Why I’m Voting for Brad Bradford for Mayor of Toronto

Why his platform, his character, and his crossover appeal make him the clear choice.

I’m voting for Brad Bradford, and I think you should too. Let me tell you why.

Brad’s platform is effective and it’s landing with Torontonians across all parts of the city.

It resonates with young business owners in midtown, older cab drivers in Scarborough, and the retiree in Etobicoke. His platform is simple. He calls it the three C’s: crime, congestion, and cost of living.

Here it is broken down:

Crime

Ask any Torontonian what their biggest fear is and you’re most likely to hear that they don’t feel safe. There are now countless stories of break-ins, carjackings, assaults, public drug use and indecency. People don’t feel safe, and they don’t feel like their public institutions are doing their jobs. That speaks to a failure on the most basic service that the government is supposed to deliver - public safety. Bradford is committed to fixing it, and he will start with simple measures that the current mayor clearly does not find worthy of her time. Low hanging fruit that the current regime ignores. He will sit on the police board, returning direct oversight of the city’s safety to city hall. He wants to hire more cops, and set up an actual positive alliance with the law enforcement in town. He wants police with actual authority on the TTC. These are basic policies that any mayor should be pursuing. It is flabbergasting that we don’t have them in place, and Bradford will restore sanity to how Toronto, the biggest municipality in the country, approaches public safety. Things are never as good or as bad as they appear on social media, but walking around Toronto and looking around… it’s clear — things are indeed bad.

Congestion

Bradford is a cyclist, he takes transit regularly, and he’s also a motorist. He understands that a city has to have all of its modes of transportation working in harmony, but that different situations and different areas call for different solutions. In sum, Bradford is anti-congestion. That means he understands how important it is to build bike infrastructure where bikes actually get used.

As a motorist he understands prioritizing cars where that makes the most sense. He also understands that Canada is cold half the year and our cities are built and designed around cars. We can’t simply ignore that fact and pretend like all of our people can bike their kids to hockey practice in -10 degree weather. Again the fix is a simple solution, but Bradford has committed to upgrading Toronto’s intersections with smart technology that works for motorists as well as transit takers. Because, as a transit rider, Bradford is committed to enhancing the TTC, and restoring the system to being world class.

That is why he is campaigning on installing actual subway platform doors. The doors are both for safety and because one of the biggest causes of delays on the TTC is people physically going onto the tracks. If you stop that from happening, you cut down one of the largest sources of wasted time.

If the system is efficient, reliability goes up. If reliability goes up, Torontonians will use the subway more. That means fewer cars, congestion goes down, cyclists have more space. That’s systems thinking. Bradford is a systems thinker. A city like Toronto needs that kind of mindset presenting actual solutions and not pretending like the city has peaked.

Cost

Bradford is committing to freezing property taxes for one year. That means the already high costs stay level for home owners, and landlords will have less pressure to raise rents. The city is in financial trouble, but Bradford is going to find real savings. Not by some magic farfetched promise. He’s simply going to do the boring old accounting exercise of going line-by-line and conducting an actual audit of Toronto’s finances.

Now some will say this is already present in the system, but it is widely understood that there is tremendous waste and corruption, at and adjacent to City Hall. Torontonians are paying more and getting less, and this is the simplest fix: find the efficiencies, eliminate waste, and use technology where appropriate. Bradford understands that when you have a massive enterprise dealing with humungous budgets of other people’s (taxpayer) money, there is a natural propensity for unnecessary costs to inflate.

The city is not a business, but the business parts need to be run like one. We have the internet and AI and decades of real global experience to lean on here. There is so much potential for improvement. Bradford will do what is necessary to drastically improve city hall. Those changes make it a better place to work, it makes it easier for city workers to be better at their jobs, and it improves service for everyone. City workers are taxpayers too.

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The Name — Bradford Bradford

Brad has the right policies for Toronto. But more than anything, he is a phenomenal person. He puts himself on the line. He stands up for people, and he wants to be a mayor for everyone.

One of the common criticisms of Bradford is that his name is literally Bradford Bradford. At first listen, sure, it’s worth a chuckle. But when you understand the story, it’s incredibly endearing.

Bradford was actually born with a different last name at birth. His first name was an homage to his mother’s family name - a not uncommon naming convention. When Bradford was seven years old, his father was out of the picture and his mother had to raise the kids on her own. Knowing full well he’d take barbs from bullies for having a first name that matched his last, he changed his last name to hers, and he did so proudly. He chose to be Brad Bradford because his respect and dedication to his family was so great that he didn’t mind being chirped for it for the rest of his life. To be frank, if your biggest objection to a politician is their name, then you’re probably aligned and should probably be voting for them. Imagine how meaningful that must have been to his mother, I don’t know a lot of 7 years olds who would stand up for a single mom like that.

Bradford’s Character

Speaking of which, Brad inspires people, and his mother is no different. There are plenty of political families in Canada, but the Bradfords may be the most unique. Bradford’s mother, Valerie was a politician as well - but the difference is that the son convinced the mother to go into politics. Not the other traditional way around. That’s the kind of influence that Bradford has on the people around him. He isn’t someone who just stands on the shoulders of giants. He raises others up. He inspires. He helps the helpers.

A Mayor For Everyone

Finally, Bradford’s motivation for helping others is genuine and broad. The clearest case is that long before any synagogue shootings or rising statistics around anti-Semitism, Bradford stood with the Jewish community of Toronto in a way that no other non-Jewish politician did in the face of hatred.

Bradford did the hard work, he learned what was going on. He showed up. He put his money where his mouth was. To distill it, Bradford noticed a community in his city pleading for help, and when he could have done what practically every other politician did and step aside, Brad stepped up. He said: “I hear you, and I will stand with you through this time of darkness.”

There is no doubt that Bradford would do the same for any other community under similar circumstances. It’s this kind of character that makes people stand with Brad. He has true empathy, and he doesn’t let ideology get in the way of helping those in need.

Those are just some of the things that matter. Brad has a wide appeal, and once they learn a bit about him, his message resonates with individuals from all walks of the city. For proof, we can look at his political endorsements.

They come from politicians past and present on the right, the centre, and the left. Most of them at the moment come from sitting Liberal MPs and MPPs, which should be all the evidence one needs to see that Bradford is a centrist. The advantage to the middle means he’s never going to be bound by ideology. It means he’ll be able to make compromises and tough choices when they present themselves. Finally it means the mayor will once again be someone who will serve and concern himself with helping everyone in the city. Because that’s what this is about: bringing a city back from ideological short-sightedness. Away from polarizing, rash decision-making. Permitting changes in policy based on evidence not the colour shirt you’re wearing.

Bradford believes we are all on the same team, he will be a mayor for every Torontonian, even the ones that don’t vote for him.

I’m voting for Brad Bradford. And I think you should too.