Brad Bradford, a city councillor who hopes to become mayor in October, says he’s running to make Toronto “a city we can be proud of.” He announced his intention to run a year ahead of the 2026 municipal election.

“City hall has asked you to lower your expectations. We’re all paying more and getting less,” he said in an early campaign video.

Bradford’s platform, which focuses on crime, congestion, and cost of living, includes promises to hire 1,000 new police officers and enforce mandatory treatment for people experiencing addiction. He wants to install police sub-stations at Sankofa Square and Union station. He says he’ll make parks safe for families and pets, get TTC buses running on time, and approve building permits for homes and businesses within days. He has proposed giving TTC riders a “money-back guarantee,” meaning their fares would be refunded when vehicles are more than 15 minutes late. He has proposed a one-year property tax freeze for businesses and homes while the City undergoes an independent financial audit.

He is critical of Mayor Olivia Chow’s response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canadian goods, saying that she comes across as naive to the threat he poses.

“There is no mystery left to solve. President Trump has told us, repeatedly and in his own words, what he wants: a Canada reduced at best to a compliant American vassal, if not the 51st state outright. The only question that remains is whether we fight back with everything we have, as a city, as a province, and as a country.”

In response to Trump’s push to rename Lake Ontario “Lake America,” Bradford said New York State should be renamed the “Province of New York.”

Bradford previously ran for mayor in 2023, the election that brought Chow to power, and came in eighth place with 1.28 percent of the vote.

Bradford’s votes as councillor at odds with promises

In some cases, Bradford’s current stances do not reflect his previous voting record. In 2023, he voted in favour of creating 5.7 kilometres worth of bike lanes along Bloor Street West. In August, however, Bradford said he would remove those bike lanes if he is elected mayor.

“These bike lanes in particular are not working,” said Bradford, adding that his previous support for the lanes was “wrong.”

In June, he said he was against the renaming of Dundas Square to Sankofa Square, even though he voted for the name change in 2023. He now promises to rename the square once more if elected, this time to Toronto Square.

His promise to hire more police officers has also been criticized as being at odds with his past votes at city hall. In 2020, Bradford was one of eight councillors who voted in favour of cutting the police budget by 10 percent; he later that year voted largely in support of a series of policing reform motions, including one that led to the establishment of the Toronto Community Crisis Service.

During his 2023 mayoral campaign, though, Bradford denied that supporting the police was contradicted by the budget vote. “I’ve always stood with the men and women who keep us safe,” he said. “I’ve also voted for new approaches to long-standing problems because the status quo isn’t working. The ‘defund the police’ vote was and is about making real reforms to how we build community and keep people safe.”

How Bradford compares to Chow

Bradford is a harsh critic of both Chow and Chris Alexander, a former Conservative MP who is also running for mayor, whom he called “unfit” for the job.

During Chow’s term as mayor, Bradford has been Chow’s most vocal opponent. He’s one of only three councillors who voted with the mayor less than 60 percent of the time.

Bradford says residents should not believe Chow’s promise to keep future tax hikes at the rate of inflation. He is opposed to her Vacant Home Tax, which he calls “a tax grab” that hasn’t increased the supply of housing, and says he’s concerned about the “downstream impacts” of a new tax on “luxury” homes that sell for more than $3 million.

Bradford also tried to make the new RapidTO bus lanes on streets like Bathurst and Dufferin temporary instead of permanent, but failed. He says that TTC stations need full platform edge doors to stop passengers from falling onto the tracks, criticizing one of the city’s new safety barriers as “a half-fence with a bunch of holes in it.”

Chow, for her part, says Bradford’s plan to hire 1,000 new police officers is unrealistic and reflective of his switching stances. “He wanted to defund the police…now he said he wants to hire police officers. I don’t know where he’s at,” she said.