Brad Bradford is disappointed in Olivia Chow.
asserted
Bradford → disappoint → Chow
At the final debate of the Toronto mayoral campaign on Thursday night, a familiar pattern emerged.
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pattern → emerge → night
Chow, the incumbent mayor, would accuse Bradford of a misdeed, either in his promises in the campaign or his actions as a city councillor.
asserted
Chow → accuse → councillor
Bradford would respond with some version of “that’s not true.”
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that → respond → version
Sometimes he would offer a sigh or a shake of the head as, he said, he had to correct the record.
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he → offer → record
Sometimes he said Chow was spreading misinformation on issues like his proposal to create a public water utility, which she said opens the door to privatization of the city’s water supply.
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she → say → supply
Sometimes he said, a little theatrically, that she was better than this.
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she → say → this
“It’s below you and it’s below the office,” he would say, lamenting what he called the incumbent mayor’s scare tactics.
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he → ’ → what
And then a bell would ding on stage to note the end of the speaker’s allotted time.
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bell → ding → time
There were no knockout punches in the CP24/CTV News debate, but the incessant bell was the clear winner.
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bell → be → debate
None of Chow’s attacks were all that unusual in a political debate, and none of it was particularly surprising in this specific contest because Chow and Bradford have sparred in that manner repeatedly by this point in their battle to lead the city.
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Chow → spar → city
But it is still notable that Chow finds herself, with just three days to go in the campaign, attacking Bradford’s promises and his record on council.
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Chow → find → council
It’s a sign of how much the race has tightened in the waning days that Chow’s pitch has changed from one that largely focused on promises to “keep building the city together” in the early days to one that spends just as much time haranguing Bradford.
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that → ’ → Bradford
She has reason to be worried.
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She → have → reason
After former federal Conservative cabinet minister Chris Alexander dropped his quixotic bid to lead city hall earlier this month, public-opinion polls have narrowed as the contest turned into a two-person race.
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contest → drop → race
Chow, who had consistently enjoyed leads of close to 10 percentage points, has seen them all but disappear in recent weeks.
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them → enjoy → weeks
A Liaison Strategies poll released this week had Bradford (49 per cent) two points ahead of Chow (47 per cent) among decided and leaning voters.
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poll → release → voters
That is within the survey’s margin or error, but also a significant change from just a week earlier, when the same pollster had Chow with a five-point lead.
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pollster → have → lead
A Nanos poll released this week gave Chow a three-point lead, while the same firm had her with a nine-point lead in the first week of October.
And a Mainstreet Research poll from this week had a one-point lead for Bradford.
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poll → release → Bradford
That margin is again within the margin of error, but Mainstreet had Chow with an eight-point lead in September.
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Mainstreet → have → September
This is not normally how these things go in municipal politics.
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things → go → politics
Name recognition tends to be significant in a system that does not officially involve party candidates, and Chow is not only the incumbent mayor, she’s a former Toronto councillor and federal MP who has been in public life for four decades.
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who → tend → decades
Bradford, meanwhile, has been on city council for eight years and, when he ran in the mayoral byelection that Chow won in 2023, he finished eighth with less than two per cent of the vote.
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he → run → vote
And yet, he has Chow very much on the defensive as the candidates make their closing arguments.
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candidates → have → arguments
Why did her lead evaporate?
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lead → evaporate → ?
It could be as simple as voters starting to pay more attention this month, especially after Alexander dropped out.
uncertain
Alexander → start → attention
But it is also true that the pair have offered quite contrasting messages.
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pair → offer → messages
Chow says that things might have been a little rocky when she took over, but Toronto has “turned the corner” and she’s asking voters to give her more time to keep building.
uncertain
she → say → time
Bradford says that Toronto is stuck and he argues that voters didn’t get much out of the steep property-tax hikes that Chow oversaw in her first two years on the job.
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Chow → say → job
Bradford has also been more of a hawk on public safety and policing, but polls have consistently said that crime is down the list of voter worries, which are topped by affordability, traffic and the lack of available housing.
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which → say → housing
Bradford’s big-ticket proposals — a property-tax freeze and a cut to the land transfer tax — are broader than Chow’s more targeted affordability measures, which include a cap on TTC fares and an expansion of a school-snack program into one that also provides lunches.
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that → include → lunches
Were Bradford’s tax-cut promises enough to turn the campaign on its ear?
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promises → turn → ear
Did Chow’s argument that the city has bounced back from a bleak stretch not ring true with enough Torontonians?
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city → bounce → Torontonians
Whatever the case, she evidently knows she’s in a fight now.
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she → know → fight
Chow’s closing pitch was that Bradford couldn’t be trusted to do her job.
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Bradford → trust → job
She’ll have to hope that enough voters are happy enough with the job she has done so far.
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she → have → job
The Aporia
