Ward 13 — Toronto Centre

Biography: Joe Cadeau says he is a former vice president of Konica Minolta, a printing and technology company, with extensive volunteer experience in Toronto Centre, including at the food bank at St. Bartholomew’s Church, the St. Lawrence Neighbourhood Association, and the Bond Street shelter. He sits on the board of directors of the MET condo building.

Platform: Cadeau describes his platform priorities as accountability, community engagement, affordability, and safer streets. He is critical of Toronto’s government for the housing projects at 502-508 Parliament St., a supportive housing build that ran nearly 100 percent over budget, and 233 Carlton St., a women’s drop-in centre that ran 265 per cent over budget. Cadeau says he would hold contractors accountable as councillor. He promises to strengthen relationships with local business improvement associations and residents groups, freeze salaries for city staff, and explore “community security alternatives” to increased policing.

Biography: There is little information available about Tom Cai’s professional background. He describes himself as having worked part-time in physics research. At a community meeting about Sneaky Dee’s, the College Street music venue that was saved from demolition in the spring, Cai identified himself as a student at the University of Toronto, and advocated for the preservation of Sneaky Dees, arguing against “the destruction of the heart and soul of Toronto.”

Platform: Cai argues that TTC fares should be dynamic, based on distance travelled. Cai wants to increase Toronto’s Vacant Homes Tax to 10 per cent of a building’s value and increase enforcement of the tax. He says he will support homeless shelters and homeless support networks instead of paying for private security forces to evict encampments from parks.

Cai is in favour of bike lanes and rejects car-friendly policies for Toronto. In a YouTube video, Cai cautions against excessive highrise development in Toronto.

Biography: Victoria Davis is a community worker who previously led a drop-in program at Church of the Holy Trinity, adjacent to the Eaton Centre, for homeless people and those living in poverty. She has also worked as the coordinator of a food bank in Scarborough and as an English as a second language instructor, according to her LinkedIn.

She says on her website that she is a student in Disability Studies at Toronto Metropolitan University.

Platform: Davis lists her priorities as housing as a human right, more public washrooms, connecting with nature, community building, disability awareness, safety, peace, and Indigenous leadership. She has said Toronto needs more indoor cooling centres during heatwaves.

Biography: Morgan Harris says he has work experience in software and financial systems on his LinkedIn profile.

Platform: Harris says he is opposed to mandatory treatment for people with drug addictions. He supports building rental housing for students, which he proposes could serve as holiday housing for tourists in summer months.

Biography: Walied Khogali Ali is a housing advocate in Regent Park and a founding member of TTCriders and the Coalition Against White Supremacy and Islamophobia. He’s co-chair of the board of the Regent Park Neighbourhood Association and co-chair of a group that oversees Regent Park’s Community Benefit Agreement with Tridel, which is meant to provide $26.8 million for the neighbourhood, including for scholarships, local jobs, and new community spaces.

Khogali championed an amendment to Toronto’s official plan in 2021 which changed the definition of affordable housing to one based on a tenant’s income instead of on market rates. Khogali says on his website that this change doubled the number of rent-geared-to-income homes to more than 1200. When developers challenged the rule, Khogali argued the move would displace lower-income tenants from Regent Park.

Khogali has opposed Premier Doug Ford’s housing policies, fighting for more community input and what he calls equitable urban development. Khogali also challenged Ford publicly when the premier said he supported bringing back a disbanded police unit that used carding, calling the unit “racist.”

He has written policy frameworks for preventing displacement and advancing affordable housing on behalf of the Regent Park Neighbourhood Association and the Regent Park Tenants Rights Association. He led the Toronto Environmental Alliance as president and held roles with the Toronto and York Region Labour Council and United Way through the Labour Community Services of Metropolitan Toronto. One source reports he was terminated from that position with just cause. Khogali says on his website that he also held roles in the Canadian Arab Federation. He has served on the city’s Confronting Anti-Black Racism Advisory Committee from 2023 to 2026.

Ali has run in Toronto Centre before, in 2018, when he placed fifth out of 19 candidates.

Platform: As a councillor, Khogali says he will champion non-profit, co-op, and rent-geared-to-income housing, speed up repairs without displacing tenants, and use publicly owned land “for public benefit, not private speculation.” He wants to expand the Social Development Plan model—used in Regent Park to manage its transition from a neighbourhood with all social housing to a mixed-income community—across the city. He wants to provide resources to “grassroots leadership in youth, tenant, food, and mental health work.” To provide more community spaces, he says he’ll retrofit unused city buildings into spaces for seniors, newcomers and young people, and prevent redevelopment of existing spaces. He also wants the city to hire local workers when tax dollars are spent in the ward, launch a works program for youth, and strengthen existing community benefit agreements. On climate, he supports a maximum temperature bylaw, which is already in the works, and expanding tree canopy in high-density neighbourhoods.

Biography: Norman MacLeod says he has a background in financial management. He ran for mayor in 2023, placing 59th out of 102 candidates.

Platform: This candidate does not have a platform available online at the time of publication.

Biography: Cleveland Marshall says on his website that he previously worked as a management consultant at Touche Ross & Co. Marshall ran for mayor in 2023, placing 33rd out of 102 candidates, and previously ran for Ward 13 councillor in 2022. He also ran as an independent in Toronto Centre in the 2025 federal election.

Platform: On a website that appears to be built for his 2025 campaign, Marshall said he would fight for the middle class. He mentions issues like high food prices, unaffordable mortgages, and high rent.

Biography: Chris Moise is the current councillor for Toronto Centre. He was elected in 2022.

Moise says his achievements in housing include the city-led proposal for co-op housing at 405 Sherbourne Street, and promoting community consultations for the proposed mixed-use development at 500 Dundas St. East, which will reportedly include both affordable rental units and market-rate condominiums. He cites collaborations on a renovictions bylaw and the Vacant Home Tax, transit fare freezes and fare integration.

While Moise describes himself as progressive, he has expressed different views and cast different votes than some other progressive councillors. He endorsed Ana Bailão for mayor in 2023. He has said he’s opposed to encampments for the unhoused, although rather than sending in the police, the City responded to an encampment in his ward by setting up a trailer where encampment residents could talk to housing workers.

Moise unsuccessfully advocated for the City to take over Moss Park Arena. He controversially proposed closing Barbara Hall Park at night to, he says, curb violence, vandalism and drug use, which many supporters of the park and its AIDS memorial disagreed with.

Kristyn Wong-Tam, a former councillor of Toronto Centre and now an NDP MPP, endorsed Moise during the last election cycle, but is supporting another candidate this time around, saying Moise “has disappointed some folks in my community.”

Moise was found to have violated councillors’ code of conduct after a conflict with right-wing IntegrityTO founder Daniel Tate (also running for council in the ward), over the renaming of Yonge-Dundas Square to Sankofa Square. Moise described Tate as having “a white supremacy view”; Moise was not fined, and the City ended up covering half of his $20,000-plus legal bill.

CBC reported in 2024 that Moise had received at least $10,800, or 11 percent of his campaign contributions, from donors tied to developer Fitzrovia Real Estate.

Before getting into politics, Moise was a police officer, addictions counsellor, and school-board trustee. He also owns a pet store in St. Lawrence Market.

Platform: Moise says he is running to build on the existing results won alongside Mayor Olivia Chow, including the pedestrianization of Church and Market Streets, RentSafeTO ratings for apartment buildings, and the movement of people out of the Moss Park encampment into supportive housing. He championed the Dogs Off-Leash Strategy and the expansion of the Allan Gardens Greenhouse to turn it into one of the largest conservatories in North America.

Biography: Curran Stikuts says he’s worked in the ward since 2008, first at a housing co-op and then at The 519, a city agency serving 2SLGBTQIA+ people, where he worked as director of advocacy and strategic communications. Stikuts also previously worked for the city as a community development officer, according to his LinkedIn.

Stikuts also says he’s been on the board of several non-profits and sat on the implementation panel for Toronto’s “Our Health, Our City” plan, which aims to reduce overdose deaths, promote health, improve access to housing and promote mentally healthy workplaces. At a Toronto Board of Health meeting in 2023, Stikuts said he “struggled intensely with problematic drug use” in his teens and early twenties, and was familiar with the overdose crisis because many of the queer and trans people served by The 519 use drugs. At the meeting, he urged the City to raise wages for harm reduction workers and talked about the need for “stabilization” spaces for people who use drugs.

He has been endorsed by former councillor NDP MPP Kristyn Wong-Tam and the Toronto & York Region Labour Council. According to the Labour Council, Stikuts has “raised millions of dollars for 2SLGBTQIA+ and Toronto Centre community initiatives.”

Platform: The pillars of Stikuts’ campaign are affordability, public space, connection with constituents, and safety. To make the ward more affordable, Stikuts says the city needs to build more housing; speed up construction; and protect renters, seniors and low-income people from displacement. He says the ward’s sidewalks, parks and main streets need to be better maintained, and that residents should always get a response from their city councillor. On public safety, Stikuts says the city needs to balance responding to disturbances while also tackling root causes like mental illness, lack of housing, and inadequate supports.

Biography: Daniel Tate is the founder and director of IntegrityTO, an “anti-woke” group that has petitioned against new homeless shelters and renaming initiatives, including at schools and at Sankofa Square. Online, IntegrityTO shares videos of people who are visibly homeless, in crisis, or intoxicated in order to promote policies like mandatory drug treatment. The group has been criticized for posting AI-generated videos and using homeless people as props to provoke anger among viewers. Tate is opposed to diversity initiatives, which he says “splinter society into a million different identity groups.”

Incumbent councillor Chris Moise has said that Tate holds “a white supremacy” view because he attacks racialized city officials, including Moise, Deputy Mayor Ausma Malik, and Mayor Olivia Chow. However, Moise was found to have violated Toronto city councillors’ code of conduct for making the accusation at a city hall meeting in 2025.

Before launching IntegrityTO, Tate worked in sales and the entertainment industry, according to his LinkedIn.

Platform: Tate says he wants to manage the city “like a business, where you deliver value for your stakeholders and your shareholders.” His campaign pillars are responsible spending, law and order, and supporting businesses through lower taxes. He says he will rigorously audit city departments’ spending, base procurement processes on merit and “foster a culture of excellence.” He opposes harm reduction policies and wants to see “a zero-tolerance approach to criminal behaviour in public spaces,” as well as “meaningful consequences for vandalism, public defecation, public urination, and other offences that degrade our shared spaces and demoralize our citizens.” Tate says that people with addictions need to be in rehabs and detox facilities, “criminal offenders should be housed within the criminal justice system” and people who have fallen on hard times should have homeless shelters available.

Biography: Nicki Ward is a human rights and LGBTQ2S+ advocate and a former president of one of Canada’s largest housing co-ops, located in Toronto Centre. Ward is a former member of the board of The 519, a city agency that serves LGBTQ2S+ people. She says she’s a former executive in the insurance industry. Ward has said that her personal experience coming out as trans and losing her job and access to her kids is what inspired her advocacy. She has run for council before, in both University-Rosedale and Toronto Centre. In 2022, she came second place in the latter ward to Chris Moise. Ward also ran as a Green Party candidate in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections.

Platform: Ward says that if elected, her focus will be on being accountable by holding city departments to objective benchmarks for success or failure. She is a proponent of abstinence-based rehabilitation for people who use drugs, instead of harm reduction. She says she will build more housing co-ops by lobbying the federal government to put 5 per cent of its National Housing Strategy budget towards co-ops in Toronto. She says drug use and anti-social behaviour on the TTC are at “a tipping point” and the city should track all incidents and audit its responses. Ward says Ward 13 has been shortchanged by the city because its population has become more dense, wearing out infrastructure.