Category: Blog

Vancouver mayor election 2026

A Close & Crucial Election for Vancouver Mayor
Oct 17, 2026

The race for Vancouver mayor is down to the wire, as they say. The latest public opinion poll, released October 9, was conducted between September 28 and October 6 by Canada Pulse Insights, the polling firm headed by veteran pollster John Wright. Commissioned by CityNews and OMNI TV, the survey polled 500 Vancouver residents. 

The poll puts Green Party candidate Pete Fry at 28% of decided voters, narrowly ahead of incumbent Mayor Ken Sim, of Vancouver’s centre-right ABC Party, at 27%. 

With a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points, the one-point gap amounts to a statistical tie. But, according to Wright, the two candidates draw support from voters with distinctly different priorities. Fry’s supporters, he says, tend to be more focused on “the environment, more on ethics, more on accountability, more on affordability, more on housing.” 

Mayor Sim’s supporters, who account for 27% of decided voters in the poll, form a coalition with a different set of priorities. “Affordability is the most important issue to them, but then it’s crime, it’s municipal taxes, it’s accountability for the bottom line; they’re more meat-and-potato issues,” Wright observed. He added that these concerns tend to motivate people to vote, particularly older voters who own homes and pay property taxes.

It’s interesting that affordability ranks among the top concerns for the coalitions backing both front-runners. Vancouver voters need only look to the recent example of Mayor Sim’s sensible advocacy on the previous mayor’s natural gas ban policy for a clear indication of which candidate will best address the cost-of-living pressures they face.

As I argued in my June column, Mayor Ken Sim’s successful effort to roll back former mayor Gregor Robertson’s green fantasy of a natural gas ban was a victory for affordability and common sense. After trying unsuccessfully in 2024, Sim succeeded in May 2026 in reversing Robertson’s anti-natural gas policies, recognizing that “ideological climate policies were colliding head-on with economic common sense.” In a city long known for layering costly climate regulations onto housing construction – and where housing costs rank among the most unaffordable in the world – it was a victory for common sense and energy affordability in Vancouver. ABC councillors voted in favour of the reversal, while Green Party and other progressive councillors voted against it. Kudos to Sim for accomplishing this feat!

Pete Fry was among those opposing the successful reversal. In 2024, he called the decision “infuriating” and “a sad day for Vancouver”; in 2026, he again voted against Sim’s motion, accusing ABC of undermining climate policy. And Fry’s Green Party platform proposes to “re-establish policies to ban fossil gas heating for heat and hot water in new construction.” Having rolled back this potentially disastrous, anti-natural gas agenda, Vancouver cannot afford to ignore the possibility of its return. Fry’s comments and his party’s stated platform offer a clear warning: voters should be wary of those seeking to revive similarly reckless, costly, and irresponsible policies – policies that could come roaring back if Fry wins the mayoralty.

Kareem Allam: The Wild Card?

Several other candidates registered notable support in the recent Canada Pulse Insights poll: Kareem Allam of the Vancouver Liberals at 19%, Colleen Hardwick of TEAM for a Livable Vancouver at 13%, and Rebecca Bligh of Vote Vancouver at 7%.

Allam, in particular, deserves a closer look. He has run a high-profile campaign and, at 19%, sits well ahead of the other candidates outside the two front-runners. Could he emerge as a serious contender? His support makes him one of the more intriguing wild cards in a crowded and unpredictable race.

Allam managed Ken Sim’s successful 2022 mayoral campaign and briefly served as his chief of staff before being fired in February 2023. Allam subsequently accused Sim of being stopped by police for impaired driving, an allegation Sim denied. Sim was cleared by the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner and filed a defamation lawsuit against Allam in May 2025. The case remains unresolved.

But what should interest Vancouver voters isn’t the dispute between Sim and Allam, but Allam’s left turn. A former supporter of the Canadian Alliance, the federal Conservatives and the provincial BC Liberals, Allam backed Sim and the centre-right ABC slate in 2022. Yet after Sim fired him in February 2023, Allam accused the mayor of taking a “hard right turn.” The more striking shift, however, has been in Allam’s own politics.

When the BC United Party collapsed in 2024, many of its former supporters gravitated toward John Rustad’s BC Conservatives. Allam went the other way, making an enthusiastic and very public leap to the NDP in a closely fought provincial election. In an October 2024 interview with The Tyee, titled “Why a Key BC Liberal Strategist is Voting NDP,” he explained: “I’m not sure that I left the centre-right movement. I think the centre-right movement left me.” Allam cited climate action, Indigenous reconciliation, SOGI and supervised consumption sites as reasons he felt aligned with David Eby’s NDP.

Then came the de rigueur Trump argument. Allam declared, “Trump politics is now here in BC, and it’s terrible. It’s embedded. It’s entrenched.” It’s a familiar refrain among former centre-right figures who move left, portraying common-sense conservative positions as extreme rather than principled differences over policy. For Vancouver voters, the question is whether Allam’s new political home reflects a genuine change in outlook and how closely his priorities align with the NDP agenda he now supports.

Ultimately, the choice facing Vancouver voters comes down to two very different visions for the city: radical left-wing Green Party candidate Pete Fry and sensible centre-right incumbent Mayor Ken Sim. The race is neck and neck, and Vancouver’s future hangs in the balance.

Municipal election day in British Columbia is Saturday, October 17, 2026.

Toronto’s Mayoral Flip-Flops: Olivia Chow and Brad Bradford

Toronto’s Mayoral Flip-Flops: Olivia Chow and Brad Bradford
Oct 04, 2026

Voters are rarely surprised by inconsistency in candidates for political office, even when they change opinions like chameleons. But Toronto’s 2026 mayoral race offers examples of flip-flops so spectacular, they deserve their own three-ring circus.

Here, we’ll look at four whiplash-inducing flip-flops by the two leading candidates for mayor, Olivia Chow and Brad Bradford: police funding, the Dundas name, bike lanes, and Ontario Place.

DEFUND THE POLICE, FUND MORE POLICE OFFICERS… which is it?

With public safety ranking among Toronto voters’ top concerns, the leading candidates’ records on policing deserve a close look.

Bradford’s most notable flip-flop dates to 2020, when he was one of eight councillors who voted for a 10% reduction in the police budget. He also supported a motion to disarm officers of some of their existing equipment.

But his position changed. During the 2023 mayoral campaign, he even argued that the city needed more police officers.

Bradford has since argued that his earlier position was about police reform and improving safety, and has pointed out that he subsequently supported the annual spending plans brought forward by the police chief.

Fast-forward to 2026 and Bradford is making public safety and law enforcement a central plank of his campaign, promising to hire 1,000 additional front-line officers during his first term.

Mayor Chow has been quick to point out Bradford’s 2020 vote.

“He wanted to defund the police … now he said he wants to hire police officers. I don’t know where he’s at,” she said.

Fair enough. But Chow’s own record on policing isn’t exactly a straight line either.

Upon election, she declined to take the mayor’s traditional seat on the Toronto Police Services Board. Instead, she appointed a designate, saying she wanted to focus on other priorities, including the city’s finances.

Her decision was not a violation of any rule, but it was politically significant. The mayor’s relationship with the police service is one of the clearest signals of how an administration approaches public safety.

Chow’s political history includes periods of (ahem) skepticism toward traditional policing, a charge to which she might respond that her emphasis is instead on social services and community-based solutions. 

Chow might also point to her support of substantial police budget increases, including more than $93 million in the 2026 budget, but one might wonder: has policing become a central priority for Chow, or is it something her administration supports when public pressure makes it politically unavoidable?

If one were measuring support for police by both candidates, a clear U-shaped curve would appear, with support peaking during election years!

So where does that leave us? Without a candidate who has a consistent position on what Toronto’s approach to policing should be, it seems.

Highways for Ontario Place

Few political flip-flops are as striking as Chow’s position on Ontario Place.

During the 2023 mayoral campaign, Chow strongly opposed the Ford government’s redevelopment plans, including the proposed massive bathing complex – with multiple saunas, huge soaking pools, several waterslides, and an indoor botanical garden (Therme).

Once elected, however, she negotiated with the province. In November 2023, Toronto and Ontario reached a deal under which the province would take control of advancing the Ontario Place redevelopment, while Toronto accepted the province’s authority to proceed. In return, Toronto secured significant financial support, including the provincial takeover of responsibility for two major city highways, the Gardiner Expressway and the Don Valley Parkway. 

In other words, the mayor who campaigned against the project ultimately negotiated a deal that allowed it to proceed. But the deal was only the tip of the iceberg.

Chow’s initial opposition wasn’t difficult to understand. For decades, Ontario Place had been a place where ordinary families could enjoy Toronto’s waterfront – a publicly accessible attraction rather than a luxury destination. The European spa concept throws a wrench into that vision.

In April 2025, the New York Times investigated Therme’s claims. The Times reported that Therme had presented itself as having experience with as many as six European facilities, while its investigation found that, at the time it was pursuing the Ontario Place deal, Therme itself had built and operated only one (in Romania). 

Ontario’s Auditor General had also raised a related concern. Its 2024 review found that Infrastructure Ontario had not adequately verified Therme’s claimed track record and that five of the six facilities cited by Therme were not owned or operated by Therme Group. (Therme subsequently purchased one of those facilities, reducing the number of facilities it did not own or operate from five to four.)

The Auditor General also criticized aspects of the procurement process, describing it as not fair, transparent or accountable.

Therme disputed the New York Times’ characterization and maintained that it had complied with the bidding requirements, but there are other questionable aspects of the plan.

Therme received a 95-year lease agreement for the Ontario Place West Island as well as a deal that requires the province to provide a parking facility with at least 1,800 spaces, including 1,600 dedicated to Therme and its guests. The price for that was originally estimated at an eye-popping $400 million, but the garage was eventually contracted for (only!) $198 million.

The Ontario Place story isn’t simply about a spa. It’s about a massive public redevelopment, a 95-year private lease, a controversial procurement process and a government assuming substantial infrastructure obligations around a private tenant.

Which brings us back to Chow.

The deal she negotiated with Premier Ford meant abandoning the principled opposition to Ford’s stinky Ontario Place deal that had been a central part of her 2023 mayoral campaign. And much was lost in the bargain.

Toronto no doubt needed the financial relief. But did Ontarians need a privately owned and operated luxury spa occupying a prime piece of publicly owned waterfront?

For those who believed Ontario Place should remain an affordable, accessible destination for families – a place to go, not a place most people could only look at from the outside – Chow’s decision to abandon her original opposition was a huge disappointment.

Sankofa Square: Toronto’s Woke Renaming Circus

The renaming of Yonge-Dundas Square offers another example of Chow’s approach to politically controversial issues: embrace the woke agenda, then retreat when the price tag becomes politically inconvenient.

The campaign to remove the Dundas name gained momentum after the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. Critics argued that Henry Dundas, the Scottish politician after whom the street and square were named, had delayed the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade. Historians have disputed aspects of that interpretation, particularly the claim that Dundas opposed abolition itself. Rather, the record suggests that Dundas supported abolition, but through a more gradual approach.

During the 2023 mayoral campaign, Chow supported renaming all city infrastructure named after Dundas.

But when the cost of renaming Dundas Street was estimated at approximately $12-$13 million, she changed tack. Instead of proceeding with the full street renaming, a narrower proposal to rename Yonge-Dundas Square, along with two subway stations and a library, was passed.

Council voted 19–2 in favour of the change. Chow seconded the motion.

The result was Sankofa Square.

A Liaison Strategies poll conducted around the time found that 71% of respondents opposed the renaming of Yonge-Dundas Square.

But the city council, led by Chow, proceeded with a decision that many residents viewed as rushed, expensive and disconnected from their priorities.

Chow’s approach looked like an attempt to split the difference: acknowledge the woke activists’ concerns while avoiding the more controversial aspects of renaming an entire street. In other words, it was virtue-signalling, carefully calibrated to limit the financial and political fallout.

And what exactly was accomplished?

The city still spent money ($700,000 net so far by the city’s own estimates) changing signs, branding and public references. The historical debate surrounding Dundas was not resolved. And residents who opposed the change were left with the impression that their concerns mattered less than the symbolic demands of activist groups – the ones who support Mayor Chow.

Chow’s climbdown is less dramatic than Bradford’s complete about-face on this issue, though. 

Bradford was an enthusiastic supporter of all things Dundas-renaming in 2021, indicating a desire to move ahead in the process without delay and positioning the renaming as a step toward confronting systemic racism. As late as December 2023, Bradford was still on board, voting in favour of renaming the square, subways, library (but not the street, as council had backed off on that aspect by this time). 

At this stage, Bradford wasn’t merely going along with the process. He was publicly supportive of the underlying principle. 

Seven months later, in the summer of 2024, he put forward a motion to pause the entire renaming project, arguing that Toronto was broke and that the change wasn’t something the vast majority of Torontonians were asking for. He proposed redirecting money earmarked for new signage and marketing toward accessibility and safety improvements, but his motion failed.

And then Bradford decided he wanted to undo Sankofa Square altogether.

As a 2026 mayoral candidate, he proposed (in June) renaming it Toronto Square, while promising a major cleanup and a permanent police presence. 

So, on one of the most politically charged symbolic issues of the past five years, Bradford has gone from “pretty clearly no” to Dundas, to yes to Sankofa, to stop the spending, to let’s rename it again.

That’s quite a circular journey for one city square and one mayoral candidate!

Bike Lanes: Let Ford Take the Heat

Perhaps the most ironic flip-flops by Chow and Bradford can be found in the debate over bike lanes.

This seemingly simple piece of painted pavement has become one of the biggest political dividing lines in this year’s mayoral race.

An August 2026 Liaison Strategies poll illustrates how geographically divided the issue of bike lanes is in the city: 49% of downtown respondents wanted more bike lanes compared with 13% who wanted some removed; in the suburb of Etobicoke, only 20% wanted more while 40% wanted some removed. Liaison described it as a citywide fault line. 

Chow has long been associated with cycling advocacy. During her years as a councillor, her flower-decorated bicycle became something of a trademark.

Yet as mayor, she has largely avoided taking an unequivocal position in the increasingly bitter conflict between cyclists and drivers.

The issue became so contentious that the Ford government passed legislation requiring the removal of certain bike lanes that had eliminated car lanes. The legislation was challenged in court, and the Ontario Superior Court ultimately ruled in the province’s favour.

Chow criticized the legislation as a “big hammer” and argued that removing bike lanes would worsen congestion and waste money. But her stated position has been summarized in this politically neutral, middle-of-the-road phrase:

“Keep the bike lanes, fix the irritants.”

In these words, downtown cyclists hear support for preserving bike infrastructure. Suburban residents frustrated by congestion hear acknowledgement that some problems need to be addressed. And when the province intervenes, Chow can criticize Ford’s approach while avoiding a direct confrontation over the larger question of how much road space should be allocated to cars.

But the bike lane debate is not simply about paint on pavement. It is about transportation priorities, congestion, road capacity, safety, neighbourhood design and the competing needs of different groups of residents.

Through it all, Chow has never clearly articulated her position on the serious concerns of people who rely on their cars to get to work every day – including congestion, commercial access and emergency response times.

What happens when “fixing the irritants” requires choosing between competing uses of the road?

Chow seems to have found a way to avoid owning the most politically contentious parts of the debate and avoid taking a clear position.

For this part, Brad Bradford has been hammering away at the same themes for months: gridlock, traffic congestion, road capacity, transportation planning and the effect of bike lanes on motorists and businesses.

His biggest move came last month, when he promised to remove the Bloor West bike lanes if elected mayor.

There’s an obvious reason this announcement attracted attention: Bradford voted for the lanes in 2023, but he now says he got it wrong back then.

The 4.7-kilometre stretch of Bloor Street West bike lanes was approved by council in 2023, with Bradford among the councillors voting in favour. In August of this year, however, he said the plan looked good “on paper” but had not worked in practice, arguing that congestion had worsened and businesses had suffered. He now wants the space returned to vehicle lanes and says cycling investment should instead focus more on trails and residential streets. 

It’s yet another political Bradford flip-flop.

Whether voters see these as sensible changes of mind or opportunistic flip-flops will be one of the more interesting subplots of the campaign.

Mark Sutcliffe's Ottawa: Four Years Later

Mark Sutcliffe’s Ottawa: Four Years Later
Oct 02, 2026

Why is Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe in re-election trouble?

Sutcliffe, then a popular city councillor, stormed to victory as mayor four years ago, replacing the long-time Liberal politician Jim Watson (who chose not to run for re-election in 2022). In a multiple-candidate race, Sutcliffe captured an impressive 51% of the vote, thirteen points more than his nearest competitor, the “progressive” standard-bearer Catherine McKenney.  

A significant part of Sutcliffe’s 2022 victory can also be attributed to the strong roster of endorsements from seemingly almost every elite opinion leader in the city, including the retiring Mayor Watson, among many others.

This time, those same elites are sticking with Sutcliffe, and yet a July public opinion poll, shows Sutcliffe having dropped 15 percentage points. Sutcliffe still was in the lead, at 36%, ahead of two strong challengers, with Alex Lawson at 26% and Jeff Leiper at 25%.

These numbers suggest that Sutcliffe could still win if Lawson and Leiper continue to divide the anti-Sutcliffe vote, each drawing support from a different end of the political spectrum.

Who are Sutcliffe’s main opponents?

Alex Lawson, not a current councillor, has been harshly critical of Mayor Sutcliffe. He has been described by some as running to the right of Sutcliffe. Lawson is campaigning from the right-wing, focusing on issues such as taxes, crime and safety, accountability and quality of life. He is promising to cut development charges on new home builds, a transit rider code of conduct, a review of OC Transpo management, and a “top-to-bottom” audit of city-run shelters amid concerns about drug use. Lawson’s rise was reflected in the July Liaison poll, which put him at 26% among decided and leaning voters – virtually tied with Leiper at 25% and well ahead of the 13% he had registered in April. He is backed by veteran conservative campaigners such as Fred DeLorey and Jeff Ballingall.

By September, Ottawa Citizen columnist Evan H. Potter was describing Lawson’s rise as remarkable, noting that just eight months earlier he had been a political non-entity outside his West Carleton-March base. Potter wrote that if the Liaison polling was accurate, Lawson was on track to take at least 20% of the vote and could potentially come within the margin of error of Sutcliffe if his momentum continued.

From the progressive left, Councillor Jeff Leiper has been just as severe in his attacks on Sutcliffe, focussing on traditional left-of-centre issues such as public transit, and a promise to build more non-profit housing. He has the endorsements of both of the city’s two NDP MPPs (Catherine McKenney and Chandra Pasma) and his campaign is run by long-time NDP organizer Stephen Yardy. 

Also running is economist Neil Saravanamuttoo who, at 11% support in July, is a long shot to win but could still be a spoiler.  He is also running on crime and transit issues with a mix of other promises. Saravanamuttoo has accused Sutcliffe as being willing to “say anything to get re-elected.”

What went wrong at Ottawa City Hall?

What happened in Sutcliffe’s first term to put his re-election chances in such jeopardy?

To be fair to Sutcliffe, upon assuming office in November 2022, he inherited a difficult mess from his prominent supporter, previous Mayor Watson.  Watson served as mayor from 1997 to 2000, in the Ontario Liberal cabinet of Dalton McGuinty (another Ottawa Liberal politician) from 2003-2010, and again as Ottawa’s mayor from 2010-2022. That amounts to 22 years in Ottawa municipal and provincial politics.

Crime and Homelessness: A Major Issue 

Crime and homelessness in downtown Ottawa are two of the most pressing issues in the mayoral campaign. As one long-time Ottawa resident told CBC about the situation on downtown Ottawa’s famous Rideau Street: “The guy that sits by the liquor store and shoots up dope in front of little children. Police drive by and nothing happens. That’s wrong.” (CBC article of 8 September 2016, “What do Ottawa voters want from City Hall? Here’s what they’re saying.”) 

Downtown Ottawa resident and journalist Rupa Subramanya has been a frequent critic of conditions in the city’s central core, where Parliament and many federal government offices are located. Her ongoing commentary on central Ottawa, mostly found on her X/twitter account @rupasubramanya, makes for interesting reading and provides disturbing testimony as to what is going on.

A “shameful” way to run a G-7 capital city

Subramanya has frequently criticized Sutcliffe for the “lawlessness he’s presiding over in Ottawa” noting that it was “Shameful that [Deputy Mayor Stéphanie Plante] @PlanteSteph613 @_MarkSutcliffe are in charge of running a G7 capital.” 

In August 2023, she referred to her downtown neighbourhood as “Ottawa’s Skid Row” and noted that staff at the Department of National Defense had to be relocated from a downtown office building after employees were “verbally and physical accosted.” 

On August 16, 2023, Subramanya tweeted: “My neighbourhood Rexall in downtown Ottawa is closing. The owner can’t keep up with weekly thefts amounting to nearly $8,000, rent going up, and a crime and drug infested downtown core where the drug dealers and addicts have taken over. A microcosm of life in a Canadian city.”

Later, in January 2026, Subramanya noted that downtown Ottawa was “increasingly becoming unsafe and, just a block or so from Parliament it was “becoming increasingly unsafe to live in my Ottawa neighbourhood, just steps from Parliament, a shameful state of affairs for a G7 capital.” 

Drug use, public urination, knife fights

As recently as June 2026, she posted photos of a nearby homeless encampment and criticized Ottawa police, as well as Sutcliffe and city council, over what she described as a failure to enforce existing rules against disorderly behaviour and unauthorized camping. “[The] disorder in the encampment keeps growing,” she wrote. “They’ve got couches now. There’s drinking, drug use, public urination, and there was a knife fight the other day.”

Subramanya has further noted that “before the camp expanded, on the day of the knife fight, I asked an officer parked beside it why the no loitering rule wasn’t being enforced.” Subramanya says she asked an officer if she would be able to “bring a bunch of people over and camp out in the same spot and engage in disorderly behaviour” and, according to her account, the officer said “the police don’t have the resources to enforce the rule of law and that if I wanted to report the encampment, I’d have to call the police. Apparently the officer sitting in a police cruiser, next to the encampment, with a computer in front of him, wasn’t able to do that.”

I remember downtown Ottawa quite differently. During my four years as an MP, from 2011 to 2015, I lived and worked in the downtown core roughly four days a week for about eight months of the year. I found it highly walkable and felt safe walking its streets. There were certainly homeless people living on the streets, and I occasionally encountered someone asking for spare change, but the city was generally quite calm – even a bit “sleepy.” Clearly, things have deteriorated over the past 15 years, and the downtown Ottawa I knew is not the downtown Ottawa of today. 

How did this happen? And, perhaps more importantly, when? Voters need to ask: have the last four years of Mayor Sutcliffe’s mayoralty contributed to the city’s downward spiral into the level of disorder that Subramanya so vividly describes today? 

Other issues include transportation and rapid growth

There are other important issues facing Ottawa including the transportation debacle that took place under the watch of Mayor Watson and his endorsed successor, Sutcliffe.  Most spectacular among the many transportation messes is what CBC journalist Elyse Skura called “the catastrophic launch of the east-west LRT and the pandemic cratering of ridership levels” that left OC Transpo struggling to regain the trust of riders.

Then there are the challenges of rapid growth, a problem facing many of Canada’s large and medium-sized cities. As Ottawa resident Kayla Kirkbridge told the CBC in September, “The population is just growing and growing… The traffic is just becoming more and more of an issue.” (CBC, 8 September 2026).

And the latest polling suggests that transportation is not just a campaign talking point – it is Ottawa voters’ top concern. A September ElectRight poll found that 31% of respondents identified fixing public transit as the top priority for the next mayor, followed by keeping property taxes low at 17% and public safety at 14%.


Stay tuned for more on Ottawa

I plan to take a closer look at Ottawa’s transportation and growth challenges in an upcoming Municipal Watch article.

Winnipeg Wants Change. But What Kind?

Winnipeg Wants Change. But What Kind?
Sep 30, 2026

There is a recent tradition in Winnipeg politics that is in serious danger of being shattered.

Since the 1990s, every Winnipeg mayor has been elected to serve at least two full terms, and most have served no more than two before retiring. Three or more terms for a mayor are rare. 

Turfing a mayor after a single term? Unheard of!

Yet this might be the year when Winnipeggers decide to turf their one-term mayor. 

Is Scott Gillingham in trouble?

What has gone wrong for Winnipeg’s first-term mayor Scott Gillingham? Why is he so unpopular? And is there anyone in a position to defeat him?

A public opinion poll published in late spring indicated that Gillingham was in serious trouble. According to a Probe Research survey conducted for the Winnipeg Free Press from May 25 to June 8, 2026, 46% of Winnipeggers did not want to see Gillingham re-elected, while just 19% wanted him to win again, and 36% were unsure. 

Behind those numbers was a broader sense of dissatisfaction: about two-thirds of respondents said that “quality of life” had deteriorated since Gillingham’s 2022 election as mayor, with the major issues being crime, homelessness, and addictions.  

Winnipeggers were also pessimistic about the chances of things getting better. Only 8% thought that a new mayor and/or city council would make a major difference in fixing these problems.

In his re-election bid for mayor, Gillingham – a former two-term councillor before becoming mayor four years ago – will be facing at least one familiar opponent from last time. Kevin Klein announced his mayoral bid on September 1 and formally filed his nomination papers on September 22, the deadline day for nominations. 

Missing from this year’s race is Gillingham’s 2022 runner-up, former Winnipeg mayor (and former Ontario Liberal MPP and cabinet minister) Glen Murray.  The sometimes-Manitoban left-winger is nowhere to be found on the political scene in 2026.

Despite 12 candidates on the ballot, the race is shaping up as a Gillingham-Klein rematch, with both candidates having conservative political credentials.

Three “conservatives” running for Mayor?

Mayor Gillingham, a former Pentecostal pastor, ran for the provincial PC Party of Manitoba, and lost, in 2011 in the riding of St. James.  He remained active in the party and openly considered running for the provincial PC leadership in 2021 before deciding not to do so. He was twice elected as a councillor to Winnipeg city council, in 2014 and 2018, before running for mayor in 2022 and winning with just 27.54% of the vote in an unusually crowded field of 11 candidates, narrowly edging out Glen Murray, who received 25.31%.

Kevin Klein sat on Winnipeg City Council with Gillingham from 2018 to 2022, including a stint as chair of the Winnipeg Police Board. Klein has had an even more prominent affiliation with the Manitoba Tories than Gillingham.  After finishing third behind Gillingham and Murray in October 2022, Klein quickly turned to provincial politics. He ran for the Manitoba PCs in the Kirkfield Park provincial by-election in mid-December of 2022, won the seat, entered the legislature and joined the Heather Stefanson PC government as Minister of Environment and Climate at the end of January, 2023.  Klein’s career as an MLA was short-lived, however, as he went down to defeat with the rest of Stefanson’s PC team to Wab Kinew’s NDP in October of 2023, losing his seat to the NDP. Since then, Klein has declared himself to be a “political orphan.” 

An emerging third conservative-leaning candidate – though unaffiliated with any conservative political party – is Winnipeg funeral director Mike Vogiatzakis.  He is running on a slogan of “A Stronger Winnipeg. For Every Neighbourhood.” His stances on aggressive cost-cutting of the city’s budget, strict enforcement of bylaws on public safety, and expansive infrastructure distinguish him from the other candidates.

What are the issues in Winnipeg?

So what is making Winnipeg voters so unhappy, and casting such a shadow over Gillingham’s re-election prospects?

Despite a 5.95% property-tax increase in 2025 – well above the 3.5% annual increase Gillingham had promised during the 2022 campaign – and another 3.5% increase in 2026, the city is still facing a $29 million shortfall. He defended the property tax increase as necessary to maintain services and manage the city’s growing financial pressures.

Meanwhile, residents have faced higher water and sewer rates and a new waste-management fee that jumped from $93 to $254 per household in 2025, before rising again to $264 in 2026.

Add to that concerns about violent crime, transit safety, retail theft, encampments and homelessness, and it’s not hard to understand why some Winnipeggers are questioning whether City Hall is delivering the results they expect. 

Election Day is October 28. Have a question, tip or idea for our next look at the Winnipeg mayoral race? Send it our way. As always, I read every reply and appreciate hearing from MW readers.

UPDATE:

Since this article was written, a new Winnipeg Free Press/Abacus Data poll has painted a very different picture of the race.

Among decided voters, incumbent Mayor Scott Gillingham leads with 55% support, compared with 23% for Kevin Klein and 11% for Mike Vogiatzakis.

But there’s a giant asterisk: more than half of all respondents (51%) remain undecided, while another 13% say they don’t intend to vote.

So while Gillingham’s position looks dramatically stronger than it did in the spring, the enormous undecided vote means there is still considerable uncertainty about the election and many Winnipeggers have yet to engage seriously with the mayoral race.

Meet Olivia Chow, Toronto’s (NDP) Mayor

Toronto Mayoral Race 2026 | Part One: Meet Olivia Chow, Toronto’s (NDP) Mayor
Sep 29, 2026

Olivia Chow has been a fixture in Toronto politics for a very long time. Her career stretches back decades, from the local school board to Toronto City Council and eventually to Canada’s Parliament. Her history tells us a lot about the politician now running Canada’s largest city.

She was first elected as a Toronto Board of Education trustee in 1985. In 1991, she moved to Metro Toronto Council, becoming the first Asian-born woman elected to that body. After the amalgamation of Metro Toronto’s seven municipalities on January 1, 1998, she served on the new Toronto City Council, winning election in 1997, 2000 and 2003. In total, she spent 14 years in local politics before leaving City Hall in 2005 to pursue federal office.

In 2006, she was elected as the NDP Member of Parliament for the downtown Toronto riding of Trinity-Spadina and was re-elected in 2008 and 2011. She held the seat until 2014, when she resigned as MP to run for mayor of Toronto.

Chow was married to Jack Layton, one of Toronto’s most recognizable political figures. For his part, Layton also spent decades in Toronto municipal politics, as a city and Metro councillor before becoming leader of the federal NDP in 2003. He was elected MP for Toronto-Danforth in 2004 and became Leader of the Official Opposition after the May 2011 federal election. He died a few months later, in August 2011.

By 2014, Chow had spent nearly three decades in elected politics.

That year, she decided to make the jump from Parliament back to City Hall, this time aiming for the mayor’s chair.

John Tory won that election with about 40 per cent of the vote. Doug Ford finished second with almost 34 per cent and Chow came third with just over 23 per cent. 

Nine years later, she got another shot.

Second Time’s A Charm

In October 2022, John Tory was re-elected to a third term with about 62 per cent of the vote. Just a few months later, he resigned after acknowledging an inappropriate relationship with a former member of his staff – a relationship that began during the COVID-19 pandemic, while Tory was publicly urging Toronto residents to practise “social distancing.” 

His resignation took effect on February 17, 2023, and that triggered a mayoral by-election.

Chow ran again and this time she won, receiving 37.2 per cent of the vote and beating Ana Bailão, who received 32.5 per cent. Mark Saunders was a distant third at 8.6 per cent. An array of “also rans” accounted for the remainder 20-plus per cent.

Here’s an interesting footnote: Brad Bradford, who is now her principal challenger, was one of those “also rans.” He finished eighth, with just 1.28 per cent of the vote.

But winning the mayor’s chair is one thing. What did Olivia Chow actually do in her first two-plus years as mayor? To answer that, we need to look beyond the campaign trail and examine her record – the decisions she has made, the priorities she has pursued, and what they tell us about the mayor she is today and the direction she wants to take Toronto next. 

The next two parts of this series will take a closer look at Chow’s record in office, as well as the key themes shaping the campaign of her leading challenger. But before we get too far into the present, it is worth looking back a few decades. Because if we’re going to examine Chow’s political record, we would be remiss not to revisit one of the earlier controversies that helped define her political career and, at the time, became something of a scandal involving both Chow and her husband, former NDP leader Jack Layton.

Do as I Say, Not as I Do?

In the mid 1980s to early 1990s, Chow and Jack Layton, lived in a federally subsidized housing co-operative while both were well-paid elected officials.

Here were two prominent politicians whose careers were closely tied to social justice, affordable housing and government intervention, living in a federally assisted housing co-operative despite having a combined income far above that of many of the residents the system was intended to help.

Technically, the arrangement was within the rules. But the optics were terrible.

This wasn’t a case of Chow and Layton secretly occupying a rent-geared-to-income apartment while pretending to be low-income tenants. But it did raise an uncomfortable question: should elected officials with relatively high incomes participate in taxpayer-assisted housing programs, even when the rules technically allow them to do so?

The episode highlighted a potential gap between political principle and personal practice – advocating government programs designed to help those with fewer resources while benefiting from one themselves.

It is an old controversy but that doesn’t necessarily make it irrelevant. It calls into question her overall judgement and provides an early glimpse into a question that has followed her political career for decades: how closely do the principles she advocates for others align with the choices she makes herself?

That question brings us back to the present.

Olivia Chow has spent decades in politics, as a school trustee, councillor, MP and now mayor. Along the way, she has built a very solidly NDP, left-wing political identity.

That’s not been a secret. But what happens when that ideology meets the messy realities of governing a city?

In Part Two, we’ll take a closer look at Chow’s record as mayor, including some of the notable flip-flops of her first term, and see how her closest competitor stacks up.

The Ford Factor in Mississauga

The Ford Factor in Mississauga
Aug 31, 2026

Municipalities may be creatures of the province, but should the Premier get to play kingmaker at City Hall? That’s the question worth asking as Mississauga – one of Canada’s largest cities, with roughly 770,000 residents – heads toward its mayoral election. 

Because Premier Doug Ford has made his preference pretty clear.

Ford wasn’t a fan of Bonnie Crombie even before she became Liberal leader and his opponent in the 2025 provincial election. When she was mayor of Mississauga, Crombie fought Ford’s government over development charges – the fees paid by developers to help fund the infrastructure required to service new residents. Lowering those charges prompted Crombie to ask a fairly straightforward question: if developers pay less, who makes up the difference, and do existing taxpayers end up carrying more of the cost?

Hey, Mayor! “Stop the whining and complaining!”

Ford’s response to Crombie was not exactly diplomatic. He told her to “stop the whining and complaining.”

Ford’s interaction with current Mayor Carolyn Parrish on this issue was quite different. Instead of calling her names, just last week, he (together with representatives from the federal government) handed her a cheque in the sum of up to $401.4 million for the City as part of the Development Charges Reduction Program – to pay for that infrastructure that is required and used to be paid for by development fees.

This isn’t a new alliance. In March of this year, at an announcement in Mississauga, Ford was even clearer about whom he wanted to see back in the mayor’s chair, declaring: “I will send an army down here to make sure I support Mayor Parrish.”

Ford: “I never get involved in municipal elections.”

There is something almost amusing about the sentence that preceded Ford’s militaristic declaration, which was: “I never get involved in municipal elections.” Apparently Mississauga is an exception. I doubt Crombie is shaking in her boots, however. According to a recent Liaison Strategies poll, voters were asked how Ford’s endorsement would affect their vote, and 39% said it would make them less likely to vote for Ford’s preferred candidate, while only 15% said it would make them more likely.

That’s quite a gap, and perhaps a useful reminder that a Premier’s endorsement isn’t necessarily the political gift he might imagine it to be.

And Then There Is Bill 100 (Doug Ford’s power grab)

There is a provincial issue where Crombie and Municipal Watch happen to find themselves on the same side. She and I don’t agree on very much but, on Doug Ford’s Bill 100, which I wrote about last month (https://municipalwatch.ca/2026/07/29/from-for-the-people-to-power-for-the-premier/), we do. 

Crombie has expressed opposition to the legislation, which gives the Premier the power to appoint regional chairs and then gives those appointees sweeping “strong chair” powers. The obvious concern is that a chair appointed by the Premier could potentially veto or override decisions supported by a democratically elected council.

That is a pretty extraordinary transfer of local political power to Premier Ford himself.

And it is worth noting because this is exactly the kind of issue Municipal Watch has been warning about: whatever one’s political allegiance, it is fundamentally undemocratic to give the Premier the power to appoint the leader of a regional government and then giving that Premier (Ford, and all those who come after him) enhanced powers over the elected council.

No more foreign flags at City Hall in Mississauga

Mississauga is a fascinating municipal case study because it sits at the intersection of so many of the debates currently reshaping Canadian cities. It is growing, its population is extraordinarily diverse, its housing needs are changing, its neighbourhoods are changing, and residents are clearly thinking about whether the city is headed in the right direction.

The foreign flag issue threw the curtain open on Mississauga’s changing relationship with its own multicultural identity. For years, the city has worn its diversity proudly and made cultural recognition a prominent part of civic life. But the politics surrounding some of that recognition have become considerably more complicated.

There were incidents around foreign flag raisings at Mississauga’s Celebration Square for Pakistan Day and India’s Independence Day that exposed some of the tensions beneath the city’s famously multicultural surface. Online, there were comments condemning the countries themselves as well as insults directed at residents of their respective Mississauga communities. City officials described some of the comments as “misinformed and even hateful,” while acknowledging that much of the online criticism was directed more broadly at the practice of raising foreign flags. 

No more “national colours” or “lights” either

Things became contentious enough that when Calgary City Council voted in December 2025 to end the raising of foreign national flags at City Hall, Mississauga soon followed. In April 2026, Council unanimously approved Mayor Carolyn Parrish’s call to remove national flag raisings from Mississauga’s city square. Even “displays of lights associated with national colours (with the exception of those of Canada) on the civic centre clock tower” were banned. 

The foreign flag issue also represents a striking contrast between the two frontrunner candidates. As mayor, Crombie had championed the City’s Community Recognition Program (under which the foreign flags are flown) as a way of celebrating the city’s cultural diversity; in 2026, Council headed up by Mayor Parrish passed a motion banning foreign-flag raisings, describing them as a source of “controversy and at times division within the community.” Parrish herself called the practice “very controversial” and said she was no longer prepared to continue it.

The flag controversy is interesting not because any flag, by itself, is going to determine who becomes mayor. It won’t. It is interesting because it illustrates something broader happening in Mississauga: the old assumptions about what multiculturalism looks like, and how City Hall should handle it, are running into growing pushback from residents themselves.

In addition to the debate over foreign flags, the Ridgeway Plaza controversy is another manifestation of those tensions. Arguments over development charges, density, transit and municipal autonomy are others. And now the mayoral race itself is testing whether Mississauga voters want to continue in the direction the city has been heading – or whether they are ready for a change.

That is why Canadians who don’t live in Mississauga should pay attention.

Municipal politics is where big national and provincial arguments eventually become local and very personal. Immigration, for example, eventually becomes a question about how a neighbourhood changes. Multiculturalism becomes a question about how public space is used. Housing policy becomes a question about whether you can still afford your home. Provincial power becomes a question about who gets to make decisions at City Hall. And “safety” stops being an abstract campaign talking point and becomes a question about whether residents feel comfortable walking down their own street at night.

Mississauga’s voters will decide which version of their city they want. The rest of us can learn something by watching what they decide, because the issues playing out there aren’t particularly unique to Mississauga. They’re showing up in cities across the country, in different forms and with different political personalities attached to them.

What Kind of Change do Mississauga Voters Want?

And perhaps that’s what makes this race so interesting. The question isn’t simply who will win. It is what, exactly, are Mississauga voters trying to change? And what do they think needs to be preserved?

Because when 46% of residents say their city is moving in the wrong direction, and 45% say it is less safe than it was a year ago, there is clearly a story here.

Mississauga’s Mayoral Musical Chairs

Mississauga’s Mayoral Musical Chairs
Aug 31, 2026

It isn’t every day that a former mayor decides to run for her old job again, especially after leaving it to pursue the leadership of a provincial political party. But that’s exactly what is happening in Mississauga.

For starters, look at the four leading contenders. Candidate A is a former federal Liberal MP. Candidate B is a former federal Liberal MP who became mayor for almost a decade and then went on to become Leader of the Ontario Liberal Party. Candidate C is a former provincial Liberal MPP, and Candidate D is a former Ontario Liberal Party candidate who later ran for the leadership of the party. Three of the four currently serve on Mississauga City Council.

Is Mississauga City Council a one-party state? Well, not technically, of course. Municipal elections are officially non-partisan, and the absence of party labels on the ballot is one of the defining features of Ontario municipal politics. But political histories don’t magically disappear just because there isn’t a party name beside the candidate’s name.

And the political landscape in Mississauga is actually rather interesting. All six federal ridings are represented by Liberal MPs, while all six provincial ridings are represented by Progressive Conservative MPPs. So no, Mississauga is hardly a one-party city. But given that rather dramatic federal-provincial political split, it is certainly curious that the four leading mayoral contenders all come from the Liberal political orbit.

I can understand the absence of NDP candidates; historically, the party hasn’t fared particularly well in Mississauga. But four leading Liberal candidates? That’s worth noticing.

Can Crombie Make a Comeback?

Bonnie Crombie’s first mayoral victory in 2014 looked as though it might be a tight race. She was running against another former Liberal MP, Steve Mahoney, and the race was expected to be competitive. Then Hazel McCallion, Mississauga’s legendary former mayor and one of the most recognizable figures in the city’s history, endorsed Crombie, and the entire dynamic changed.

McCallion’s endorsement helped catapult Crombie into the mayor’s chair, winning more than 100,000 votes and 63.5% of the vote. She won again in 2018, this time with 76.7%, and then again in 2022 with an astonishing 78.5%. Huge victories.

But 2026 is a very different race. A recent Liaison Strategies poll has Crombie and current Mayor Carolyn Parrish neck and neck at 35% each among decided and leaning voters, a far cry from the margins Crombie enjoyed in her three previous mayoral campaigns.

Out of sight, out of mind is a real thing in politics. Some Mississauga voters may now see Crombie’s return as a comeback, while others may see it as something of a consolation prize after her 2025 provincial election defeat as Ontario Liberal leader – and, even more painfully, after she lost her own attempt to win a seat in the provincial legislature in Mississauga East-Cooksville.

It’s quite a predicament for Crombie, compared with where she stood when she left City Hall.

The Crombie Reinvention Machine

Crombie has had a long political career, with elected experience at the municipal, federal and provincial levels, and she certainly hasn’t been controversy-free along the way. One thing she does seem to be very good at, though, is reinventing herself at each stage of the game.

When she was mayor, from 2014 to 2024, Crombie was simultaneously pro-development, pro-density, pro-transit and strongly pro-climate action, embracing a thoroughly woke political agenda. At the same time, she opposed reductions to development charges, expressed concern about taxpayers absorbing infrastructure costs and was fiercely protective of Mississauga’s municipal autonomy. She was particularly vocal in opposing provincial interference in municipal affairs.

After nearly three years away pursuing provincial politics, Crombie is back with a very different political message.

The message now is affordability, safety, congestion relief and fiscal accountability – pretty much a checklist of the issues topping Mississauga residents’ concerns, with a made-in-Mississauga tariff plan thrown in for good measure. It includes buying Canadian and local, helping tariff-hit businesses with their taxes and promising faster City Hall approvals – another box to tick in a carefully curated campaign message.

Voters will have the opportunity to look at both the new message and the old record and decide what to make of Crombie’s latest political incarnation. 

What About Carolyn Parrish?

The other obvious question is whether Mississauga voters will take a more critical look at current mayor Carolyn Parrish this time around than they did in 2022.

Parrish won the 2022 mayoral by-election after Crombie stepped down to pursue provincial politics. She won with just 31% of the vote, in an election where turnout was a dismal little over 25%. That’s hardly an overwhelming mandate, although it was enough to put her in the mayor’s chair.

Not many voters will remember – or are even old enough to remember – the heady days of Controversial Carolyn, the MP who was anti-American before it was fashionable. In 2003, Parrish famously said, “Damn Americans, I hate those bastards!” and later stomped on a George W. Bush doll to make her point in an episode of the television show, This Hour Has 22 Minutes.

Some people might see that kind of outspokenness as a positive attribute. But then-Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin wasn’t impressed by Parrish’s comments about him and her Liberal caucus colleagues. She was kicked out of caucus and spent her final months on Parliament Hill sitting as an Independent MP.

She wasn’t exactly apologetic about the experience. Parrish said she had “absolutely no loyalty to this [Liberal] team. None.” And, referring to her former colleagues, she said: “After what they’ve put me through and lots of my colleagues, they can all go to hell.” Of Martin, she added: “If he loses the next election and he has to resign, I wouldn’t shed a tear over it.”

That was a long time ago. Maybe she’s mellowed since then.

And Then There Are the Other Two

Also in the 2022 mayoral by-election, Alvin Tedjo came in second with 25% of the vote, while Dipika Damerla finished third with 19%. According to the recent Liaison Strategies poll, those two are now third and fourth in voter preference, with Damerla pulling ahead of Tedjo.

So there we have it: four leading candidates, all with Liberal political pedigrees, three of them currently sitting on Council, with a former mayor trying to come back, a sitting mayor trying to hang on and two current councillors trying to break through. 

Hovering over the whole thing is one rather interested provincial “conservative” Premier with plenty of Liberal options from which to choose. And Doug Ford has made his preference very clear. 

Read about this neat twist in Mississauga Mayoral Race: Part 3.

Mississauga: The Suburb that Won’t Sleep

Mississauga: The Suburb that Won’t Sleep
Aug 31, 2026

Something interesting is happening in Mississauga.

A recent Liaison Strategies poll found that 46% of Mississauga residents believe their city is moving in the wrong direction, compared with only 32% who think it is moving in the right direction. In politics, those are significant numbers.  People in Mississauga are not happy. Why not?

Here’s a clue: 45% said Mississauga is less safe than it was a year ago. Only 12% said it is safer, while 31% said it is about the same.

So, when half of its residents say the city is headed in the wrong direction – and nearly half say they feel less safe than they did just a year ago – it is worth asking why.

One possible piece of the puzzle is a place that has become something of a household name in Mississauga: Ridgeway Plaza.

The Ridgeway Plaza Problem

Built in 2022 in what had previously been a relatively quiet residential neighbourhood, Ridgeway Plaza quickly became a hugely popular destination. It is a collection of restaurants and shops, particularly known for halal food, and has attracted thousands of people from Mississauga and well beyond.

There is absolutely nothing unusual or problematic about that.

Mississauga is Canada’s eighth-largest city, with a population of approximately 770,000. It sits immediately west of Toronto, is slightly larger than Vancouver and slightly smaller than Winnipeg, and is home to Toronto’s major international airport. It is also one of the country’s most ethnically diverse cities.

A diverse city should have diverse restaurants, shops and gathering places. In fact, the popularity of Ridgeway is a testament to the entrepreneurial energy and cultural diversity of Mississauga.

The problem, according to a City news release, is that the plaza has also become associated with overcrowding, excessive late-night noise, illegal fireworks, illegal patios, street racing and stunt driving, physical fights and altercations, threatening and aggressive behaviour, blocked emergency access and other safety concerns.

None other than The New York Times took notice, publishing an article in March 2026 titled “The Suburb That Won’t Sleep.” The newspaper described Ridgeway as having grown to approximately 120 restaurants, primarily Middle Eastern and South Asian, and noted that it attracts thousands of diners each week.

This wildly popular commercial destination grew faster than the surrounding infrastructure and municipal rules could accommodate, however.

As The New York Times reported, the popularity of the plaza has brought noise, litter, traffic, insufficient parking, confrontations, physical fights, illegal fireworks and street racing.

Those are legitimate municipal problems that require solutions because they affect the people who live nearby.

When Cultural Celebrations Meet Neighbourhood Peace & Quiet 

There is another layer to the story, however, and this is where things get more complicated.

Certain culturally significant days have drawn particularly large crowds to the area. Unsanctioned (planned but not permitted by the city) events surrounding Pakistan and Afghanistan Independence Days, as well as National Iraqi Day, have at times attracted thousands of people.

The City itself said some of these gatherings had repeatedly created problems with its ability to maintain roads safely, control traffic, respond to emergencies and enforce municipal bylaws.

A Pakistani-Canadian physician and regular Ridgeway diner, Dr. Ilmana Fasih, offered an insightful perspective. She told The New York Times:

“I love my culture, but then I’m also critical of some of the things that we do which annoy people and which are different, because every culture has a different nuance.”

She immediately added another important point: “There are problems with us, and there are problems with racism in Canada also.”

That is probably a more useful way of looking at this than pretending that a problem doesn’t exist.

Matt Mahoney, Mississauga’s deputy mayor and the councillor whose ward includes Ridgeway Plaza, has also pushed back against the idea that the problem can simply be blamed on poor city planning. As he has pointed out, the City cannot dictate what type of businesses operate in a privately developed plaza.

Yet he has also described Ridgeway as a place that, beyond the food, has become known for “chaos.”

When the City Had to Step In

By December 2023, the problem had become serious enough that Mississauga Council, led by then-Mayor Bonnie Crombie, adopted a Nuisance Gathering By-law, which took effect January 1, 2024.

It was one of Crombie’s final acts as mayor before she resigned to seek the leadership of the Ontario Liberal Party.

The Nuisance Gathering by-law wasn’t enough.

Large unsanctioned gatherings continued. Some drew more than 3,000 people. Emergency fire routes were blocked. There were illegal fireworks, very late-night noise, street racing, stunt driving and physical altercations.

Eventually, under newly elected Mayor Carolyn Parrish, Mississauga took the extraordinary step of going to court.

The City obtained an injunction restricting nuisance gatherings at Ridgeway Plaza and giving police additional authority – and the obligation – to restrict traffic and deal with violations. The injunction specifically covered periods surrounding Pakistan Independence Day and Afghanistan Independence Day in 2025.

Seeking and obtaining a court injunction is a pretty remarkable escalation for a suburban shopping plaza that opened only a few years ago.

Chaos: A Municipal Problem in Mississauga

Mississauga is a multicultural city. Its population includes large communities from South Asia, the Middle East and many other parts of the world. People have every right to celebrate their heritage, eat the food of their home countries, gather with friends and maintain cultural traditions.

But the same rules must apply to everyone.

Celebrating your heritage doesn’t give anyone the right to block a fire route. Driving dangerously isn’t acceptable because the gathering happens to be culturally significant. Illegal fireworks don’t become legal because they are part of a celebration. And residents shouldn’t have to put up with excessive noise or unsafe streets because a particular event attracts a large crowd.

That balance is precisely what municipal government is supposed to manage.

Why Does This Matter in the Mayoral Race?

Interestingly, Ridgeway Plaza and the related controversies don’t appear to have become major issues in this year’s mayoral race – at least not yet.

Perhaps that’s because tensions have subsided somewhat following the City’s tougher approach, including the court injunction. Or perhaps none of the leading candidates wants to touch such a sensitive subject during an election campaign.

And perhaps that’s understandable, but the underlying questions haven’t disappeared.

How does a rapidly growing city accommodate new businesses and new communities without overwhelming established neighbourhoods?

How does a municipality protect cultural expression while enforcing the same rules for everyone?

And what happens when residents begin to feel that their neighbourhood is changing faster than their government can manage?

These are legitimate questions for voters to ask their local candidates. 

And that is why Ridgeway Plaza is worth watching.

Because when 46% of residents say their city is moving in the wrong direction and 45% say it is less safe than it was a year ago, politicians should probably be asking why.

Calmer, But Not Quite Settled

Since the injunction, things do appear to have improved somewhat, at least in terms of the city’s ability to control the large gatherings. The temporary court order proved effective, and in April the city and the plaza’s condo corporations reached an agreement involving cameras, gates, speed bumps, additional security and increased parking enforcement. Whether any of that has actually solved the underlying problems is another question, as the city has yet to publish meaningful before-and-after data, and complaints about traffic, noise, and safety have continued.

Liberals in a Hurry: Trudeau, Carney & the 3 Green Amigos

Liberals in a Hurry: Trudeau, Carney & the 3 Green Amigos
Aug 28, 2026

It was former Liberal Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent who famously quipped that the CCF (forerunner of today’s NDP) were “Liberals in a hurry.” 

But what about New Democrats and fellow-travelling green lefties who start out on the far left but then gravitate to the federal Liberals?  Are they no longer in a hurry? Or are they in such a big hurry that they can’t wait for the NDP to form a national government, so they seek to infiltrate the federal Liberals, one of the most successful political machines in the western world?

The most famous defector from a left-wing party to the federal Liberals was former Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Before entering federal politics as a Liberal, Trudeau spent much of the 1940s and 1950s in the orbit of the democratic-socialist CCF, now the NDP. He even served as a CCF agent in the 1949 federal election.

But something has been going on more recently with defections and infiltrations from the green left and NDP to the federal Liberals. One of the epicentres of this “leftists-in-a-hurry” phenomenon is Vancouver.

In 2004, former British Columbia NDP Premier Ujjal Dosanjh was appointed by Liberal PM Paul Martin as the Liberal candidate in Vancouver South, a seat he won in 2004 and held until 2011.

And there are more recent examples of left-wingers “in a hurry” in Vancouver, and their stories are still playing out today.

The most celebrated green/NDP politician to switch to the federal Liberals is former Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson. A one-time director of the notorious green-left “philanthropic” Tides Foundation here in Canada (now called “MakeWay”), Robertson entered public life as the BC NDP MLA for Vancouver-Fairview. Not satisfied with being an opposition backbencher, Robertson shrewdly jumped to municipal politics in 2008, was elected mayor and led the left-of-centre “Vision Vancouver” slate to victory that year. 

For the next ten years, Robertson served as one of Canada’s most progressive mayors.  His legacy involved pushing a hard-left green environmental agenda and, most controversially, setting in motion Vancouver’s notorious phased-in ban on natural gas. Approved in 2016, the ban was (thankfully!) terminated ten years later, in 2026, by the more sensible new Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim.  

After retiring as mayor in 2018, Robertson spent over six years in what passes (for progressives) as the “private sector.” He worked as the Global Ambassador for the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy (2019 to early 2025), an alliance funded by a combination of Bloomberg Philanthropies and the European Union’s European Commission (in other words: the long-suffering taxpayers of Europe).

Robertson was recruited in 2025 to be the Liberal candidate in Vancouver-Fraserview-South Burnaby. Upon his election to Parliament, Robertson was immediately elevated to be Carney’s cabinet as Minister of Housing and Infrastructure and Minister for Pacific Economic Development.

While Robertson was serving as the Green Left (basically NDP) mayor, another Green Left-winger burst onto the political scene in the Vancouver area. Elected as part of Justin Trudeau’s 2015 landslide, Jonathan Wilkinson won his first election in the suburban Vancouver riding of North Vancouver (now North Vancouver-Capilano). 

Like Robertson, Wilkinson got his political start in the NDP. A former head of the NDP youth wing in Saskatchewan and later an advisor to Saskatchewan NDP Premier Roy Romanow, Wilkinson went on to work for environmental tech, energy efficiency, water treatment, hydrogen and biomass energy companies. By 2015, this socialist-in-a-hurry had transformed himself into a federal Liberal and joined Team Trudeau, securing the nomination in North Vancouver.  Wilkinson was elected three times under Trudeau and thrived under the green-left Liberal PM, serving successively as Trudeau’s Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, Environment and Climate Change, and finally as Energy and Natural Resources – pushing a radical, left-wing, interventionist Net Zero agenda in all three portfolios.

Wilkinson served briefly in the Mark Carney cabinet and then sat in Parliament as a backbencher, waiting for his next assignment. 

In April, Carney announced that Wilkinson, the green left-wing Trudeau operative, would become Canada’s next Ambassador to the European Union.

There is a third left-winger-in-a-hurry (to become elected as a Liberal) associated with Team Carney: Braeden Caley.

When Wilkinson was appointed Canada’s new ambassador to the EU, he had to resign his seat in the House of Commons, triggering the current federal by-election in North Vancouver-Capilano, to be held on Monday, August 31. Just days after leaving his job as Mark Carney’s deputy chief of staff, Braeden Caley was named the Liberal candidate for the North Vancouver–Capilano by-election.

It’s true that, unlike Wilkinson and Robertson, Caley didn’t spend his youth as an NDPer.  This young leftist-in-a-hurry went straight into the Liberal Party of Canada and enjoyed a successful career there. Early on, he worked for Vancouver-area Liberal MP Raymond Chan, but Caley’s true left-wing bias was easy to see. 

All in one year – 2008 – he joined the staff of former NDP Premier, then Vancouver Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh; supported former Ontario NDP Premier turned Liberal MP Bob Rae for Liberal leader (Caley was Rae’s Youth Director); and founded a group called “Canadians for Obama.” 

Caley earned his green municipal stripes from 2011 through 2016 when he left his federal opposition Liberal job for a job with real power – in the office of (wait for it…) Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson! Caley eventually became Robertson’s Director of Policy and Communications. Indeed, Caley held this job in the crucial year of 2015, when he likely played a role in Vancouver City Council’s in-principle adoption of Vancouver’s “Renewable City Strategy” on November 4 – the policy that led to Vancouver’s 2016 ban on natural gas.

These were heady days for environmentalist fanatics on the Canadian Left.

While Robertson and Caley’s Vancouver – real leaders of the municipal environmentalist left – were laying the groundwork for the natural gas ban, Canada’s new PM Justin Trudeau was attending the COP21 conference in Paris, signing the Paris Accord on Climate Change.  Around this time, Caley left Robertson’s office for Ottawa to take on the role of Senior Director of Communications for the Liberal Party of Canada. Meanwhile, weeks later, PM Trudeau met with the Premiers and released the Vancouver Declaration on Clean Growth and Climate Change in March 2016, which led to the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change. 

Caley was there for all of this, every step of the way. 

Trudeau’s choice of Braeden Caley was hardly surprising. A committed progressive Liberal with an interest in climate policy, Caley also had firsthand experience in Vancouver municipal politics, where some of the country’s most ambitious – and, in my view, misguided – green policies were taking shape.

In 2020, Braeden Caley became Executive Director of the progressive think tank Canada 2020, unofficially affiliated with the Liberal Party of Canada, and eventually became its President and CEO. At the same time, in May 2020, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney became Chair of Canada 2020’s new advisory board. Carney’s time chairing Caley’s board coincided almost exactly with his post-Bank of England role as the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance, from 2019/2020 to 2025.

Once Trudeau resigned, Carney left his various jobs, and so did Caley. Caley became the National Campaign Director for Carney’s successful campaign for Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and then one of the national campaign co-directors for the party’s general election victory in early 2025. He then served as a deputy chief of staff in Carney’s office.

On Monday, August 31, with Wilkinson settling into his EU job in Brussels, voters in his old riding will be asked to pass judgment on the first year of Carney’s government. As the Liberal candidate, Braeden Caley is Carney’s surrogate in North Vancouver–Capilano. His former boss, former Vancouver mayor and municipal green-extremist trailblazer Gregor Robertson, will undoubtedly be cheering on his former staffer. Carney, too, will be counting on adding Caley to his caucus, essentially swapping out one left-wing activist to Brussels to make room for another.

And yet many small- and large-C Conservatives continue to insist that Mark Carney is some sort of “moderate” or “centrist.” 

Really? Look at the people around him.

The Carney Liberals are filled with former NDPers, left-wing activists and green policy zealots who have figured out that sometimes the quickest route to political power is to stop calling yourself a socialist, put on a Liberal jersey and get elected. 

These “Liberals in a hurry” joined the Liberal tent because that is where the power is – and where they can now put their ideas into action. 

And if you want to know where Mark Carney sits politically, don’t just listen to what he calls himself. Look at the people he chooses to surround himself with. Birds of a feather, after all.

FROM "FOR THE PEOPLE" TO POWER FOR THE PREMIER

FROM “FOR THE PEOPLE” TO POWER FOR THE PREMIER
Jul 29, 2026

In 2018, Doug Ford’s Ontario PC party swept into power using the slogan, “For the People.”

Today, that slogan is rarely used by Ford, and it’s a good thing too! ”For the People”  has become increasingly difficult to reconcile with his increasingly authoritarian governing style and contempt for the very people who elected him.

Ford’s latest attack on local democracy comes just three months before Ontarians vote in this year’s municipal elections on October 26, 2026.

What has Ford done this time?  Earlier this year, Ford’s Minister of Municipal Affairs introduced Bill 100, the Better Regional Government Act. Thanks to Ford’s Progressive Conservative majority, the Ontario Legislature passed this anti-democratic legislation and it became law. 

But is it really better? 

Hardly. Not for voters. Not for local democracy. It does, however, concentrate more power in the Office of the Premier.

What does Bill 100 do? It is the latest step in Doug Ford’s steady centralization of power – taking decision-making away from “the people” and consolidating it where he appears to believe it belongs: in his own hands. 

Bill 100 gives Ford the power to appoint the Chairs of Ontario’s eight regional and district municipalities – even the ones that had for years been electing them by popular vote.  

Bill 100 is a backward step for democracy and accountability, and this is no sudden development.

Since becoming Premier in 2018, Ford, who failed in his own bid to become Toronto mayor in 2014, has been using provincial powers to exact his revenge on municipal voters and local politicians.  

How Regional Government Works – and Why it Matters

The Canadian Constitution establishes only two levels of government – federal and provincial. Municipal governments exist because provincial governments create them, and the provinces have complete authority to establish, regulate, structure and restructure local government as they see fit. So Doug Ford, whose party holds a majority in the Ontario Legislature, unquestionably has the legal authority to make local government as democratic – or as undemocratic – as he chooses.

Of the 8 regional governments in Ontario, six are heavily urban and specifically designated as “regional municipalities.”  In the Greater Toronto Area, there are four: Peel, York, Durham and Halton.  West and south of Toronto, there are two others: Waterloo and Niagara. Muskoka and Oxford County are “district municipalities,” which, for the purposes of selecting their leadership, are treated the same as the other regional municipalities. 

All eight of these regional governments are “two-tier,” meaning there is an upper-tier regional government responsible for services such as policing, regional roads, public transit, public health, paramedic services, water and wastewater, waste management, and regional planning, while the lower-tier municipalities (cities and towns) are responsible for local roads, parks, recreation, libraries, local planning, fire protection, and other community services.

To use one example, in Peel Region, where I once served as a Member of Parliament, there are three lower-tier municipalities – the Cities of Mississauga and Brampton and the Town of Caledon – together with one upper-tier government, the Regional Municipality of Peel, which is responsible for regional services for all three municipalities.

Three Decades of Expanding Local Democracy

Prior to Ford’s election in 2018, under successive Progressive Conservative and Liberal governments, Ontario’s regional governments had been evolving over several decades toward greater democratic accountability.  Until the 1990s, the chair of each regional council was typically chosen by the locally elected regional councillors. Technically, there was no legal requirement that the chair be an elected official. In practice, however, appointing an unelected chair was rare. Indeed, the last notable example of this occurred in 1992, when Peel Region selected a former mayor who was not at the time an office holder.

In the 1997 municipal elections, Waterloo Region became the first regional municipality to adopt the direct election of its Regional Chair. The change was initiated by the Region itself and approved by the Mike Harris PC government. The Harris PCs later authorized Halton Region to follow suit for the 2000 municipal election. Years later, after Durham Region voters approved the direct election of their Regional Chair in a 2010 referendum, the Wynne Liberal government completed the necessary legislative changes in time for the 2014 municipal election. 

In 2016, the Ontario Legislature amended the Municipal Act to require four remaining holdouts – York, Peel, Niagara and Muskoka – to hold direct elections for regional chair (or “district chair” in the case of Muskoka). (Oxford County, which already elected its head of council or “warden” directly, was unaffected by the change.) Although the change was imposed by Queen’s Park rather than requested by the affected municipalities – a debatable approach – it was nevertheless enacted in the spirit of giving a direct voice to voters in choosing their regional leader, replacing a process that had long been controlled by elected councillors behind closed doors.

The pattern is clear. Both PC and Liberal governments alike moved Ontario toward greater democratic accountability, first by permitting, and later by requiring, the direct election of regional chairs. By 2016, the transition was nearly complete.

Then Came Doug Ford, against the people 

Perhaps it should not be surprising that Ford has shown so little regard for the traditions of local government. Before becoming Premier, his entire elected political résumé consisted of a single four-year term as a Toronto city councillor, serving during the tumultuous mayoralty of his brother, Rob Ford. It was a remarkably narrow apprenticeship from which to redesign the democratic governance of every municipality in Ontario.

Despite his “For the People” slogan, his government has spent the years since 2018 dismantling that bipartisan legacy and shifting power away from voters.

Doug Ford became premier in June 2018, just months before Ontario’s scheduled municipal elections. That summer, the Ontario Legislature was recalled for a rare emergency session to pass new legislation that, among other things, repealed the impending direct election in the holdout regions of York, Peel, Niagara and the District of Muskoka. The elections for regional chair were famously, or infamously, cancelled, even though campaigning was already underway.

While some local politicians in these regions undoubtedly welcomed the return to the old insider system of selecting their respective regional chairs, their self-serving satisfaction proved short-lived. In 2022, apparently no longer content merely to deny voters a direct voice, Ford launched an even more sweeping new power grab.

The Premier Hand-Picks the Winners

Just before the 2022 election, the Ford government’s PC majority amended the Municipal Act once again, eliminating completely the role of local councillors in selecting regional chairs in Peel, York and Niagara. For the 2022 to 2026 term, it would be Premier Ford himself, through his Minister of Municipal Affairs, who would personally appoint the chairs in these regional governments!

That arrangement clearly suited Ford. Having centralized the appointment power into his own office, he soon decided to go even further. In 2026, the Ford government passed the Better Regional Governance Act, overturning a system of direct election in Durham Region that had been used successfully in three municipal elections and, more importantly, had been approved by voters themselves (the people!) in a 2010 referendum.

Ford didn’t stop there. His 2026 legislation also reversed reforms introduced by the Harris PC government nearly three decades earlier. Direct election of regional chairs in Halton and Waterloo was eliminated as well. So much for governing “For the People.”

Even worse, Ford did more than eliminate the direct election of regional chairs. Following the precedent he set in 2022 in York, Peel and Niagara, he also removed local elected officials from the selection process altogether. Beginning immediately after the 2026 municipal elections, the appointment of every regional chair in Ontario’s upper-tier municipalities will rest with Ford himself, acting through his Minister of Municipal Affairs – including in regions where voters had been choosing their regional chair directly for decades.

Ford’s appetite for centralized power seems to know no limits. What began by denying voters a direct voice has culminated in the unprecedented concentration of appointment power in the hands of the Premier.

The Most Powerful Regional Chairs Ever – and They All Owe Their Jobs to Ford

Bill 100 goes even further. Ford has also granted his appointees the same “strong mayor” powers already extended to many municipal mayors, creating the most powerful regional chairs in Ontario’s history.

Provided they support certain Ford-designated provincial priorities, these Ford-appointed regional chairs will be able to propose and pass certain bylaws with the backing of just one-third of regional council. Conversely, they will be empowered to veto bylaws adopted by a democratic majority if, in their opinion, those bylaws conflict with Ford’s provincial priorities. 

In effect, Ford has created a system in which the most powerful person in every regional municipality will no longer owe that position to the voters – or even to local elected representatives – but to the Premier himself. A mandate from Ford to pursue Ford’s priorities – and the arbitrary, Ford-style, near-dictatorial powers to impose them.

I am not alone in finding Ford’s latest power grab deeply troubling. The Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO), which represents Ontario’s municipal governments, has condemned the changes and urged the province to repeal Bill 100, stating that “appointing regional chairs with ‘strong chair’ powers is fundamentally undemocratic… We want to keep the selection of regional chairs and county wardens local.” AMO further warned that the legislation “erodes accountability to voters, undermines the ability of local governments to reflect community needs, and risks concentrating power at the provincial level.”

Governments Change. Powers Remain.

For those who still support Doug Ford and are tempted to dismiss these changes as harmless because they trust the current government, consider this: governments change, but the powers they acquire remain.

One day, Ontario will once again elect a Liberal or NDP government. When that day comes, it will inherit every one of the centralized powers Doug Ford has accumulated. It will decide who serves as regional chair. It will determine the “provincial priorities” that justify overriding local decision-making. And it will exercise the very powers that today’s government insists are necessary.

If voters truly believe in local government, democratic accountability, and limiting the concentration of political power, they must oppose these changes now – not after someone else inherits them. 

Governments change. And the question is not whether we trust today’s Premier. The question is whether we are willing to entrust these extraordinary powers to every Premier who follows.

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