Toronto Picked A Housing Plan Over The Baseball Bat

A baseball bat can do several things. Lowering the rent is not usually one of them.

Toronto has reelected Olivia Chow with 54 percent of the vote against Brad Bradford's 41 percent, according to the Guardian. The 13-point margin followed weeks of polling suggesting a much closer contest. Chow's platform included more rental housing, free school lunches and lower fares for frequent transit users.

Bradford campaigned on living costs and crime, pledged more police alongside lower taxes and spending, and told residents he kept a baseball bat beside his bed because Toronto was so dangerous. As a description of a city's problems, this is vivid. As an operating plan for its housing supply, it requires additional attachments.

The actual crime picture is mixed. The Guardian reports increases in auto theft and high-value property crime, while homicides, firearms-related violence and assaults have fallen significantly in recent years. Residents' concerns cannot be dismissed, but neither can several different trends be compressed into one large object beside a mattress.

A city has to govern the conditions people live with, not merely find the most alarming household prop that can be brought into a campaign interview.

Chow's victory does not prove that every voter endorsed every item in her platform or that progressive candidates are immune to anger about costs. She also had a powerful historical advantage: Toronto has never defeated an incumbent mayor seeking reelection, according to the report. The result does show that an incumbent promising active responses to affordability can win decisively rather than automatically becoming the designated villain for every bill in the city.

That is worth noticing because the proposed remedies are recognisably municipal. Housing, lunches, transit fares. None requires pretending that a mayor can personally repeal the global cost of living. They are attempts to change specific expenses and conditions within the city's reach.

The election also produced a useful update from Ontario Premier Doug Ford. When Chow first won in 2023, he called her an “unmitigated disaster.” This time he described their relationship as “phenomenal” and invited people to read between the lines about his preference, without formally endorsing her.

Apparently the disaster came with excellent intergovernmental customer service.

That relationship does not mean the disputes are over. The Guardian reports a likely fight over bike lanes, and affordability will remain difficult for the incoming council. A winning coalition is not a building permit, and a victory speech does not deliver a school lunch. The campaign has secured another term in which the promises will have to become work.

Bradford's concession was notably more constructive than his bedside imagery. He said he wanted Chow to succeed and that his supporters did too. Chow thanked him and said their disagreements did not mean they lacked a shared desire for the city to do well. Neither needed to pretend the election had been stolen in order to retain an opinion about how Toronto should be run.

That leaves an ordinary, demanding test: build more homes, make the promised services work, and show residents the difference.

The baseball bat can stay beside the bed. City Hall has a different set of tools to use.