iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Yeah, that’s basically it. It’s always an arbitrary decision about where to set the cutoff for a “serious candidate.” I wish there was a more objective method.

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Fascinating UofT School of Cities project on the correlation between neighbourhood characteristics and mayoral vote over the last few decades. Looking at the strongest positive correlations for Olivia Chow voting areas in 2023 sure tells a tale. schoolofcities.github.io/place-and-po...

A data visualization showing Pearson correlation coefficients between neighborhood characteristics from the 2021 census and voting for Olivia Chow in the 2023 election, with blue bars indicating positive correlations and red indicating negative correlations.

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There’s been a tendency for some media to run with “the race is tightening” headlines after every recent poll release, but our model has actually shown Chow’s chances going up slightly with the last few polls. projection.cityhallwatcher.com/polls/

Line chart showing how three candidates' winning probabilities changed over time based on poll releases from August 22 to September 30, 2026, with Olivia Chow trending upward around 75%, Brad Bradford declining to about 20%, and Chris Alexander remaining near 0%.

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A couple of new polls — from Canada Pulse and Liaison — have been added to City Hall Watcher’s election projection section, and the result is… minimal change. projection.cityhallwatcher.com

Election forecast chart showing Olivia Chow favored to win with 77% likelihood over Bradford, displaying three scenarios: Chow ahead by 2+ points (73%), within 2 points (7%), or Bradford ahead by 2+ points (20%).

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🎁 Gift link: www.thestar.com/gift-redeem?...

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My @thestar.com column: Brad Bradford and Chris Alexander talk about Toronto's budget like it's some mystery we need outside experts to solve. But the mayor's spending record is all public, and tells a simple story of priorities. No mystery. Just math. www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...

Matt Elliott: There’s no mystery behind Mayor Olivia Chow’s budget record — there’s just math

Lately, the leading candidates taking on Mayor Olivia Chow in the race for mayor have taken to referring to the city’s budget like it’s some great cosmic mystery. A riddle

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There’s obviously a big risk in rocking the boat and setting up a new corp, too. Transitions are hard. Costs are totally different too. The current Toronto Water General Manager makes $319K a year. The Toronto Hydro CEO makes more than $1 million, including bonus.

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I’ll give Bradford some points for at least proposing a novel idea with this water corp stuff, but it feels a bit out of nowhere. Toronto’s water bills aren’t exactly crushingly high relative to other municipalities. And the water department is generally regarded as a well-run part of city hall.

Two bar charts comparing GTHA 2025 residential and industrial water costs across municipalities, showing consumption and fixed charges for residential usage at 230 m3/year and industrial usage at 1,000,000 m3.

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Matt Elliott @graphicmatt.com · 28/09/2026

After announcing a plan to lower water bills by spinning up a water utility corporation yesterday, Bradford today says he’ll ALSO use dividends from the new corp to help pay for a huge cut to the land transfer tax. He’s putting a whole lot of faith in the water.

Cost and funding: the exemption reduces Municipal Land Transfer Tax revenue by approximately $300 million a year. It is fully funded through Bradford’s plan outlined yesterday to modernize Toronto’s budget. This includes changes to amortize capital projects over their useful life instead of funding them from the current year’s operating budget and through dividends received from the city’s new 100% publicly-owned water utility announced yesterday.

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Check your inbox: it’s City Hall Watcher #403! Time to go to budget school! In this week’s newsletter, a list of all the wrong and right ways to talk about Toronto’s budget. Plus: Campaign Chaos has robots, karaoke and missing councillors. toronto.cityhallwatcher.com/p/all-the-wr...

toronto.cityhallwatcher.com

All the wrong ways to talk about Toronto’s budget

City Hall Watcher #403: A look at the complex and confusing nature of Toronto’s annual spending plan, plus campaign chaos considers missing councillors, robots, and karaoke

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Matt Elliott @graphicmatt.com · 26/09/2026

The Bradford campaign has deleted their original tweet to fix the number in the background of the image, but they have not fixed the bigger error: for an accurate comparison, the 2026 figure should be $16.6 billion, not $18.9 billion.

Revised Bradford tweet, with same text but a new image that shows $18.9 billion in the background.

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That matches my math pretty much exactly.

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projection.cityhallwatcher.com

A new Forum Research Poll has been added to City Hall Watcher’s election projection site: Chow 46% Bradford 35% Alexander 6% Other 13% No change to @alexo.bsky.social's projection. projection.cityhallwatcher.com/polls/

Polls — Toronto 2026

Every public mayoral poll and the reported trend.

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Also, wait: it seems the Bradford campaign should know the 2026 number in the tweet is wrong because the graphic's background says $16.6 billion? What is even going on.

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Also what does “open the books” even mean in this context? The budget process is very public. It’s not like the actual budget is kept in some secure facility somewhere. You can look now, if you’re nerdy enough.

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Matt Elliott @graphicmatt.com · 23/09/2026

To do the math here you first have to fix a basic error: Bradford’s 2026 figure includes the rate budget (garbage, water, parking) but his 2011 figure does not. Real numbers: $9.4 billion in 2011; $16.6 billion in 2026. Now account for ~800K population growth and ~40% inflation.

A Twitter post by Brad Bradford criticizing NDP Mayor Olivia Chow's statement dismissing the need for a budget audit, featuring a meme with the text 'WHY WON'T she LOOK?' overlaid on an image of Mayor Chow.

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Fair point! Yeah, Alex and I are still trying to figure out how exactly to handle that poll because it’s got a different methodology than the others.

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Matt Elliott @graphicmatt.com · 23/09/2026

Three polls added in recent days to City Hall Watcher’s election projection and, despite some “polls are tightening!” headlines about the mayoral race, things are looking… pretty flat. projection.cityhallwatcher.com

Line chart showing polling percentages over time from June 25 to September 26 for three candidates: Olivia Chow (purple, ~35-50%), Brad Bradford (green, ~10-40%), and Chris Alexander (orange, ~8-12%), with individual data points and trend lines.

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(Can't live-tweet the mayoral debate tonight because I'm on bedtime duty, so consider this a substitute thread!)

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toronto.cityhallwatcher.com

Ultimately, the city still faces money trouble because the New Deal was largely focused on capital relief, and provided only a few years of operating funding for some specific services. More in this week’s edition of City Hall Watcher. toronto.cityhallwatcher.com/p/quantifyin...

Quantifying Council’s chatterboxes — and quietest members

City Hall Watcher #402: On a lark, I analyzed 392 hours of Council speech and can now tell you definitively which councillors like to talk. Also: Candidate Chaos, a campaign fact check, and more!

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7. THE VAULT: Bradford knocks the mayor for drawing big on reserves to keep property tax increases low this year, but only a fraction of the $1.7 billion reserve draw went toward balancing the budget. A big chunk was a preplanned draw to pay for FIFA costs.

THE VAULT: Bradford suggests some of the New Deal funds
may have been put into a reserve fund, then pulled in 2026 to "buy an election-year tax increase of just 2.2 per cent." He cites a $1.7 billion reserve draw in the 2026 budget. But only $323 million of that figure went toward temporary bridging strategies to balance the operating budget. Much of the remaining reserve draw, according to City CFO Stephen Conforti, was pre-planned
use of funds to cover things like the World Cup hosting expenses. Also, assume this one was true, and that Chow had used New Deal money to deliver a low property tax increase — isn't that
exactly what the Bradford campaign is advocating for?

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6. THE CORNER OFFICE: This 800% increase in the TCHC CEO’s office expenses is derived by comparing full-year 2025 expenses with partial-year expenses for 2024, the CEO’s first year on the job.

THE CORNER OFFICE: Bradford suggests some of the New Deal money might have gone to funding a more than 800% increase in expenses claimed by TCHC CEO Sean Baird. And indeed, a report to the TCH's Audit Committee showed Baird's expenses related to Conferences & Training rising from $777 in 2024 to $7,237 in 2025, but at least some of the increase can be
explained by the fact that Baird didn't start the gig until April 2024. 2025 was his first full year at the helm. You can argue the expenses are too high for the CEO of a public housing agency, but that $7,237 figure would need to be many times higher for it
to be material to the scale of the City Budget and the New Deal.

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5. THE RECYCLING BIN: The City didn’t spend $5 million to put the silly stickers on blue bins, as Bradford says. The private company now responsible for collection did.

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4. THE IT DEPARTMENT: Bradford points to an Auditor General investigation that found millions in unused software licenses. True, but the AG investigation mostly covered a period before Chow took office. The City has since accepted the AG’s recommendations and saved millions.

THE IT DEPARTMENT: Bradford says the City spent $11 million on "software licenses for people who no longer work there." An Auditor General investigation did uncover about $11 million in costs related to unused software licenses, but the investigation period covered 2020 to 2024. The New Deal was announced in the fall of 2023 and took effect in 2024. The City accepted the findings of the auditor's investigation and has since taken steps to track software licenses more closely. A follow-up
report suggests these moves have saved millions of dollars.

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3. THE BILLBOARD: Bradford cites money Chow spent to promote the 2026 budget. A clean hit, but the amount is a small increase relative to past years, and Bradford spent a chunk of cash hosting a town hall to share his views on the budget, too.

THE BILLBOARD: Bradford cites $142,000 in money Chow
spent to promote the 2026 budget. Bradford is right that Chow's 2026 PR push was a bit bigger than past years. Still, the number amounts to 0.0007% of the budget itself. You can criticize Chow for this, but it had no material impact on the City's financial situation. Bradford, for his part, also spent big on budget
consultation: his office expensed $13,842 in costs related to a "Ward 19 Town Hall Virtual Meeting" on February 5, 2026. The
event was advertised as Bradford's 2026 Budget Telephone Town
Hall."

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2. THE DOCK: Bradford suggests the New Deal cash went to pay for expensive electric ferries, but the RFP for the new boats predates Chow’s time in office. The New Deal didn’t change this ferry tale.

THE DOCK: The Bradford campaign suggests maybe the money from the New Deal went to purchasing two island ferries, which are set to cost $92 million. But the RFP process for these boats was kicked off in July 2023. That's not only before Chow signed
the New Deal, but it's also the same month Chow took office. This ferry tale predates the mayor. (Also: Bradford voted for the
boats.)

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1. THE SQUARE: Bradford says New Deal money may have gone to renaming Sankofa Square, but the City Manager says cash from development fees covered all costs. You can think the renaming is silly, but there’s no apparent New Deal money here.

THE SQUARE: Bradford suggests the City spent up to $800,000 renaming Yonge-Dundas Square to Sankofa Square. Setting aside the fact that Bradford voted for the renaming, a May 2024 letter from City Manager Paul Johnson tells us all budgeted costs - totalling $335,000 - related to the rebranding are being funded
by Section 37 funds from development projects in the area. Additional costs for rebranding work by the Sankofa Square Board were to be funded by advertising revenue and other corporate partnerships. You can think the renaming was silly, but
there's no apparent New Deal money here.

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Over the weekend, the Bradford campaign challenged the media to do this "scavenger hunt" to uncover supposed places where Olivia Chow frittered away the provincial New Deal money. Challenge accepted. From my newsletter this week, here’s what I found.

An infographic for a City Hall scavenger hunt titled 'Where did the Money Go?' showing eight locations throughout Toronto where city budget expenditures are hidden, with clues and dollar amounts for each stop, ending at the Mayor's Office, and promoting Brad Bradford's mayoral campaign.

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My @thestar.com column: Forget the drama. With his awful poll numbers in Toronto, candidates REALLY don’t need Doug Ford’s endorsement. What they need, instead, is his money. Toronto’s budget documents show a city that’s banking big on more provincial funding in 2027 www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...

What Toronto’s mayoral hopefuls want from Doug Ford more than his endorsement

Toronto’s next mayor needs $481 million from Doug Ford and Ottawa to avoid a 10 per cent property tax hike. Read about the city’s fiscal reality.

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Matt Elliott @graphicmatt.com · 21/09/2026

Check your inbox: it’s City Hall Watcher #402! A very nerdy edition, as I analyze councillor speaking time. Who speaks the most? Who speaks the least? All is revealed! Also: taking Bradford’s scavenger hunt challenge, candidate chaos, and more! toronto.cityhallwatcher.com/p/quantifyin...

toronto.cityhallwatcher.com

Quantifying Council’s chatterboxes — and quietest members

City Hall Watcher #402: On a lark, I analyzed 392 hours of Council speech and can now tell you definitively which councillors like to talk. Also: Candidate Chaos, a campaign fact check, and more!

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The Bradford camp is now out with a release criticizing Chow for not fighting Ford enough. The world’s gone topsy turvy.

TORONTO, ON | This morning, Premier Doug Ford endorsed Olivia Chow for re-election, praising a relationship and telling Toronto voters to "read between the lines."

Of course the Premier endorsed Olivia Chow. She is the easiest negotiation he has ever had. Everything she told Torontonians she would fight and oppose, she handed over on a silver platter.

Nobody should blame the Premier. He negotiated hard for Ontario and won every single round. The question is for the person on Toronto’s side of the table. Everything Olivia Chow pretends to oppose, every red line she has had, she has rolled out the red carpet for.

Olivia Chow campaigned against the Ontario Place redevelopment, then signed away the city’s opposition before her first Christmas in office as part of the November 2023 New Deal.

The Science Centre her supporters rallied to save is now a construction site at Ontario Place. She signed the deal that ended that fight before it started.

She spent her career campaigning against the Gardiner Expressway, then handed it to the province.

She told Torontonians she opposed jets at the Island Airport and claimed the province’s plan shocked her. Her office had been lobbied for months, and her own appointee to the Port Authority backed the expansion at a public meeting.

She promised to defend the city’s bike lanes. The moment Queen’s Park pushed, she went looking for middle ground.

When the Premier cut city council nearly in half, her movement called it an attack on local democracy. 3 years as mayor, and she has never once even thought to bring those councillors back.

She called strong mayor powers undemocratic, then kept every single one of them.

She committed City Hall to Queen’s Park’s housing targets and called it collaboration.

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Chow has a release touting quasi-endorsement from Doug Ford, who said this morning that he and the mayor have a “phenomenal relationship.” No doubt she’s been good at extracting cash from Ford, but I’d bet a lot of Toronto voters would prefer to hear less about friendship and more about fighting.

TORONTO - Today while announcing a $925 million investment in Toronto, Premier Doug Ford spoke about his productive working relationship with the Olivia Chow and signalled that only Chow can secure a renewal of their New Deal:

The Olivia Chow Campaign issued the following statement in response:

“Toronto needs a pragmatic mayor with experience landing deals and working with other levels of government to deliver for Torontonians. Just five months after her election, in November 2023, Olivia Chow delivered a historic New Deal for Toronto, uploading the Gardiner and DVP to secure $9 billion for the City’s Operating Budget.

She has continued to work with all parties to make life affordable for Torontonians, including a historic $2.7 billion housing deal with Prime Minister Mark Carney, $2 billion for a new LRT and $1.2 billion to fund new subway cars for Line 2 Bloor-Danforth, and federal funding to support her universal school food program.

Only Olivia Chow can land a second New Deal with the province that can fund our City and make life more affordable for all Torontonians. We need to keep moving forward.”

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I was also asked by the Star to offer a quick take on Monday’s first real mayoral debate. Call it a cop out (if you must), but I ruled it a draw: www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...

Who came out swinging? Our columnists score Chow, Bradford and Alexander in Toronto’s first full mayoral debate

Who came out swinging? Who fell flat? Here’s what our analysts saw in the first full mayoral debate.

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Gift link: www.thestar.com/gift-redeem?...

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My @thestar.com column this week: so far, we’ve heard a lot of talk in this election about transit affordability and transit policing. But I think what most riders really want to hear about is something else entirely: better transit service. www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...

Matt Elliott: Why are Olivia Chow and Brad Bradford ignoring what Toronto TTC riders actually want?

A Liaison Strategies poll of 1,000 Toronto residents reveals 52 per cent want better TTC service, not just fare freezes or more police.

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Closing statements! Chow says this election is a question of whether to keep moving forward or to go backward. Bradford says the city needs change because Chow's tax hikes were too big and Toronto is "stuck." Alexander says we're in a "time of crisis" and Toronto "needs new leadership."

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"I think it's important that we stop taxing housing more than alcohol and cigarettes — and that's been the approach of local government for too many years," says Bradford, noting the need to reduce development charges. He says he opposes "exclusionary zoning."

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Asked to name a policy from an opponent they like, Bradford again says he appreciates Chow's school food program. Alexander says he likes Bradford's support for the Jewish community. Chow likes Alexander's desire to get the federal and provincial governments to support the school food program.

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"Antisemitism is unacceptable and wrong. The Jewish community should feel safe in our city," says Chow. She says she'll "continue to invest in communities and the work of confronting antisemitism head-on."

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"There is one community in this city that feels very much afraid, and feels neglected by you, and those are Jewish Torontonians," says Alexander to Chow. "You failed them for three years." He aks why the mayor skipped the antisemitism debate.

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"Councillor Bradford wants you to be scared," says Chow. "Police is not the only answer," she adds, citing her work to hire more crisis outreach workers. "It's the combination of police and all the outreach workers coming together to keep us safe."

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Bradford asks Chow why she didn't take her seat on the police board, and instead delegated it. Chow deflects and cites a reduction in crime rates and 911 response times. Part of the crowd tries to boo that answer. Another part of the crowd tries to drown out the booing with cheers.

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"Councillor Bradford, even though he said he supports it, opposed every single one of my budgets that funded the school food program," notes Chow.

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Audience doesn't love the signs displayed for the "Do you support new data centres in Toronto?" question. Bradford and Alexander raise their "Yes" signs high. Chow hesitates, then says the city is studying the issue.

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Rapid-fire time, with candidates holding up "Yes" and "No" signs to answer. A lot of agreement, with notable disagreements on whether they support and will use strong mayor powers. Chow says no, Bradford and Alexander say yes.

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"I'll be honest, I can't think of a single file where you've actually effectively been able to push back against the premier doing exactly what he wants to do," says Bradford to Chow, naming the Science Centre, Ontario Place, bike lanes and the island airport.

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