Every(ish) Tuesday at 6:20 AM (Eastern) I join the host of Moore in the Morning on CFRB Newstalk1010 in Toronto for “The Morning Brief” to give my “hot takes” on the stories of the day. This is today’s crop.

Today’s Hot Takes

1. Toronto police chief defends releasing man later identified as Bridle Path home invasion suspect

• The Chief is right: police hands were tied. The law is the law. We’ve all known the rules since we were kids: police have to count to 100 before they’re allowed to chase you. That’s the law. Or, maybe that’s something else...

• About 80% of violent crimes are perpetrated by about 20% of criminals. Police and the courts know who these guys are. We need to do a better job removing this 20% from our communities – to protect society from them. The fact police have released mugshots of this guy suggests he’s a known repeat offender. I’d put money on his buddies being the same.

• Either Toronto police didn’t have the resources they needed – or the foresight – to follow him when he left the hospital. Why? What went wrong? What lessons can be learned here? What needs to change? Heck, I voluntarily provided information to police once and they followed me when I left. They know the drill.

2. Ending homelessness must be a nation-building project

• This column is a great example of why we can’t fix homelessness. It talks a lot about the need for a broad strategy, but never really defines the problem it’s trying to fix.

• There are different types of homelessness. Which one(s) are the authors trying to address?

• Are we trying to find shelter for people who live rough on the streets every night? They’re out there for different reasons. Many are addicts or people with serious mental illnesses. Or both. You can’t solve their homelessness until you solve their addiction and health issues. Others find themselves too poor to pay rent. Still more have a different combination of reasons. Different problems need different solutions.

• Are we trying to help working people who can’t afford to buy a home, find one they can afford? This group includes professionals making over $100,000 a year and trying to live in the city. Living in Toronto is simply out of reach for too many.

• Are we trying to help people who are living with family because they can’t afford rent? They require different solutions.

• Without defining the problem, we will never solve it. If everyone in the conversation is trying to solve a different problem, they’ll never agree on the solution.

• Nor can government solve this on their own. Homebuilding is a for-profit business. If there’s no profit in it, no one will build them. And God knows if there’s one way to make housing even more expensive, it’s to get government employees drawing blueprints and swinging hammers.

3. These midterm races will decide who controls U.S. Congress for the rest of Trump’s presidency

• No matter the outcome today, things are not going to get much better in our relationship with the USA. Donald Trump is the result of fundamental problems in US democracy – he’s not the cause of the problem. For too many generations, it hasn’t mattered who you voted for in the USA. Whether you elected a Republican or a Democrat, you ended up getting screwed over once they took office. Voters are tired of it. The system isn’t working. It needs to change.

• Democrats are historically more prone to support protectionism and tariffs. So a Democrat-controlled Congress is unlikely to solve all Canada’s trade problems.

• Whoever wins tonight, won’t take their seats in Congress until January. Until then, the lame ducks rule. They could formalize a lot of Trump’s over-reaches in the meantime.

• No matter who controls Congress, Trump will continue to ignore them and do business by Executive Order, as he has been doing since taking office the second time around. He’ll continue to find excuses to do things that hurt Canada. His goal has never been a better trade deal. It has always been, and remains, ownership of us.

4. Mayor calls for review into Church Street Halloween festivities after an estimated 50K people show up

• I don’t really understand what the problem was – beyond just a lot of people showed up. I hate crowds, so that would be enough for me to find a different party.

• There are certainly lessons to be learned from the event and I applaud the mayor for calling on officials to discover and learn from them. I just hope she follows up with some deadlines and oversight. The attention of the mayor’s office can be a powerful motivator.

5. Loved ones say a sidewalk could have saved Caregiver killed in Vaughan hit-and-run.

• Bad things happen when many things go wrong at the same time. This appears to be a tragic example of that. The bus stop, and the road near it, appears to be poorly lit. There was no sidewalk – which provides a defined area of the roadway where pedestrians can be expected and more visible. A driver clearly did not see or avoid a pedestrian on the edge of the roadway – then left the scene without stopping and rendering aid, or calling 9-1-1. The victim was walking in the dark in a place where she wasn’t well protected. She was pulling a suitcase which typically means something heavy, maybe she was tired, using her phone to find safe footing, meaning she may have been focused on the ground in front of her rather than the traffic around her.

• It’s a tragedy. There are many lessons to learn from it. Fixing one of the coincidental risks may not prevent another episode.

  ---

• Does Canada need a “National Homelessness Strategy?”

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Some new polls this week show BRAD BRADFORD taking a slim lead over incumbent mayor OLIVIA CHOW, though still within the Margin of Error. Negative campaign ads targeting Bradford have ramped up from the pro-Chow camp. A number of new Third Party Advertisers have registered with less than a week to go until E-Day.

Election Day

Election Day in Toronto’s upcoming municipal election is: October 26, 2026.

Third Party Influencers

Five new Third Party Advertisers have registered with Toronto’s Election office, bringing the total to 14. The newcomers are:

• Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Ontario – a trade union listed at 1-80 Commerce Valley Dr. E. L3T 0B2 represented by Kenneth Marciniec (undated). CUPE Ontario was formerly led by Fred Hahn, a scandalously controversial figure who decided to stand down as presidcent when his most recent term expired this past Spring after his anti-Israel antics offended many of his own members. Marciniec is CUPE Ontario’s Political Action Coordinator.

• Thomas Casagrande – an individual listed without address beyond postal code M1N 2T6 located in Scarborough, registered on Oct. 21. There is a person with this name listed in Scarborough who is an Athlete Representative with a career in sports industry.

• Campaign Life Coalition – a corporation listed at 2-157 Catharine St. N., Hamilton L8L 4S4 represented by Kaylyn Vandenburg, registered on Oct. 21. Campaign Life is an anti-abortion activist group that regularly reports on the abortion-related “voting records” of political candidates.

• Campaign For Public Education – a corporation listed at 300–1482 Bathurst St., M5P 3H1 represented by Stephen Seaborn, registered on Oct. 13. CPE has a website that says “we vigorously advocate that the necessary resources be allocated from our public taxes in order to meet the needs of all Ontario students and adult learners and particularly those of marginalized and racialized communities.” They are endorsing a slate of school board candidates in Toronto on their website.

• CUPE Local 79 – a trade union listed at 34 St. Patrick St., M5T 1V1 represented by Nastaran Yadollahi, registered on Oct. 13. This is the local that represents the City of Toronto’s indoor workers. Nas Yadollahi is president of the local.

The Campaign Trail

Olivia Chow (Incumbent)

Chow’s platform is published on her campaign website here.

Highlights include:

• Protecting Services – she argues Bradford will keep taxes low by slashing public services city residents rely on.

• 10 Rides, Then Free on the TTC – After 10 transit rides in one calendar week, subsequent rides will be free if using the same card to pay.

• Lowering Grocery Bills – Ban “surveillance pricing” on groceries, cutting taxes on “independent and community grocery stores,” feeding more kids in schools, etc.

• Keeping Neighbourhoods Safe – Invest more in youth violence prevention, providing mentorship, job opportunities and recreation.

• Creating More Jobs – Create 15,000 new “Youth Jobs,” especially in Scarborough, and 37,000 new construction jobs by building 10,000 rental homes.

• Also: Less Traffic and Congestion, Better Transit for Scarborough, Addressing Homelessness and Drug Use, Cracking Down on Bad Landlords, Moratorium on Data Centres, A More Senior-Friendly City, More Family Fun, No Strong Mayor Powers.

Brad Bradford

Bradford’s platform is published on his campaign website here.

Highlights include:

• Crime –

  • Sit on the Toronto Police Services Board.

  • Hire 1,000 new front-line police officers over his first term.

  • Crack down on dangerous e-bikes.

  • Increase voluntary and mandatory treatment options for addicts.

• Congestion –

  • Shovels in the ground on Eglinton East LRT by 2030.

  • Remove Bloor St. West bike lanes in Etobicoke.

  • Remove Red Bus Lanes in Scarbrough that aren't working.

  • Build real Platform Edge Doors on the subway.

• Cost of Living –

  • Freeze Property Taxes in year one.

  • Eliminate Toronto Land Transfer Tax on “average homes.”

  • Reduce water bills by $300 per year by making Toronto Water a city-owned arms-length corporation.

  • Conduct first independent, line-by-line review of City Budget in 15 years.

  • Protect renters and Student Nutrition Progam

• Cleanliness –

  • Restore Yonge-Dundas Square as a clean, vibrant public space.

  • Visible, uniformed officers on Patrol Y-D Square, Union Station and other public spaces.

  • Set one standard for lighting and cleanliness across TTC stations.

• Compete –

  • Toronto Youth Employment Challenge to create 15,000 permanent full-time jobs for young people.

  • Easier Registration for recreation programs.

  • Support Toronto manufacturers with property tax relief.

  • Modernize city’s budget and set strong fiscal guardrails.

The Big Question

Will Chow’s negative attack messaging slow Bradford’s momentum? Many of the new Third Party Advertisers are registering so they can spend money to attack Bradford. Nobody likes negative ads, but they work.

There are still a lot of “undecided voters” and Chow’s campaign, which was floating along in frontrunner mode, is swinging into full-on attack mode. They see Bradford’s support swelling and him gaining momentum. They want to discourage undecideds from choosing Bradford, and to make soft Bradford supporters question their decisions – either to switch to Chow, or one of the 51 other candidates who aren’t Bradford, or to stay home and not vote.

The Horse Race

Liaison Strategies October 21 poll (conducted Oct. 18-19)

The most recent poll, completed Monday, shows Bradford edging into the lead, though within the Margin of Error: +/- 3.1 percentage pts 19 times out of 20. The two candidates are statistically tied, but this is the first time Liaison has marked Bradford ahead of Chow.

Vote Intention among Decided and Leaning voters:

Latest numbers in bold (last numbers from same pollster in parentheses)

• Bradford 49% (up from 46%

• Olivia Chow 47% (down from 51%)

• Other 3% (n/c)

• Undecided 14% (down from 16%)

Mainstreet Research October 20 poll (conducted Oct. 16–18)

Mainstreet also showing Bradford taking the lead from Chow for the first time, but still within the Margin of Error which is +/- 3.1 percentage pts 19 times out of 20. Again, it’s a statistical tie.

Vote Intention among Decided and Leaning voters:

Latest numbers in bold (last numbers from same pollster in parentheses)

• Brad Bradford 48.9% (up from 44.3%)

• Olivia Chow 47.5% (down from 47.2%)

• Other 3.5% (down from 8.5%)

• Undecided 13.4% (up from 10.0%)

Mainstreet also reports 27.5% of respondents have already voted and 82.4% are definitely sure they will vote.

Other Polls

Another poll, reported by The Toronto Sun was conducted by an organization called Build Canada was the first to report Bradford had taken a lead, but also within the margin of error. I’ve never heard of Build Canada and they haven’t done any other mayoral polls this election season, so I’m not going to report the details.

Older Polls

• Liaison Strategies October 13 poll

• Mainstreet Research October 9 poll

• Forum Research October 6 poll

• Mainstreet Research October 2 poll

• Liaison Strategies September 30 poll

• Forum Research September 25 poll

• Mainstreet Research September 18 poll.

• Liaison Strategies September 9 poll.

• Liaison Strategies August 20 poll.

• Liaison Strategies August 7 poll.

• Forum Research July 31 poll.

Analysis

Brad Bradford clearly has the momentum at this point in the mayoral election. He remains statistically tied with Olivia Chow, but his trend line continues upward while hers has been stalled for weeks now. With a large number of undecideds who plan to vote, the question remains whether Bradford can earn their support or if they will choose Chow.

At least half of voters are not happy with the direction Toronto is headed. If you are happy with the city’s direction, it seems reasonable to expect you will vote for the incumbent mayor. If you’re not happy, you may be looking for an alternative. I would expect the Undecideds to be more likely unhappy than happy, and therefore more likely to be looking for an alternative to Olivia Chow than the average voter. So, that suggests most of the Undecideds may lean toward Bradford. However, Bradford’s personal favourability remains low in most polls, so that may be the reason people still haven’t committed. Perhaps those voters who don’t want Chow but also don’t like Bradford may choose another candidate altogether. If that happens, the odds favour the candidate in the lead.

Top of Mind Issues continue to be Affordability and Cost of Living, Crime and Public Safety and Traffic Congestion. These are the issues Bradford has been campaigning on for over a year. Chow has only recently begun to talk about addressing them. The issues favour Bradford.

The race remains too close to call, but there’s no denying the momentum currently is with Bradford. Will Chow’s swing to negative campaigning be enough to blunt his momentum or deter Undecided voters from choosing Bradford? At this point, the race will be decided by how much error is in the numbers. The Margin of Error matters.

Can you feel a difference in the election campaign in Toronto? Have you seen or heard any negative campaign ads or online posts? What do they make you think?

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Every(ish) Tuesday at 6:20 AM (Eastern) I join the host of Moore in the Morning on CFRB Newstalk1010 in Toronto for “The Morning Brief” to give my “hot takes” on the stories of the day. This is today’s crop.

Today’s Hot Takes

1. Albertans reject separation in historic vote

• Ballots are still being counted as I write this, but so far about 70% of Albertans have voted to stay, with about 30% calling for a binding referendum on the matter seceding from Canada.

• A majority voted in favour of all but one of the other nine questions, calling for more provincial autonomy. The holdout vote was too close to call as I wrote this. Those questions define how many Albertans think federalism needs to change.

• The fact this vote was even held is a damning reality that reflects how out of touch Ottawa is with the interests and priorities of Canadians outside Ontario. I’ve lived all over this country, and I can tell you that things people in Calgary would die for, wouldn’t cause anyone in Toronto to even cross the street. And vice versa.

• Albertans are as patriotic about being Canadian as any of us. But they’re not happy with how Ottawa takes them for granted and imposes policies that do real damage to their wellbeing. Neither are people in BC, or Saskatchewan, or on the East Coast, or up North, or anywhere else beyond comfortable driving distance from Parliament Hill. We are a very big country, with a very small population spread over great distances, and our priorities and interests differ from place to place. City life in Toronto is vastly different from rural life elsewhere in Ontario. Regional differences are real.

• The hard left Liberalism of the current federal government – born under Justin Trudeau and continuing too much under Mark Carney – does not play well outside Ontario. Ideologies that resonate in Ottawa cause real harm to real people in some other regions. Quebecers tolerate some of Ottawa’s ideology because Quebec gets special consideration, and special freedoms, because Ottawa recognizes its differences – and because it continually threatens to separate if they don’t. Some of what Alberta is asking for in its other nine referendum questions are just privileges and conditions Quebec already enjoys.

• Prime Minister Mark Carney recently said he would consider constitutional changes if there is “broad consensus” on changes such as the ones Alberta is calling for.

2. New Nanos poll shows Bradford closing the gap with Olivia Chow, could come down to turnout

• Brad Bradford and Olivia Chow are statistically tied in the race to be Toronto’s next mayor. Over the past month, Chow has been holding her early support, but Bradford has been steadily gaining. With Chris Alexander out of the race, most of that small amount of support has gone to Bradford. And Bradford is slowly, steadily, eating away at the undecided voters. Steadily growing his support.

  • Undecided 16% – more than enough to tip the scales to either mayoral candidate.

  • Chow 50% (down from 51%)

  • Bradford 47% (n/c)

  • Other 4% (up from 2%)

• The difference between the two candidates falls within the Margin of Error of 3.6 percentage points (19 times out 20) which tracks with other pollsters who have been reporting this a week now.

• Chow’s negative turn in her advertising suggests her team see the same thing.

• Most Torontonians think the city is not going in the right direction and an overwhelming majority are focused on cost of living and taxes as the most important issues. Bradford has been campaigning primarily on these issues for a year now. Chow has recently changed her messaging and is now talking more about money issues and cost of living now. Is it enough or is it too little too late?

• It now comes down to the ground game. Chow has the backing of an NDP machine augmented by Progress Toronto and some major public sector labour unions who will provide an army of “volunteers” to help Chow get her supporters out to the polls on election day. Can Bradford mobilize enough support to do the same? We will see. Election Day is six days away.

3. Toronto’s housing, transit and drug policies are showing up in the ER

• This is not surprising. People rely on the ER for help in extremis and more of us are living on the margin than ever before in my lifetime.

• We have underinvested in mental healthcare and addiction treatment.

• But throwing more money into the same broken system won’t fix it. I’ve spent a lot of time in the healthcare system recently and can tell you it isn’t well-managed overall. But there is a vast difference from one hospital to another, from one doctor’s office to others. Some are very efficient. Most aren’t. Our healthcare system seems to do a very poor job of learning from its own successes to improve areas in which it’s failing. I don’t think doctors or nurses are going to fix this. But, God forbid someone apply a little management science or operations research into their arcane professions.

4. Toronto woman on hook for life-saving cancer drug

• We ration healthcare in Canada. We don’t like to call it rationing, but that’s what we do. We divide up the available health budget and decide in advance that we can afford to do 1,000 cataract surgeries or hip replacements this year. So, that’s what we do. If you’re the 1,001^st patient in line, you lose.

• The vagaries of our public-payer healthcare system means some must die so more can survive. Rather than pay $1 million for a rare treatment that may save one life, we will instead spend $10,000 for a more reliable treatment that may save 100 lives. The math works. Unless you’re the one.

• What we need is a system that is more flexible and allows bureaucrats to use their judgment. Then we need bureaucrats with good judgment. And we need to accept the consequences when they make mistakes. That’s not likely to happen anytime soon.

5. Air Canada adds $30 fee for phone bookings

• This is nuts. You can’t make this stuff up.

• You couldn’t run a restaurant this way. Welcome to Chez Marc, would you like to make a reservation? That’s $20. Want to a table? That’s $20. Chairs are $15. Want your meal on a plate? $10 for china, $2 for paper? Would you like a knife and fork? $5 each. Want a waiter to bring your food to you? $25 plus tip. Should we have Chef cook your meal for you? That’s just $50. Would you like to cook it yourself in our kitchen? $100. Would you like to see a menu? That’s $5 to borrow a printed menu or you can scan our QR code for $1.

• At some point, you’re no longer a restaurant. Is Air Canada still an airline?

6. Many of the five-star online reviews you see are fake

• Does anyone believe these reviews are real? Really?

• There’s a whole marketing specialty called “User-generated content” or UGC where PR and marketing people manage the production of this kind of stuff. Ever watched a “user review” on Amazon? Ever seen an unboxing video? Watched a YouTube video by a couple from USA comparing Canadian junkfood to what they get at home? It’s all UGC.

• The only thing missing from most user-generated content is a real user.

Is the Alberta separatist movement dead on the vine – or will it be back? Should Canada revisit federalism to account for more regional differences? Have you ever written an online review? Do you read them when you’re looking to buy something?

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Advance voting for Toronto’s municipal election has closed with 222,550 voters having already cast a ballot 13 days before Election Day proper. CHRIS ALEXANDER ended his campaign and BRAD BRADFORD is now statistically tied with OLIVIA CHOW in some polls.

Election Day

Election Day in Toronto’s upcoming municipal election is: October 26, 2026.

Advance Voting

The number of Toronto voters choosing to cast their ballots in Advance Polls from Oct. 6 to 11 was 222,550 – nearly double the number who voted in advance of the last Toronto general election in 2022. This, despite the fact there were just six days of advance voting this year, compared to 2022 when there were eight. In the 2023 mayoral by-election, 129,745 people voted in advance polls.

Clearly, Advance Polls are popular with voters. More and more, Canadian elections are evolving from an “Election Day” event to a “Voting Period” event where voters cast their ballots over a period of time. In provincial and federal elections, voters can cast a ballot at any Elections Office almost any day from the time the writs are dropped and the elections are called until E-Day. E-Day has become the last day you can vote in an election.

Controversy?

Remember back to my second Mayoral Rumble report? I told you then there was a potential spoiler on the ballot:

The Toronto Sun is reporting that some voters were warned by some poll workers to look out for similar names on the ballot. This seems like reasonable advice for any voter, but it is not something poll workers are supposed to do. In fact, it violates the city’s election rules mandating impartiality and non-partisanship. Will it add a few votes to Olivia Chow’s tally? Perhaps. But, those votes are likely to come from people who wanted to vote for her anyway. I’m not too fussed.

Third Party Influencers

Another pair of Third Party Advertisers has registered with Toronto’s Election office, bringing the number of parties that hope to influence how you vote to nine. The two newbies are:

• 1000338294 Ontario Inc – a corporation at 105 Six Point Rd, Toronto, M8Z 2X3 in Toronto registered on Oct. 7. The listed representative is Anika Munir. The same corporation has previously registered as a Third Party in the 2025 federal election, where its Election Canada filing shows its only donor was Dunpar Developments Inc., a real estate development firm. The listed address is also associated with Dunpar. The company also registered as a Third Party in the 2023 Toronto mayoral by-election, but claimed no expenses and no fundraising. The filing was signed by John Zanini, an executive with Dunpar. Anika Munir is also affiliated with Dunpar.

• Ezra Levant – of M0X 0X0 (a fictitious postal code) registered as an Individual on Oct. 9. I can’t confirm if this is same Ezra Levant of Rebel News fame.

Given the City of Toronto apparently doesn’t validate postal codes (the same non-existent postal code M0X 0X0 is listed for Michael R. Teper) I’m not sure if they verify any of the information provided in these registrations.

The Campaign Trail

Olivia Chow (Incumbent)

Much of Chow’s recent messaging mentions she’s “number 9 on the ballot” – as opposed to that other Chow who appears immediately above her name. Fair warning! It’s a smart messaging tactic I first saw with Edward Gong’s run for mayor a few years back. Or was it councillor? Or trustee? I can’t keep track of his electoral ambitions. In any case, he’s #22 on the mayoral ballot this time according to his lawn signs. Regardless, it’s a smart move by Chow.

With less than a fortnight to go and her opponent breathing down her neck, Chow’s campaign has turned decidedly negative. Negative campaigning and attack ads work. They aim to suppress support for the opponent and that is clearly what Chow’s team and Progress Toronto are aiming for.

The Chow campaign seeded a story with an online news site called Canada’s National Observer about Bradford’s campaign using an AI-enabled app to drive voter engagement. The biggest criticism of the app seemed less that it was evil AI, and more that it was made by evil Israelis. This feeds well into the decidedly pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli leanings of Chow’s NDP, Progress Toronto and public sector union base.

Bradford has also been targeted with fake “endorsements” associating him with recognizable names that Chow fans would consider distasteful. Bradford disavows the fake endorsements and *poof* his Facebook page is flooded with “offended” fake engagement aimed at discouraging his supporters.

Another attack tried to link Bradford to the abortion issue in a way that would motivate pro-choice voters to turn out for Chow. They also repeatedly attack him as a “Conservative” – hoping to scare away middle of the road voters who might describe themselves as Liberals. And, Progress Toronto took a shot at his name… mocking him for its repetitiveness Brad-Brad ford.

Brad Bradford

Bradford’s campaign spent less time announcing new policy this past week and more time engaging with voters across the city. He’s clearly working to win people over, frustrated no doubt, by approval numbers in recent polls that suggest a lot of people aren’t comfortable with him. The negative campaigning has created an environment where most good things said about him online are immediately countered by someone claiming to be a “resident in his ward” whom he has “completely failed.”

For his part, Bradford countered the Progress Toronto name calling with a good-natured, post that explained how he came by his name. It was poignant and touching, and I expect connected with viewers in a way the criticism did not.

It’s been a good week for Bradford with two major polls showing him statistically tied with Chow.

When thieves stole the catalytic converters from seven trucks integral to Second Harvest’s ability to distribute fresh foods to people in need, Bradford joined a press conference to help raise funds and call out to mechanics who may be able to help get the vehicles back on the roads.

Chris Alexander

Announced he would suspend his campaign for mayor. His name will remain on the ballot. A number of people have complained to me that Toronto Elections officials should inform voters he’s out. But, they can’t do that. The last day to withdraw from the race (and have your name removed from the ballot) was Aug. 21. Officially, Alexander remains a candidate. Officials can’t unilaterally decide to tell people he isn’t, any more than they can unilaterally tell people Chow or Bradford aren’t candidates. So, voters will have to know what’s going on and vote accordingly. The marked change in polling results suggest the word has gotten out.

The Big Question

Which candidate has the better ground game? With the polls pulling even, it all comes down to whose voters will show up to vote – and which candidate has the better organization to make sure they do? Olivia Chow has the considerable resources of the NDP, Progress Toronto and many of the public sector unions who will mobilize an army of volunteers to knock on doors, scrutinize ever vote cast, and drive people (literally) to the polls on E-Day. They have experienced campaign managers and a well-financed machine ready to go on E-Day.

Does Bradford have the same? He certainly has ample expertise and experience on his campaign team. Some of the best available campaign brains from Conservative and Liberal parties, as well as past mayoral campaigns are working to get him elected. They certainly have the money they’ll need. Will they have the volunteers they need to run an effective E-Day machine? If I recall correctly, in 2010, Rob Ford had between 3,000–6,000 volunteers working on Election Day. Can Bradford muster the same? Or, does his lukewarm approval scores foreshadow a lack of volunteers willing to put in the work for free?

The Horse Race

Liaison Strategies October 13 poll (conducted Oct. 8–9)

The most recent poll, conducted Tuesday, shows the race tightening significantly. Most of the advantage from the retirement of Chris Alexander from the race accrued to Bradford. Chow still leads Bradford by 5 percentage points, with a Margin of Error: +/- 3.1 percentage pts 19 times out of 20.

Vote Intention among Decided and Leaning voters:

Latest numbers in bold (last numbers from same pollster in parentheses)

• Olivia Chow 51% (up from 48%)

• Brad Bradford 46% (up significantly from 39%)

• Other 3% (n/c)

• Undecided 16% (up slightly from 15%)

Liaison also included updates on Chow’s approval, right/wrong direction, and Bradford favourability.

Mainstreet Research October 9 poll (conducted Oct. 6–7, 2026)

Significant change in the latest Mainstreet poll after Alexander essentially withdrew from the race. Both Chow and Bradford grew their support, but Bradford grew more significantly. The two are now separated by just 2.9 percentage points, well within the Margin of Error: +/- 3.1 percentage pts 19 times out of 20. Mainstreet reports a statistical tie.

Vote Intention among Decided and Leaning voters:

Latest numbers in bold (last numbers from same pollster in parentheses)

• Olivia Chow 47.2% (up from 45.4%)

• Brad Bradford 44.3% (up significantly from 38.3%)

• Other 8.5% (up from 7.8%)

• Undecided 10.0% (down sharply from 16.0%)

The poll actually broke down the “Other” category into three options: Sara McVie( 2.5%), Odessa Paloma Parker (2.8%), Another candidate (3.2%)

Mainstreet also tested respondent opinions extensively on Traffic Congestion and Transit issues.

Forum Research October 6 poll (Conducted Oct. 6)

Forum also reports a tightening of the race in this poll conducted after the Advance Polls closed Oct. 6. Alexander’s departure benefits only Bradford in this survey, with his support growing significantly by 7 percentage points – putting him just 4 points behind chow with a Margin of Error of +/- 2.45%, 19 times out of 20.

Vote Intention among Decided and Leaning voters:

Latest numbers in bold (last numbers from same pollster in parentheses)

• Olivia Chow 46% (n/c)

• Brad Bradford 42% (up significantly from 35%)

• Other 12% (down from 13%)

• Undecided N/A

Older Polls

• Mainstreet Research October 2 poll

• Liaison Strategies September 30 poll

• Forum Research September 25 poll

• Mainstreet Research September 18 poll.

• Liaison Strategies September 9 poll.

• Liaison Strategies August 20 poll.

• Liaison Strategies August 7 poll.

• Forum Research July 31 poll.

Analysis

Olivia Chow is holding most of her support, but Brad Bradford has gained significantly in the past week. Since Alexander dropped out of the race, Bradford has hoovered up almost all of his support (which had been “other” before Alexander joined the race late.) There remains 10–16% of voters who are as yet undecided. Bradford will need to win most of their support if he is to win.

The race is essentially tied at this point. Will Bradford’s upwards trend line continue? Does he have momentum? Or, is he peaking too early? I don’t think he’s too early. I think he’s exactly where he wants to be. But, there’s no doubt Chow remains ahead and an even split of the undecided vote would see her re-elected. Bradford can’t afford to take any vote for granted.

Barring a bombshell, it will be a close election that comes down to voter turnout and appetite for change. We know, from every poll conducted over the last year, the vast majority of Toronto residents are unhappy with the direction this city is going under Olivia Chow’s leadership. Most people are unhappy with the historic tax hikes that have occurred under her tenure and a plurality of them don’t want more of the same. Will those people show up and vote for change?

But, about those bombshells… there is still time for one. Or two. Who will they land on?

Did you vote in Advance Polls?

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Today’s Hot Takes

1. Torontonians Feel Somewhat Safer than Last Year, but 35% Still Feel Unsafe After Dark

• “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

• Statistics aside, more people in Toronto today have some personal experience with crime. They’ve been assaulted by someone on the subway or the street. They’ve had their cars stolen. They’ve witnessed violence. They’ve looked ahead on the street and altered course to avoid someone who scares them.

• Or, they have a close friend or family member who was victimized by crime.

• Too many people in this city have witnessed, first hand or on visceral videos, violent and hateful gangs targeting their friends, family and neighbours simply because of their religion or appearance.

• Gun violence is in the news every day and the federal government does very little to prevent it – instead choosing to persecute hunters, farmers and target shooters – people who statistically belong to the most law-abiding cohort of Canadians.

• So, I’m not surprised more than one third of Torontonians are afraid.

2. What if there was a $9 charge to drive downtown?

• Roads for Rich People is not a good public policy. Public infrastructure should not be restricted to the rich.

• Raising the cost of something will absolutely reduce the use of it – just like raising minimum wage reduces the number of hours employers can afford to hire people – or increases the cost of the products they sell, making those products unaffordable for people who earn minimum wage – increasing the demands to raise minimum wage. And so on.

• Each of those cars has someone in it, going somewhere, to do something. For this to work, it means those people don’t go there to do that.

• Towhey’s Test: What if it works? If this works, then fewer contractors, handymen, consultants, home care workers and others who need their cars to do their work will offer their services in the city core – driving up costs to those who live there. Fewer people will come into the city to eat at restaurants, see shows, attend festivals, spend money – meaning higher prices spread over a smaller customer base, fewer destination restaurants and fewer entertainment offerings.

• Money spent on road tolls can’t be spent somewhere else. Somebody has to lose.

• “The Privatization of Roads & Highways” by Walter Block is an interesting read. It argues that pricing roads (e.g. with tolls) is the first step to privatizing roads. I find it ironic the same people who advocate for road pricing would pale at the idea we should sell off our roads to the highest bidder.

• Will road pricing move more people to transit? Maybe some. But transit isn’t an option for many people, even singletons, in cars. And if it does, who is going to pay for higher transit use? Certainly not the transit rider. It currently costs Toronto taxpayers $2-3 every time a person steps onto a TTC vehicle. We can’t afford much more of that kind of success.

3. A licence to be a barber? Ridiculous red tape holds Canada back

• In Alberta, becoming a barber requires 1,450 hours of apprenticeship + 10 weeks classroom training ($2,000) or a $10,000 college program. It’s not any better in Ontario. Or Manitoba. Or Nova Scotia. In the rest of Canada, men risk their lives daily getting their hair cut by barbers who have not pre-qualified as cardio-thoracic surgeons and medical officers of health before attending Barber College.

• And yet, men in these other pre-Victorian provinces miraculously aren’t being decapitated on the daily.

• Everybody in the army was a barber. Nobody in the army had any training or license to cut hair. Men’s hair is not that hard to cut. I once had a barber in Mozambique cut my hair in 60 seconds without ever even looking at me.

• If you’ve got a bad haircut, too little red tape is not the reason. Sorry, guys.

4. Carney’s Thanksgiving message directed at Alberta ahead of separation referendum

• A good use of his message time. Pity no one will watch it. Who does? I didn’t.

• The vast majority of Albertans don’t want to separate. But every single separatist will show up to vote for a referendum. The average Albertan may not bother because they know no one wants this. Even those who show up to vote in the elections, may not bother to tick the box on the referendum questions.

• Most people in Toronto who vote for a mayoral candidate don’t even bother to cast a vote for school trustee.

5. Trump faces growing backlash over plans to import diesel from Russia

• The main reason the Russian war on Ukraine is still ongoing is Trump’s financial and political support for Putin. Without Trump’s active support, Russia’s ability to fight would have collapsed ages ago and the war would be over. It can end tonight if Putin withdraws his army.

• Trump’s oil deal with Putin is not about reducing fuel prices in USA, or even about increasing global diesel supplies. It’s entirely, transparently, about feeding millions of dollars into Putin’s child-slaughtering war machine and unfreezing billions in Putin’s personal assets.

• A number of credible Open-Source Intelligence folks online report watching a Russian ghost tanker on a beeline for the USA for the last two plus weeks. Yet, the lifting of sanctions was only announced over the weekend. Perhaps the deal was in hand some time ago?

Did you vote in Advance Polls? Or are you an E-Day “fetishist” like John Moore? Should Ontario barbers require a medical license before undertaking a college diploma in haircutting? Would you pay $9 to drive into downtown Toronto, or would you just take your business somewhere else?

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Every(ish) Tuesday at 6:20 AM (Eastern) I join the host of Moore in the Morning on CFRB Newstalk1010 in Toronto for “The Morning Brief” to give my “hot takes” on the stories of the day. This is today’s crop.

Advance Voting begins today in Toronto’s civic election!

Today’s Hot Takes

1. Latest polling shows Toronto’s mayoral election is shaping up as a two-candidate race - time for Chris Alexander to go

• This Nanos poll is somewhat at odds with others that show a tightening race, including the latest from Liaison Strategies that suggests the gap between Chow and Bradford is narrowing somewhat. Though, all the polls show Chow leading – just outside the Margin of Error.

• Liaison finds Chow and Bradford to be neck and neck in North York, well within the Margin of Error with Bradford leading in Etobicoke. Chow leads in vote-rich Scarborough, though within the Margin of Error and has a commanding lead in Old Toronto.

• Bradford’s message hasn’t yet broken through as the Change Candidate in many areas. Despite starting almost a year ago, he hasn’t fully shaken the opposition definition of him as a “flip flopper.”

• The reality is – if you want change, Bradford is the only choice on the ballot who can deliver it. And most Toronto residents think the city is headed in the wrong direction. If that’s the case, Bradford is your only option.

• The trend line favours Bradford. The question is: will the campaign last long enough for him to capitalize on it? With advance voting beginning today and Election Day just 20 days away, voters will start to focus more on the campaign and the choices they have to make. We’ll see who makes the most of the days left.

2. Free school lunch program proposed by Olivia Chow

• This is a classic NDP style program – raise taxes on everyone in the city, especially renters who pay disproportionately more than homeowners, so she can look heroic handing out money to some.

• Chow puts the savings at $1,800 per family with kids in school, meaning someone else has to cough up that cash. That someone is everyone who lives in the city, especially those who rent and can least afford it.

• Bradford, meanwhile, says he’d rejig existing programs to provide relief to beleaguered renters in the city as well as those hoping to one day be able to afford to buy a home here. His programs are often well thought-through, and therefore more complicated, so they’re harder to explain. That’s not helping him.

3. Quebecers elect separatist Parti Québécois to form minority government

• It’s too bad opposition parties in Quebec are apparently so ideologically divided they are unlikely to coalesce around a coalition to keep the separatists out of power.

• It will be interesting to see what happens next after media recently reported the PQ had sought a meeting with the US State Department to discuss separation from Canada. The PQ deny this – but some media have published internal State Dept. messages between Washington and Canadian consulates explaining the meeting, which the PQ had requested, had later been cancelled.

• With separation talk in Alberta and Quebec, Canada is in for a rough ride. It’s hard not to think the US and other countries are investing heavily in stirring up dissent here. Anyone on social media can see the rancour and vitriol dripping from most conversations regarding Canada and its future.

• It’s particularly important for all of us to understand much of that anger is intentional mis and disinformation being whipped up by foreign entities as part of something called Cognitive Warfare – a component of Hybrid War combining psychology, propaganda, PR, marketing and psychological operations to destabilize an opponent (Canada) and create division.

4. Why Canada getting its own international dialing code could help assert its independence

• Interesting idea. Symbolism is very important in conflict. And we’re in an existential conflict with USA at the moment.

• I’m not sure, though, the inconvenience of changing our country dialling code would be worth the effort. Plus, we’d have to give up being “number 1!” Which, for the home of Alexander Graham Bell, makes sense. We deserve it. +22 just doesn’t have the caché.

• Maybe the USA should get a new number! I hear +666 is available. I’m sure the world would get behind that.

5. More young Canadians are relying on multiple sources of income

It’s not just young Canadians. It’s people like me too. I’ve survived in the self-employed and “gig economy” for most of my life now. And I’m Gen X.

This reality leads to a very different worldview from the one-career lifetime perspective the Boomer generation grew up with. Which causes myriad problems.

Human beings are tribal creatures. I highly recommend Sebastian Junger’s “Tribe” as a good, quick primer on this phenomenon. We used to find a tribal bond without our family, a faith group, or in our career. Somewhere, we belonged to a tribe.

Without strong family attachments, faith groups or long-term careers, we become free agents – an unnatural state where we’re stressed, uncertain, and often more susceptible to being captured by other tribes that may be less healthy.

The world around us also isn’t yet fully tuned to the new reality. For example, it’s harder for “gig workers” to get loans and mortgages – even if they can afford them.

6. Senior Toronto cop charged with impaired driving, sources say he was found asleep at wheel

Cops know better. This one does – he used to preach about it.

Like everyone, he’s innocent until proven guilty. However, he’s a sworn police officer and that means he must be held by society to a higher standard. If he can’t live by the rules, how can he hold others accountable to them?

Being a police officer doesn’t stop when you take off the uniform. You may be off shift and out of uniform; you may be on vacation or at home; but you always remain a peace officer. Responsible to uphold the law. Responsible to protect the public. There is no time off from that responsibility.

The police who arrested and charged him did the right thing. The Crown must now prosecute him with rigour and the courts must hold him to the highest standard. At no point, should he be offered quarter because a conviction or sentence would hurt his career. That is unacceptable.

At the same time, the Toronto Police Service and his union should look into what else is going wrong in his life? He could have gone home by taxi or Uber. He should be able to afford that. Why didn’t he? Are there other issues in his life that lead to this? He may need help from his friends – his tribe. But, on no account should he be let off lightly.

Do you have more than one job? Should Canada switch to a new international dialling code to differentiate us from the USA? Is there any such thing as “free lunch?”

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Advance voting for Toronto’s municipal election begins Tuesday Oct. 6 and continues until Oct. 11. Check your voter registration card to find out where you can cast your ballot before election day. If you’re not sure where to vote, check here.

A lot has happened since my last update on the Toronto municipal election. But, little has changed. OLIVIA CHOW still leads. BRAD BRADFORD still challenges. CHRIS ALEXANDER still doesn’t have a chance but could ensure a Chow victory. Nobody else matters.

Some polls suggest the race is tightening. Others, meh…

AND… an interesting new group has registered as a Third Party Advertiser to try and influence your vote!

Election Day

Election Day in Toronto’s upcoming municipal election is: October 26, 2026. Advance voting will happen from October 6 – 11.

Candidate Count: 53

It’s now too late to join the race or formally bow out. So there will be 53 names on the mayoral ballot in October. There remain only two candidates who matter and a third who’s there to spoil the race for the challenger.

Third Party Influencers

Two more Third Party Advertisers have now registered with Toronto’s Election office, each of them hoping to influence how you cast your ballot. The new additions suggest Toronto’s antisemitism problem may play a role in this municipal election campaign.

• Joseph Reichmann – an individual registered at M6B 2H3 in Toronto registered Oct. 2. Is this the Joseph Reichmann who is registered to lobby city officials on behalf of a developer? A scion of the Reichmann family? I don’t know.

• National Muslim Action Fund – a corporation registered Oct. 5 with an address in Alberta: 10611 98 Ave NW, Edmonton, AB T5K 2P7. The listed representative is Omar Khamissa and its website describes NMAF as “a multi-partisan political action committee that supports candidates and parties federally, provincially, and municipally who stand for a better Canada and against Islamophobia.” Why is this Edmonton-based organization seeking to influence voters in a Toronto civic election? Well…

  Omar Khamissa was affiliated with the National Council of Canadian Muslims as its past COO and Chief Mobilization Officer. In a video on his LinkedIn page, he speaks about NMAF as a “multi-partisan” organization to help the muslim community develop a united strategy to support candidates in local, provincial and federal elections as well as party leadership races. Is there a unique and consolidated “Muslim” election strategy that transcends party policies and partisanship? Apparently NMAF thinks so and plans to ensure Muslims in Toronto find out what it is.

The Campaign Trail

Olivia Chow (Incumbent)

The incumbent mayor is leading in the polls and has the strong organizational backing of the NDP and its local wing Progress Toronto, so she’s playing it safe with a nearly policy-free front-runner’s campaign. Her website lists a few main, often repetitive, policy items and some shots at competitors – including Chris Alexander’s proposal to charge higher transit fares during peak ridership times. Chow calls this “surge pricing” and says she won’t do it. Not much else new from Chow.

Brad Bradford

The challenger is running behind Chow in all the polls, though trending upwards very slowly. To get your attention, he’s launched a barrage of bold campaign promises that aim to get your attention and your vote. Among them:

• Toronto Water – Bradford would spin off Toronto Water as a separate utility, wholly owned by the City of Toronto, so it can borrow money for capital costs on the bond market and benefit from the more forgiving terms that corporations and the federal and provincial governments enjoy. This would allow the utility to invest more money into capital maintenance and repairs, including flood protection, with lower annual costs. He says this will save rate payers about $300 per year.

• Municipal Land Transfer Tax – he’ll eliminate the MLTT on the portion of home purchase below the average home value ($1.1 million in 2025) in the city. Bradford says those buying average price homes could save up to $18,000 on the transaction.

• City Budget Reform – including a somewhat confusing plan to end (I think) the capital-from-current process whereby some of this year’s operating budget is spent on long-term capital projects.

• Year One Property Tax Freeze – on homes and businesses.

Chris Alexander

Remains in the race. His Twitter feed mentions Toronto more often now.

The Big Question

Can Brad Bradford break through? He’s unveiled some serious policy proposals that should appeal to many voters across the city. Unfortunately, their very complicated ideas that are, frankly, confusingly described on his website. To cut through, they need to be simpler, more eye-level and bumper-sticker friendly.

Does he have time to get the message through as voting begins Tuesday?

The Horse Race

A number of new polls have been released since the last update on Sep. 18.

Mainstreet Research October 2 poll (conducted Sep. 28–29, 2026)

Not much change in the Mainstreet poll, but a slight decline for Chow and a slight rise for Bradford, apparently at the expense of Chris Alexander. It appears some of Alexander’s support has returned to the unnamed “Other” category. Margin of Error: +/- 3.1 percentage pts 19 times out of 20.

Vote Intention among Decided and Leaning voters:

Latest numbers in bold (last numbers from same pollster in parentheses)

• Olivia Chow 45.4% (down from 45.8%)

• Brad Bradford 38.3% (up from 37.7%)

• Chris Alexander 8.5% (down from 9.6%)

• Other 7.8% (up from 6.8%)

• Undecided 16.0% (down from 16.8%)

The poll actually broke down the “Other” category into three options: Sara McVie( 2.4%), Odessa Paloma Parker (2.1%), Another candidate (3.3%)

Forum Research September 25 Poll (Conducted Sep. 23)

Nothing much changed in this poll compared to the last Forum Poll conducted in July. Chris Alexander who was added in July as a “what if?” candidate is now a registered candidate. His speculative support has dropped noticeably. The issues tested in this poll suggest Bradford’s campaign messaging should resonate with voters. If he can get his message through. Margin of Error: +/- 4.0 percentage pts 19 times out of 20.

Vote Intention among Decided and Leaning voters:

Latest numbers in bold (last numbers from same pollster in parentheses)

• Olivia Chow 46% (down from 47%)

• Brad Bradford 35% (up from 32%)

• Chris Alexander 6% (down from 11%)

• Other 13% (up from 10%)

• Undecided N/A

Approve of Olivia Chow’s job as mayor:

• Approve 38% (down from 40%)

• Disapprove 43% (up from 42%)

• Neither 14% (up from 11%)

• Not Sure 4% (down from 8%)

Issues:

• 82% of respondents feel the Cost of Living in Toronto is getting worse.

• 53% think Housing Affordability is getting worse. 28% say it’s staying about the same.

• 54% think Crime and Safety is getting worse. 29% say it’s staying about the same.

• 66% think Traffic Congestion is getting worse. 23% say it’s about the same.

• 54% say Property Taxes are too high. 22% say they’re about right. 14% say too low.

Liaison Strategies September 30 poll (conducted Sep 26–27)

Again, no remarkable changes in the vote intention since the last Liaison poll. However, more slightly people think Toronto is moving in the right direction than in August, though Chow’s approval numbers have softened since the last poll. Margin of Error: +/- 3.1 percentage pts 19 times out of 20.

Vote Intention among Decided and Leaning voters:

Latest numbers in bold (last numbers from same pollster in parentheses)

• Olivia Chow 48% (down from 50% )

• Brad Bradford 39% (n/c)

• Chris Alexander 10% (n/c)

• Other 3% (up from 2%)

• Undecided 15% (down from 16% )

Approve of Olivia Chow’s job as mayor:

• Approve 49% (down from 52% in August)

• Disapprove 45% (up from 42% in August)

• Not Sure 5% (down from 6% in August)

Right Direction / Wrong Direction

• Right Direction 50% (up from 47% )

• Wrong Direction 43% (down from 48%)

• Not Sure 7% (up from 5%)

Older Polls

• Mainstreet Research September 18 poll.

• Liaison Strategies September 9 poll.

• Liaison Strategies August 20 poll.

• Liaison Strategies August 7 poll.

• Forum Research July 31 poll.

Analysis

Brad Bradford continues to struggle the make up ground with Olivia Chow and has been unable to earn the media coverage the incumbent mayor can take for granted. Liaison Strategies published an interesting piece of research looking at who’s winning the race for media attention in local mayoral races. In Toronto, Liaison says Olivia Chow is mentioned 46.6% of the time compared to Brad Bradford’s 32.9% and Chris Alexander’s 20.5%. Kudos to Alexander for getting coverage at all consider he was all but invisible for much of the campaign period.

David Valentin of Liaison notes that it’s routing for Chow to be out front as she receives coverage as a candidate – and as mayor for routine mayoral announcements. Which is unfair, but standard. Every smart incumbent manages their announceables to maximize their earned media during and leading up to a campaign. He also bemoans, fairly enough, that a good candidate with great ideas won’t gain traction with the public if she can’t get media to cover her campaign. True, but – if she is a good candidate she would have assembled a team and a strategy that would earn her the coverage a winner needs. That’s all part of the art and science of politics.

The Margin of Error on the published polls ranges from 3.1 to 4.0 percentage points – meaning you could conceivably add as much as 3-4% to one candidate’s numbers and/or subtract the same from another’s. So, this would still not be enough to swing victory Bradford’s way on counting errors alone. He will need to do something big to break through before election day. But ballots will start being cast Tuesday, so time is of the essence.

Have you changed your mind about who you’ll vote for? Will you vote on Election Day or before?

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Every(ish) Tuesday at 6:20 AM (Eastern) I join the host of Moore in the Morning on CFRB Newstalk1010 in Toronto for “The Morning Brief” to give my “hot takes” on the stories of the day. This is today’s crop.

Now with Audio – Check the Link at the bottom of the page!

Today’s Hot Takes

1. Would Brad Bradford’s plan to incorporate Toronto Water actually save money?

• Politically, this announcement targets Cost of Living which is the leading concern among Toronto residents, though some polls call it “affordability,” “affordable housing,” “taxes,” “size and cost of government,” etc. The second most pressing issue is crime and public safety. So, with this campaign plank, Brad Bradford is addressing the most pressing concern of voters. Chow’s knee-jerk response was to abhor the “privatization” of Toronto’s water supply. That plays well to her NDP followers who despise the private sector. We can expect her to trot out horror stories about Walkerton in 2000. Bradford is not proposing privatization.

• Toronto Water is currently operated as a self-funded, standalone entity within the City of Toronto. It’s a municipal department. Bradford is proposing it be spun off as a separate corporate entity that would be 100% owned by the City of Toronto – as is the case with Toronto Hydro. A number of other municipalities have already done this, including Edmonton.

• Toronto property taxes do not pay for water. All costs associated with providing water and sewer services, as well as basement flood mitigation infrastructure, are covered by a separate water bill. Toronto Water currently sets water rates to reflect the cost of providing water, and of replacing and maintaining the infrastructure, including pipes that are in some areas more than 100 years old and failing. It’s an enormous cost.

• In 2006, Toronto Water began a nine year program (“9 for 9”) of annual nine percent rate hikes to raise funds for infrastructure and flood proofing. When this program ended in 2014, rates had more than doubled (117%.) Toronto Council then approved follow on annual increases of between five to eight percent.

• This money flowed into reserve funds that grew to fund future capital costs. The city often couldn’t spend the money as fast as it was raised. There simply weren’t enough construction crews or equipment to do the work.

• City Council must still approve the rate hikes each year and the transfers to and from reserves – so it’s possible for council to monkey around with that money, though I am not aware if this ever happened. Certainly, it did not while I was in the mayor’s office for the 2011-2013 budgets.

• The reason Toronto uses this complicated reserve fund process is because Toronto can’t just borrow money like the provincial and federal governments (or private corporations) do. These other entities sell bonds into the bond market and make annual interest-only payments to bondholders, then repay the principal in full when the bonds come due. Often, they will simply sell another bond to raise the funds required to repay the first bond – meaning the debt continues to accumulate forever and the taxpayer just has to cough up the interest.

• Ontario law prevents municipalities from doing this. Instead, Toronto must set up a system of reserve funds (called “sinking funds”) and pay principial and interest into them just like a home mortgage. This makes for larger annual payments. But, it also means the city always has money to pay its debts when they’re due and will never go bankrupt.

• A separate Toronto Water utility would be able to borrow money on the bond market, and pay interest-only for the term of the bonds, like a private corporation. But, it would probably have to pay a higher interest rate compared to the city. So, there could be some savings on one hand – but, it may lead to other costs on the other.

2. Trump says he expects Canada to apologize to U.S., agree to ‘fair’ trade deal

• Good luck with that.

• It’s not about trade. Never has been. It’s about Trump using economic force (chaos) to force Canada to surrender and become part of the USA. Canada will never do that, so this fight will go on for some time.

• It also increasingly appears to be about Trump burning the fields and salting the Earth so the next administration will fail and he can say – “look, they couldn’t survive without me.”

3. Stelco to lay off 350 steelworkers at Hamilton plant

• This is horrible news for the workers and families involved. But, steel plants don’t exist to employ people. They exist to make steel. What’s strategically critical is that Canada have access to the steel it needs to build what needs building. And, that we can transform our valuable natural resources into even more valuable products the world will buy from us, helping to grow and fund our economy. It’s important to note modern manufacturing, of all kinds including steel, increasingly requires fewer workers to achieve the same ends.

• Canada produces about as much steel as it consumes each year. But we don’t produce all the types of steel we need. And, it’s expensive to ship long distance. This is the reason the federal government recently introduced some subsidizes for domestic shipping of steel from where it’s made to where it’s needed. Maybe not enough.

• I’m not sure whether this closure is part of Trump’s economic chaos strategy, or just a realignment of capacity to needs because Canada needs different types of steel than what’s produced in Hamilton. Certainly, there is less cross-border shipment of steel in our future than there has been in our past.

• There are some strategic industries that are critical to our success and we should not shy away from imposing sovereignty-protection regulations. Most countries do this, especially with military equipment and advanced technology. Steel is just as important. Perhaps there is a role for government intervention to force a sale of this plant to a non-US owner.

• But not to protect jobs. The important thing is to ensure Canada has affordable access to the steel and other products we need to succeed as a nation.

• Earlier generations of Canadians suffered through rationing and shortages and forced labour restructuring during WW1 and 2. We know there will be sacrifices. This is one of them. We will survive this. The prize is freedom and sovereignty.

4. No NHL games on free Canadian TV? This group thinks there should be a law against that

• I AM “We all watched Hockey Night in Canada for free” years old.

• For a country that jealously protects its culture through Canadian content rules and limitations on foreign ownership of broadcasters and other cultural industries, it’s a shame that many Canadians cannot afford to watch our own game. But, hockey is bigger than the NHL. The NHL has become a massive, largely US-based, business now.

• Maybe, we should have a Canadian professional hockey league of our own. We can even repatriate the Stanley Cup as its championship trophy. It belongs to Canada. Let the NHL compete for the “Trump America Cup.”

• Then again, we need to keep this in perspective. As much as I will miss watching the NHL on TV, there really is no “free TV” in Canada anymore.

5. Remote work is finally ending as the pandemic era fades

• Some people are as productive working from home as they are in the office. Others are not. But, teams of people are never as productive when they’re working remotely as they are when they work together. Studies have made this abundantly clear.

• Synergy – the whole is greater than the sum of the parts – doesn’t happen as much or as often in remote teams. Teams ping-pong ideas off each other. They learn from each other. Ideation works better in teams. Innovation from teams is superior to that from individuals.

• The threshold for interaction between people is much higher when working remotely. A doubt or question, “hey, is this right?” has to be bigger before someone will schedule a Zoom call to discuss it with a peer or supervisor. Questions go unasked. Ideas go unshared, then forgotten. Opportunities are missed.

• There’s less peer-to-peer learning in remote work environments. Most on-the-job learning doesn’t come from your supervisor or through formal training. It comes from your peers. With less opportunity for important career learning, there is slower skill growth and less career development. This hurts workers and it cripples organizations.

Or, just listen here:

Will you pay to watch the NHL on TV? Do you care who provides your water as long as its clean and safe? Will you miss remote work?

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Every(ish) Tuesday at 6:20 AM (Eastern) I join the host of Moore in the Morning on CFRB Newstalk1010 in Toronto for “The Morning Brief” to give my “hot takes” on the stories of the day. This is today’s crop.

Now with Audio – Check the Link at the bottom of the page!

Today’s Hot Takes

It’s the last day of summer!

1. New Liaison Strategies poll shows Toronto mayor’s race tightening.

• In a new poll released today, the race appears to be tightening a little bit:

  • Chow 47% (down from 50%)

  • Bradford 40% (up from 39%)

  • Chris Alexander 10% (n/c)

  • Someone else 3% (up from 2%).

• Affordability and Cost of Living remain the top of mind issue for most voters. Crime and Public Safety come next. Chow doesn’t do well on either set of issues. Bradford has been laser focused on these issues for over a year now.

• This is good news for Bradford, but the change remains within the margin of error so is certainly not definitive. This, and the Mainstreet poll released last week, show consistent results.

• The big loser remains Chris Alexander who doesn’t seem to be gaining any traction whatsoever. Basically, Alexander’s support has come entirely from those who picked “other” when given a choice between Chow or Bradford. He hasn’t pulled a single voter away from either serious candidate.

2. Toronto mayoral candidate Brad Bradford using app that feeds supporters AI-generated comments

• I don’t think the average voter cares what software campaigns use, what email client they use or what colour the office chairs are. What they care about is who the candidates are, what they’ve done in the past and what they’re promising to do in the future: which candidate will act in the voter’s best interest.

• I cynically note the criticism of this particular app in a number of stories and commentaries invariably describes it as a campaign tool “built by the Israeli company LogiVote.” The consistent description of it as an Israeli company smacks of an antisemitic bias – something that will appeal to far too many of Olivia Chow’s supporters.

• I’ve never worked with this app. From what I’ve read, it appears to automate the type of supporter-mobilization that has always been done on social media – asking supporters to amplify a candidate’s message to their own followers.

• This app targets those who are already enrolled as supporters of the campaign, making the process easier for the campaign and for the supporter.

3. Liberals introduce bill to amend Canada Labour Code

• I think this is a smart move. It has become almost impossible to deliver major projects in Canada due to the crippling red tape and navel gazing mandated by law. It’s time to clear the decks and get things done.

• What matters in labour disputes is that they be resolved – and that Canadians not be held hostage to negotiations. Binding arbitration gets things resolved.

• Nobody wants to invest in a major nation-building project that will be stuck in unpredictable reviews or at the mercy of a management–labour dispute for years. Investors want predictable.

4. Ontario to standardize truck driver training after scathing auditor general report

• Canada has a problem training and regulating professional drivers – who are responsible for operating massively large and potentially dangerous trucks and loads for long hours on long trips. We’ve all heard stories of poorly-trained, barely qualified drivers working too long and mishandling their machines, resulting in horrific accidents.

• It’s good to see governments doing something about this problem. Is this the right approach? I don’t know. But, making change requires changing things. We’ll see how this works out.

• That said, I’m not sure simply changing the curriculum will result in positive change. I think greater regulation of training providers may be more important. It is, apparently, too easy to cheat the current system and license drivers who shouldn’t be driving.

5. Trump says U.S. working on deal to buy potash from Belarus instead of Canada

• Like all things Trump, this new plan is less than it appears.

• Belarus is a Russian vassal state deeply involved in the war against Ukraine. It’s subject to international sanctions, including sanctions by the USA. It says a lot about the current US government that it would rather do business with and enemy than with a friend.

• But, Belarus apparently doesn’t have any extra potash available to sell the USA. So, this plan may not go far.

• Once again, USA is the author of its own troubles. It started the war with Iran that closed the Straight of Hormuz – choking off a major source of potash. And it started an economic war with Canada, potentially choking off the world’s biggest exporter of potash just next door.

• As always, the Trump administration remains all tactics, strategy.

6. Canada’s longest-serving mayor is 89-year-old and running for office in Milton for the 22nd time

• I’m not sure any of us owes a duty to the next generation to get out of their way just because someone younger wants our job. Clearly, voters in Milton like Gord Krantz enough to keep re-electing him. They have the right to choose the mayor they want and they keep choosing him. When they don’t want him any more, I presume they’ll vote for someone else.

• That said, some politicians just can’t imagine doing anything else. Entropy sets in and they just keep doing what they’ve always done: running again. Their egos often can’t imagine anyone else doing what they do, certainly not as well as they do it.

• I once asked Rob Ford why he wanted to run for re-election as mayor – a job he clearly seemed to not enjoy. Eventually, I came to believe even though he didn’t like the job, he really didn’t like the idea of anyone else doing it instead of him.

Or, just listen here:

Do you think old politicians should put themselves out to pasture to make room for a younger breed? Have you stayed in a job longer than you should have? Do you know or care what software a political campaign uses?

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Does the first new poll released after the mayoral debates began suggest there’s any major movement in the Toronto mayor’s race? And, did he or didn’t he? Ontario Premier Doug Ford answers the endorsement question.

Ford weighs out

After yesterday’s “did he or didn’t he” debate about …

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Ontario Premier Doug Ford weighed in on the Toronto mayor’s race. But who will benefit from his nod to a champion? No new polls have been released this week, but one usual suspect has f…

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Every(ish) Tuesday at 6:20 AM (Eastern) I join the host of Moore in the Morning on CFRB Newstalk1010 in Toronto for “The Morning Brief” to give my “hot takes” on the stories of the day. This is today’s crop.

Now with Audio – Check the Link at the bottom of the page!

Today’s Hot Takes

1. Candidates spar over transit, public safety at Toronto’s 1st mayoral debate

• Like most people, I did not watch the debate. Instead, I paid close attention to the coverage and commentary emerging from the debate. Which is what most people see and hear, and how most people frame their opinions.

• The big winner of the night appears to be Neil Hetherington and The Daily Bread Food Bank who ran a good, well-attended event. Hetherington’s quick draw segment where candidates were given a yes/no paddle and told to use it to answer rapid fire yes/no questions – with no commentary, just the paddles was amusing and generated some fun clips of Olivia Chow looking befuddled.

• Chris Alexander won by being there. But it was clear the room was not packed with his supporters. Does he have any? Why is he in the race? Still, no clear answers.

• Overall, by all somewhat impartial accounts, it was a good night for Brad Bradford. He had supporters. He made decisions in the rapid-fire session. He communicated his message effectively.

• It was also a good night for Chow, in front of a strong cohort of supporters on a topic tailor made for her brand of politics. Still, she struggled, as she always does, to make her points. She is not a great communicator though still connects with voters in a surprisingly effective way as is evidenced by her strong poll and favourability numbers. In this way she reminds me of Rob Ford who often stumbled over his words, but always conveyed his meaning effectively even if he used the wrong words.

2. Mark Carney courting foreign money at his investment summit and why that could risk an ‘investment invasion’

• This is a huge win for Mark Carney – it’s a major flex to be able to fill a room with $130T worth of money – and insist only CEOs could attend. I don’t know of any other Canadian PM who could make that happen.

• There is real political peril for him, though, if not much comes of this effort. It’s a risk. I respect that. Leaders take and manage risks. With taking risks, there are no rewards. But, he’s set a high bar and will be measured against it. If he fails to generate $1 Trillion in new foreign direct investment, he will have failed.

• There is some righteous criticism about who these investors are and what the terms of investment will be. Canada is in the fight of its life for sovereignty. Fending off US aggression will be for naught if we lose control of critical assets and infrastructure to foreign interests – especially those owned in the US.

• The devil, as always, is in the details. This government’s greatest weakness is in its lack of transparency. If Canadians don’t clearly see what’s going on and who is buying what, on what terms, this could be a disaster for the Carney government.

3. Federal government expected to announce legislation on future of Canadian airports

• Canada’s major airports have been “quasi-privatized” for over a decade. They’re run on leased Crown land by notionally arms-length non-profit corporations. It’s easy to wonder who “owns them” and whose interests they serve.

• Should airports be sold off and run privately? That would be one way to raise the immense capital required for major upgrades and expansions. But, they would have to be closely regulated, and our governments have failed of late to regulate the systems they’re responsible for. Canadians are right to be skeptical.

• Airports are critical public infrastructure. We are a few people spread across a massive landmass. Without affordable, reliable, safe and convenient air travel, we cannot hold this nation together. Air transportation is a strategic national industry.

• If we are concerned about sovereignty and losing control of Canada to the USA or another state – what about losing control of our critical infrastructure? Airports are critical public infrastructure. Look at how upset Ontarians remain about Highway 407 which is managed by a private corporation, largely for profit. If airports can be privately owned, can they be privately sold? To whom? If so, why not all our highways, roads, bridges and other infrastructure?

4. Judge rules ‘colonialism’ caused First Nations man to become deadly driver

• This is why Canadians have increasingly lost faith in their justice system.

• A 12-year old girl is dead because a man drank enough beer to fill his truck with empties, then sped through a 50km/h zone at 90km/h and made no attempt to brake before slamming head-on into another vehicle in which she was a passenger. The court’s sentence of 24 months of house arrest is just spitting on this girl’s grave. The maximum sentence for this crime is 14 years in prison.

• The Crown requested a prison sentence of four years, which Judge Gethin Edward framed as a government effort to rob the accused of his heritage. Apparently, Judge Edward believes Canada’s First Nations people are, by their nature, drunken killers. I disagree. I think most First Nations people I know would also.

5. YRP shares video of officer’s NFL-worthy sneak tackle of motorcyclist

• Good for this cop. This was classic, great, old school police work. The officer did what needed to be done to resolve this situation by taking this guy down in a way that did not put the public or the perpetrator at undue risk. The officer put himself at risk of physical injury in a way that cops used to do all the time. This cop deserves an award for smart thinking and effective police work.

• At the beginning of the video you can hear cops on the radio doing their homework, asking are we sure this is the guy? Are we sure he knew you were trying to pull him over? Yes, I pulled up beside him and pointed to the parking lot and told him to pull over. He gave me the finger and shook his head. Now he’s sitting on the side of the road taunting us.

• If you’ve seen any videos of UK cops taking down motorcycle thieves and e-bike thieves, this was kid glove treatment.

Or, just listen here:

Do you approve of the police officer tackling the scofflaw biker? Should Canada privatize its airports? What do you think of Carney’s trillion-dollar investment plan?

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Note: The original and email edition of today’s post contained an error in the polling results that included numbers from a previous poll. The online post has been corrected.

Election Day

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Every(ish) Tuesday at 6:20 AM (Eastern) I join the host of Moore in the Morning on CFRB Newstalk1010 in Toronto for “The Morning Brief” to give my “hot takes” on the stories of the day. This is today’s crop.

Today’s Hot Takes

1. Can Canada stop the U.S. trade war from escalating? Or should it lean in even harder?

• President Trump is, to use his own phrase, “a very low-IQ person” who surrounds himself with people even dumber or more ignorant (or both) than himself. It makes him feel good. But, it means there are no adults in the room where his decisions are made.

• So, it’s no surprise he’s targeting Bombardier for punishment, even though doing so will cost USA thousands of jobs and billions of dollars. He doesn’t care. He didn’t think about it before he vomited the idea out into the memeverse. So, it’s policy now. Frankly, if it destroys the Republican Party and the US economy, he sees that as a bonus. He will be overjoyed to look back at the destruction in two years time and say, “See! Everything fell apart without me.”

• REMEMBER: Donald Trump doesn’t want a trade deal. He wants to annex Canada using economic force and the threat of military force. So, nothing Canada could agree to short of annexation will be enough for him.

• Canada does 71% of its export business with USA. That’s down from 75% recently. Moving in the right direction, but slowly. A business that relies on one customer for 75% of its sales is not a business – it’s an employee. Canada absolutely cannot afford to accept any trade deal that would increase the amount of trade (as a percentage of all our trade) we do with USA.

• So, we must rag the puck while massively accelerating our defence industry and activating new trade deals with foreign markets. We need to shift our economy to intangible products that can ship worldwide, tariff-free, by wire: services, intellectual property, etc. Things that can be accelerated rapidly and don’t suffer from long physical supply lines.

2. Donald Trump spent the weekend attacking Canada on social media

• It’s hard to know if this is chaos as a weapon, or just rapidly advancing mental illness.

• Or, is it intentional conditioning before warfare. It’s effectively pitting Canadians and others against the USA – making the US the poster child for rogue, pariah states. MAGA fans are now actively hating Canada. Canadians are increasingly recognizing the US as a threat, even as an enemy.

• In a video of Trump beating Mark Carney with a hockey stick, Trump (true to form) has his name on both sides of his sweater because he doesn’t play for a team. It’s all about him. I also enjoyed the meme of him sitting at his Oval Office desk buying and selling stocks. A little too on the nose for someone who’s pocketed billions of dollars since assuming office the second time. Though, he captioned it to suggest he was buying and selling stocks “for the USA.”

3. 41% of Canadians Now See the United States as an Enemy

• If it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, it’s an enemy. These Canadians are not wrong. They’re seeing the distasteful and regrettable writing on the wall. The US is acting like our enemy. We must see them as they are. The US president declared war on Canada on Jan. 7, 2025. His words were clear. His actions since then have consistently backed them up.

• Before most democracies go to war, they normally invest time stirring up public anger against the enemy, dehumanizing them, stoking hatred and support for killing them. Democracies have rarely gone to war with other democracies. So, riling up the population to support an unprovoked attack on a democratic neighbour could very well further destabilize the tottering democracy in the USA.

• This is happening now in the USA. In the clown show that is Washington today, it is being done by amateurish memes targeting Canada. But not just memes.

  Trump is increasingly invoking threats of military force – and his proxies are talking about Canada’s military being nonexistent or weak and how they can destroy us at will.

• It may be time to invoke Article 4 of the NATO Charter to consult with our allies over the clear and present threats USA is making to Canada’s sovereignty and security. I’m not sure what would happen if we did – it’s never been done before when the threat is coming from inside the alliance. Would it be popcorn farts? Would it prompt an escalation in Washington? Maybe it’s a good thing I’m not the decider!

• But, let’s be clear. The USA is the only imminent military threat to Canada. And its growing instability has caused me to revisit my opinion about the F35 and the Gripen fighter purchases. I now believe we should rip up the F35 contract. We are most likely to get into a shooting war with the USA. Flying the F35 won’t help us in that fight. It’s far more useful as a strategic leverage in managing the US government.

4. Sapporo beer moving production to U.S. from Canada after tariffs

• Probably a reasonable tactical response by Sapporo in the short term – to abandon the Canadian market for the much larger US market. But, we should make it clear that’s what they’re doing.

• Provinces with government-run liquor stores should pull Sapporo products off the shelf immediately. For those that don’t, the federal government should tariff the hell out their beer.

• We can live without Japanese beer. This is war, there will be casualties. This is an easy one.

• Sadly for Canada, we have lost control of our most iconic national beer and booze brands. They’re all owned by multinational conglomerates now. This war should be a boon for local brews interested in growing to reach regional and national markets.

5. It’s back to school season. Here’s why there’s a push to get rid of cars at dropoff and pickup

• This is a weird initiative. First off, important to note it’s being championed by a save-the-Earth environmental activist group. It’s not about education, or kids health, or safety. It’s about soapbox environmentalism and a feckless attempt to get rid of cars.

• That said, it prompts some useful reflection. At some point, kids have to get to school somehow. The question is: how?

• Most kids live within walking district of a school. If we didn’t have “specialty” schools – this one for Catholics, that one for Protestants, the next one for artists, another for math wizards – almost every kid would be able to walk to the school nearest them.

• And, those kids should walk to school. We coddle our kids (and ourselves) too much and it leads to children and parents who are forever co-dependent. We learn to be independent in small bites. I walked to Kindergarten. It was terrifying the first two days. Then, I enjoyed being by myself for a short time each day. And, I made friends with other kids who walked the same distance. And it was a huuuuge distance. Later, as an adult, I visited my old neighbourhood and was stunned to see they’d moved my school closer to my old house. It was three houses away. My mom mad a smart risk management decision.

• Kids who simply cannot walk to school in a reasonable amount of time will end up being driven to school. There are options. More should take public transit where it’s an option. Vastly more affordable than school buses. Some will be bused. But schoolbus kids should be those who live well beyond walking distance. In Toronto, there seem to be so many specialty schools that battalions of school buses shuttle kids back and forth around the city, often passing two or three other schools en route. Madness.

• The rest will be driven by parents – or, as they reach high school years, some will drive themselves and their friends. For these kids, we created designated “drop off zones” so parents wouldn’t dump their kids in the street. That was too dangerous. Drop zones were safer. We made them mandatory. God forbid a parent didn’t use them. Now, we want to ban them?

• The “School Streets” option seems to suggest parents should load their kids into the car and then drive them to a street where the school isn’t – and drop them there to hike the rest of the way. Nobody has time for that. That is not going to happen.

Did you walk to school? Do your kids? Has the US made itself Canada’s enemy?

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Every(ish) Tuesday at 6:20 AM (Eastern) I join the host of Moore in the Morning on CFRB Newstalk1010 in Toronto for “The Morning Brief” to give my “hot takes” on the stories of the day. This is today’s crop.

Today’s Hot Takes

1. Liberals sweep all three byelections, holds onto majority

• No surprises in who won. The only interesting bits were who came second and who didn’t really place at all. Overall, it was bad day in Quebec for Pierre Poilievre and the Conservative Party who fell tragically from first to third place. The PQ held its own at second. The Liberals won handily. The tea leaves: Poilievre and the CPC simply aren’t seen as a credible alternative government right now.

• It was also bad news all around for the NDP in how poorly they performed everywhere. Even with a new leader, they just do not resonate with Canadians.

2. Poll suggests we may be ready to sustain the costs of our newfound defiance

• I think Canadians are resolved to stand up to the current threat from the USA and understand there will be some sacrifices. That’s what Canadians do when pushed. We’ve done it before. We can do it again. We will.

• That said, as Mike Tyson so poetically explained, “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.” The number of Canadians willing to put their lives on the line or sign up and serve in the military will soften as the possibility of armed conflict grows. Until, it starts. Then, Canadians will take up whatever arms are left among them to fight oppressors where they find them.

• We will need strong, inspiring leadership from politicians and community leaders. We will need messaging, ritual and symbolism – and popular culture to carry us through. We have no recent experience in producing these leaders and this symbolism. We’ll have to learn fast.

• Because it’s fight or die time.

3. Pete Hegseth mocks Canadian Cadets – Scott Bessent mocks Military

• Pete Hegseth is a failed soldier who was drummed out of the National Guard as a disgrace to the uniform. His own book explains what happened. He could not leave his partisanship aside in a business that demands impartial professionalism. He didn’t have any. They turfed him as a result. He’s been trying to prove he’s the bigger dick ever since.

• The picture he mocked is of a very fit looking young woman army cadet (who are youth aged 13-18) and one of her adult instructors. Neither are soldiers. Both are volunteers. Neither are expected to serve in conflict. Neither are required to maintain any level of fitness.

• The Cadet Instructor Cadre, bless them all, are basically scout leaders and den mothers in hand-me-down military uniforms. the Cadet program does not train soldiers. It helps develop better citizens. Through its association with Canada’s Army, Navy and Air Force, it hopes to encourage young Canadians to take an interest in military service. In that, I would argue, it rarely succeeds. Others would disagree. No one would argue it doesn’t do a good job of imbuing Canadian youth with the attributes of strong citizenship.

• Once you start calling people names, or renaming their lakes, you’ve lost the argument. I used to smile every time people attacked Rob Ford with a fat joke. It always meant he’d won the test. I used to counsel columnists at the Sun not to use derogatory pet names for politicians because it deflated their arguments, and otherwise open-minded readers would immediately tune out their opinions.

• Usually the people you choose to mock, and the way you mock them, tells the world a lot about your own lack of self-confidence. People who call others “fat” are often ashamed how they look. People who say others “are low-IQ” are, well… you get the point. Or, you don’t, in which case… ‘nuff said.

• Before WW1 and 2 Canada had no military to speak of. On the eve of war, that changed and by 1945, Canada had the third largest navy on Earth, almost one million in an army that had helped free the world from tyranny, and had trained most of the Commonwealth pilots.

• It’s always best to be underestimated by the enemy. The US mockage reveals their fear of what Canada could do if it decides to.

• Don’t forget: The US has not won a single, serious foreign war by itself – ever.

4. Toronto-Quebec high-speed rail project could cost $150-billion over 40 years, document shows

• No surprises here. Major public infrastructure projects always cost more and take longer than predicted. Yet, the money for them is always there.

• In part, this is a function of how we account for things – especially at the federal level. Defence, for example includes all the future costs of operating equipment, labour, etc. It’s like buying a $50,000 vehicle for your bakery and adding to the tab all future parts, service, insurance, fuel, parking, driver training, licensing and hourly labour to the cost estimate. Your $50,000 car now comes in at $250,000 for its total lifetime cost. Nobody would ever buy a car if we all accounted for the cost that way. Yet, that’s how we buy tanks, trucks, jets and submarines.

• It’s also because we demand to know, before the plans are even finalized, what the cost estimate is. We insist politicians tell me “how much?” a subway will cost on the day they announce “let’s build a subway.” At that point, precisely zero work has been done. So, they estimate high – and that high guess sets the negotiating floor for bidders on the project.

• We are our own worst enemies.

5. Ontario’s new cash bail system on hold after judge grants injunction

• No surprise here. Every change to our justice system is always litigated. In this case, the real dispute is over who gets to change the rules of bail, and what exactly this change is changing. The federal government gets to choose under what conditions judges grant bail. But, the provinces are responsible for collecting money posted for bail. I can see an argument Ontario is just changing how and when it collects the surety. In advance, instead of in arrears (which in practice means not at all.)

• If Ontario is not allowed to do this, the answer is simple: give fewer people bail. Keep more people in jail awaiting trial. That’s justice for you.

Are you ready for the fray? Are you ready for the sacrifice that may be required to maintain Canada’s sovereignty? Do you believe any budget projections offered by government for major infrastructure programs?

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Every(ish) Tuesday at 6:20 AM (Eastern) I join the host of Moore in the Morning on CFRB Newstalk1010 in Toronto for “The Morning Brief” to give my “hot takes” on the stories of the day. This is today’s crop.

Today’s Hot Takes

1. Doug Ford spends his Monday trolling Donald Trump

• Doug Ford knows how to channel what the average guy is thinking. And, he says it out loud. He’s brilliant at it – and still makes Donald Trump look uncouth in comparison.

• One of my first interactions with Doug Ford involved him asking me to play “good cop,” “bad cop” with him in a discussion with a potential campaign manager. He played good cop. I was assigned bad cop. He’s much better at bad cop.

• I think Ford is playing an important role in the negotiations with the USA. The role Howard Lutnik plays for Trump. Ford does it in a way that makes you love him. Lutnik does it in a way that makes your skin crawl.

2. Never mind the insults. It’s time for Canada to hit the U.S. where it really hurts

• Trump did not impose tariffs on energy, potash, or critical minerals. The USA needs these things and he knows it, though he will insist the US doesn’t need anything from Canada. Imposing an export tax that would be paid by US buyers, not Canadian producers, is an option we should consider. Better to tax the US clients than a put a counter tariff on US goods coming into Canada – that is a tax on Canadians.

• This would leave US consumers paying for Trump’s tariffs – 50% on $28 Billion of Canadian goods – plus higher costs for Canadian energy, minerals and potash. Put the monkey on Trump’s back.

• This would enrage Trump, but leave him in a pickle: he’d have to admit the US needs the things we would be taxing. He would respond with even more, even higher tariffs on imports from Canada. So, this tactic comes with some risk. But, here’s the rub: he is going to do this anyway. That’s what he does.

• We should also consider using some of our 5% of GDP for Defence commitment to build a “National Strategic Reserve” of oil and potash – so we never run out, even in an emergency, and can somewhat mitigate international price fluctuations. Canada doesn’t have an oil reserve. The US does. So, they recognize its strategic importance. Unfortunately for the US, this would temporarily divert oil and potash away from the USA to fill up the new Canadian reserves. The bonus for Canadian producers, is they’d still get paid market value for their products. No loss for them. But highly noticeable in the USA.

3. Canada Said No to America. It Will Reverberate Far Beyond Its Borders

• We should take the empty shelves out of our liquor stores and build a modern art monument to our Independence Day – with a giant US bourbon bottle upended at the top, pouring water down over the structure like a public fountain. It’s time for our Boston Tea Party. Pour the plonk into Lake Ontario.

• I think some of the “lesser powers” who have been victimized by Trump’s predatory tariffs may be emboldened by Canada’s resistance. I hope so. I also hope we’re aggressively leading some backroom conversations with these other nations, encouraging them to join the resistance. It isn’t futile. We will not be assimilated.

• Canada should also look at selling some of our US Treasuries. They’re under stress and Mark Carney, better than most prime ministers, would know what we can do with our US dollar reserves that would have an impact. Bankers and investors are funny lot. They like to run in packs. It could be they’re all waiting for someone else to go first.

4. New figures show teen gambling has been rising in Ontario

• The ads look so cool. As if you’re James Bond in a tuxedo at the Casino in Monaco playing Baccarat with a brace of beautiful women feeding you martinis. It’s a seductive image. In reality, though, you’re sitting in your underwear in the basement, pouring crumbs from yesterday’s potato chip bag into your mouth. Most of them miss the target.

• The ads are hyper glitzy and appealing. And they’re ubiquitous. You simply cannot escape them. Meanwhile, we aggressively regulate advertising and promotions for other “sin” products such as tobacco, cannabis and alcohol. It’s illegal to make your cigarette or weed packaging look cool. Or, even identifiable. Alcohol brands cannot sponsor sport or entertainment events and venues. I’m loathe to recommend limitations on marketing legal products – but the cat is well out of that bag. It’s what we do. Why don’t we do it with online gaming?

• I’ve never gambled online. Presumably, doing so requires some means of payment – and identification under anti-money laundering and know-your-customer regulations. How do underage gamblers ante up, buy in or get paid? Do they use false IDs?

• Education plays an important role here. The odds are never in your favour – or they couldn’t afford to run the sites. Perhaps this should be added to Ontario’s plan for its “financial literacy” curriculum in high schools.

Do you gamble online? Legally or illegally? Are you thumbs up or thumbs down on Doug Ford’s “Kiss my ass” trash talk?

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Election Day

Election Day in Toronto’s upcoming municipal election is: October 26, 2026. Advance voting will happen from October 6 – 11.

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Every(ish) Tuesday at 6:20 AM (Eastern) I join the host of Moore in the Morning on CFRB Newstalk1010 in Toronto for “The Morning Brief” to give my “hot takes” on the stories of the day. This is today’s crop.

Today’s Hot Takes

1. Poll shows Canadians aren’t in a bargaining mood when it comes to trade talks with the US

• Canadians are right. We’re in a fighting mood, as we should be. We’re in a fight. And, it’s not going to get better before it gets harder. But, Canadians have won existential fights before.

• Meanwhile, Mark Carney is in a sticky situation. If he concedes a single comma to Trump, his extended political honeymoon will end fast and hard. And almost any concession will be seen as a capitulation. He’s in a tough spot.

• Canadians understand Trump is not negotiating. He doesn’t want a deal with Canada. His objectives with Canada are unique. The tariffs and trade attacks he’s launching at Canada are not like the others.

• He wants to own Canada. On Jan. 7, 2025 – before he was sworn in as president the second time – he said he would use economic force to annex Canada and make it part of the US. That is his goal. That’s what he’s trying to do. Declaring you’re going to eliminate a sovereign nation and subjugate its citizens is a declaration of war. Plain and simple.

• Trump’s using on-again, off-again tariffs and threats to destabilize and weaken our economy. To make it easier to conquer us. He uses tantrums and out-of-the-blue, ever-changing, chaotic demands for this-and-that, to exhaust and distract us from what we should be doing. In the army we called it harassing fire.

• It’s working. Canada is focusing on the wrong thing. We don’t need a deal. We have a deal. It’s got 10 more years on it. We need to manage our economy. We need to grow our business with markets outside USA. Our goal is to shrink the percentage of our economy dependent on the US. Yes, this will take time.

• For the fools amongst you, let me say it again: this doesn’t mean we stop trading with the USA. It means we strategically grow our business elsewhere so the US becomes a smaller and smaller slice of our sales.

• As a nation, we have made stupid decisions. We have been lazy. We’ve let one customer become responsible for 75% of our sales. That’s bad for business. It’s stupid. It will take time to fix it. It will hurt. The best time to start was a generation ago. The second best time is now.

• Canada has never depended on the USA for defence. But we have allowed our economy to become too dependent on US sales.

2. John Tavares is in court contesting that he should pay taxes on his singing bonus

• It’s very hard for me to care much about this. It’s hard for anyone to side with the taxman on anything. So much of what they do and the decisions they make seem capricious and arbitrary. But, it’s also hard to feel much sympathy for someone who’s making that kind of money to play a game.

• But, if I had to pick sides, I’d support Tavares.

3. Brad Bradford pushes for mandatory drug rehab

• He’s in good company on this, including among police chiefs across Canada and the NDP premier of B.C. The province that brought us InSite, Canada’s first ever supervised injection site, wants to force addicts into treatment. They’re on the right side of this social catastrophe.

• Canada treats tuberculosis patients whether they want it or not. Because it’s in the best interests of both the patient and society. Infectious diseases pose a threat to us all. We should care at least as much about the tens of thousands of Canadians, our friends and family members, who suffer so horribly from addiction that their lives are at dire risk.

• They need help. Whether they want it or not. Untreated, they are a threat to society far greater than tuberculosis patients. Addicts need to use. They can’t keep jobs. Drugs cost money. So, they resort to crime and violence to cobble together enough cash to score. We all complain about crime in our cities. The vast majority of that crime is driven by drug addiction.

• But, treating addiction is far harder than treating tuberculosis. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. Addicts can’t live without drugs. When they have them, they use them. Right then and there. When they’re high, they don’t want help. But, the high doesn’t last long. Soon, they need to use more and more of their drug of choice to find the euphoria they’re chasing. This leads to more and more crime. Eventually, no amount of the drug can make them feel the joy they sought – it just dulls the pain. Without the drug, the pain of withdrawal is unbearable.

• In withdrawal, addicts will often accept help in the form of detox. You can force people into detox if you’re willing to lock them in. Detox is the first treatment addicts require. It helps them survive withdrawal. Maybe it reduces the pain a bit. But, when they’re through it, they feel better. They feel normal. At that point, many addicts fool themselves into thinking they can get sober on their own. They’re almost always wrong. They need rehab.

• Rehab is harder. It requires active and willing participation. It’s hard to force compliance, even in a captive audience. Given the risk of harm to the addicts and society at large, thought, it’s worth a try.

• The key problem is that we have not invested wisely. We have too few detox and rehab facilities. And, often, they’re in different places. If addicts have to leave detox to go to rehab, many will get lost on the way. Too often, availability doesn’t line up and as soon as there’s a gap in treatment, it’s too easy to fall back into using. Detox and Rehab need to be collocated. And we need a hundred times more of them than we have. Especially if it’s going to be mandatory.

• Addicts then need support in recovery. We could probably fund much of this entire effort with the money saved from reduced crime.

• The political problem with Bradford’s promise is addiction treatment is healthcare, a provincial responsibility. Toronto has a long history of stepping up to provide partial solutions to problems that rightly belong to other levels of government, allowing those governments to stand back and leave city taxpayers to carry the bill forever.

4. The Star runs a forensic audit on riding association spending and finds cabinet ministers like throwing big parties

• This is a canard. More likely than not, this bothers you if it’s spending by a party you don’t like. And not otherwise.

• If you’re arguing for the elimination of tax deductions for political donations, make your case. There’s an argument on both sides. Democracy isn’t free.

• If you’re arguing for the elimination of the per voter grant to political parties, I’ll agree with you. Not everyone will. There’s pros and cons.

• But, unless you’re arguing for both of these, you shouldn’t care what parties spend their money on as long as it’s legal. Once the money goes into the pot, nobody can tell which dollar came from which source. All of it or none of it came from you, depending on whether you approve of the expense.

5. Doctors sound the alarm as anti-vaxxers convince more parents to not have their babies receive a vitamin K shot

• Skipping vitamin K increases the risk of infant death. Before vaccines and other modern medicines became commonplace, one in five newborns died in infancy. The miracles of modern medicine have reduced that to about four in 1,000. Science is real. Medicine works.

• Public Health authorities should be laser-focused on educating and influencing people to support vaccines. They need to stop wasting time playing petty politics on issues that shouldn’t involve them.

6. Parallel parking competitions spring up as more and more cars self park

• People have too much free time! And, where are they finding places to park? Certainly, not in Toronto.

• I enjoy driving. It’s fun. It requires skill. I will never want to just sit back and let a machine (or a chauffeur) drive me. It would be nice to know I can get to work or the hills when the AI in the sky drops dead.

Do you support mandatory treatment for drug addicts? Are you on Team Tavares or Team Taxman? Do you enjoy driving?

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