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• What’s Bradford’s platform?
• Bradford’s promises contradict his record
• How Bradford compares to Chow

Brad Bradford is a two-term city councillor who wants to replace Olivia Chow as mayor of Toronto. He’s promising to freeze property taxes and cut water bills by taking on debt — and he’s endorsed by Rush frontman Geddy Lee.

Bradford, who announced his intention to run for mayor a whole year ahead of the 2026 municipal election, says he wants to make Toronto “a city we can be proud of.”

“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 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 platform

His campaign, which focuses on crime, congestion, and the cost of living, includes promises to freeze property taxes for one year while the city undergoes a financial audit, 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.

Bradford promises to eliminate the municipal land transfer tax on home purchases of up to $1.1 million, which he says could save homebuyers $18,000. His campaign admits this would add $300 million a year to Toronto’s existing $1 billion annual budget hole.

He promises to remove some RapidTO bus lanes installed by the city during Chow’s tenure. He says he will keep the bus lane on Eglinton Avenue East, but remove 12 kilometres of the lanes on Kingston Road, Morningside Avenue, Kennedy Road, and Midland Road. The lanes on Kennedy and Midland Roads would become lanes for general traffic, Bradford says, while the lanes on Kingston Road and Morningside Avenue would only be for high-occupancy vehicles. Chow, however, says she’s already announced a plan to remove the Kennedy and Midland lanes because the Scarborough busway is now open.

Bradford also says he will cut water bills by 25 percent by taking on debt to fund upgrades to Toronto’s water infrastructure system, instead of collecting the money from ratepayers in advance. The plan would shift responsibility for Toronto’s water system from the city to a public utility company, which would have the ability to make a profit on Torontonians’ water. He will work with the province to ensure landlords pass the resulting savings onto renters, he says. Chow says this plan opens the city’s water system up to privatization.

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. Bradford also moved the motion that created one of the bus lanes he is now promising to remove.

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.”

Read The Local’s longform profile on Bradford here.

How Bradford compares to Chow

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

They diverge most dramatically on the issue of taxes. Bradford says residents should not believe Chow’s promise to keep future tax hikes at the rate of inflation. On the other hand, Chow says tax increases were necessary to fix Toronto’s budget problems and boost public services. Bradford is opposed to Chow’s 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 has also been 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.

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 freeze property taxes is dangerous and could put libraries, fire stations, and municipally run long-term care homes at risk. She also says his goal of hiring 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.

Read about Bradford’s opponent Olivia Chow here.