on the STACK expansion, Kandavel said he did not have the votes from council to pass a bylaw for a moratorium that would have stopped it.

To Rupasinghe, however, the data centre expansion is an example of the type of thing people wish their councillor had taken action on earlier. The expansion had been in the works for three years, he said, only to result in what he called a “fairly performative motion at council.”

He’s confident, he said “that we would have gotten to a better outcome if we had actually had proactive leadership and someone who’s transparent and moving ahead of things instead of reacting to community members’ concerns a few weeks before an election.”

Additional data collection and analysis by Neville Park.