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Toronto votes in tight mayoral race as Chow looks to hold off Bradford
Toronto votes in tightly contested mayoral race
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young
The next leader of Toronto is set to be decided on Monday, as Olivia Chow looks to hold off a challenge from city councillor Brad Bradford in what's shaped up to be one of the most tightly contested re-election bids by a sitting mayor.
Some pollsters who had Chow leading Bradford by double digits just weeks ago now say the contest is a dead heat. No sitting mayor has lost a re-election bid since the city's 1998 amalgamation.
"It looks like we are headed to a photo finish if the polls are reliable," said Myer Siemiatycki, professor emeritus at Toronto Metropolitan University.
Chow's pitch largely rested on her track record. She framed the city as better off now than it was when she took over from John Tory in the 2023 byelection. Her campaign highlighted the deal to upload city expressway costs to the province, tighter rules for bad-faith evictions, expanded library hours, a transit fare freeze and reduced 911 wait times.
For Bradford, the planner-turned-politician elected to council in 2018, a victory on Monday would be a remarkable turnaround. He stumbled in his first run for mayor in 2023 when he finished eighth citywide, and sixth in his own Beaches-East York ward.
Undeterred, he announced his intent to run again a full year ahead of the election, carving out his position as Chow's main competitor to her political right. The only other candidate to make a dent in opinion polling, former federal Conservative cabinet minister Chris Alexander, dropped out of the race earlier this month.
Bradford's campaign leaned hard on issues of crime, transit safety and traffic congestion, casting Chow as out of touch with city's anxieties and grievances. He pledged to hire 1,000 police officers and backed mandatory treatment for people suffering from serious addiction, an approach widely criticized by doctors and mental health advocates.
He called for the removal of bike lanes on Bloor Street in Etobicoke and priority bus lanes in Scarborough, two initiatives he previously supported as a councillor. He framed it as a pragmatic responsiveness to local constituents but Chow's campaign accused him of opportunistic flip-flopping. He also faced pushback from 15 council incumbents who spoke out against his plan to spin off the city's water department into a public utility similar to Toronto Hydro.
Bradford promised a one-year property tax freeze and has routinely criticized Chow's hikes. Chow says the increases — 9.5 per cent in her first full budget, followed by 6.9 per cent — were necessary to stabilize the city's post-pandemic finances, vowing to keep future increases at or around the inflation rate.
The tightening race appears to mirror a broader Canadian political climate driven by voter dissatisfaction and a growing desire for change, Siemiatycki said, citing the defeat of Vancouver's Ken Sim and other mayoral incumbents in recent British Columbia municipal elections and the collapse of the CAQ in Quebec's provincial race.
A few weeks ago, it may have been natural for a front-runner like Chow to pursue a "low-risk, low-key campaign" with few flashy promises, said Siemiatycki. The question of whether her campaign pivoted forcefully enough in the face of an insurgent Bradford could hang over Monday's results, he said.
Bradford's mayoral run has left a vacancy in Beaches-East York, one of several open city council races to be closely watched on Monday night. That race is highlighted by former federal Liberal MP Nate Erskine-Smith and CTV reporter Natalie Johnson.
Mike Layton will look to reclaim his former seat in University-Rosedale after stepping away from municipal politics. To avoid facing off with Layton, the ward's incumbent Dianne Saxe opted instead to run in Toronto-Danforth to replace the retiring Paula Fletcher.
The elder statesman of council's progressive bloc, Gord Perks, is retiring, leaving a seat open in Parkdale-High Park. The field features front-line housing worker Diana Chan McNally, school board trustee Debbie King and former Ontario Liberal candidate Nadia Guerrera.
Incumbents expected to face a stiff challenge in their re-election bids include Chris Moise, Vincent Crisanti, Frances Nunziata and Parthi Kandavel.
Turnout during advance polls surged in this election. More than 220,000 people cast an early vote, a nearly 72 per cent increase over the 2023 mayoral byelection.
Polls are open Monday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
The race takes place in the shadow of Premier Doug Ford's repeated forays into city politics. Most recently, the province has unilaterally pursued plans to overhaul the city's protected bike lane network and expand Toronto's island airport.
While Bradford's campaign, which includes former Ford staff, would appear to be a more natural ideological fit with the premier's political brand, it was Chow who got approving words from the Ontario leader earlier in the race. When Ford was asked about the election late last month, he stopped just short of a Chow endorsement when he said the two had a phenomenal relationship and he would continue to support the mayor, telling reporters to "read between the lines".
Ford's office later said it was not an endorsement.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 26, 2026.
By Jordan Omstead | Copyright 2026, The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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U.K. opts against joining Canada-led defence bank, pledges co-operation
U.K. opts against Canada-led defence bank
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
The British government has turned down Ottawa's attempts to have it join the international Defence, Security and Resilience Bank, though London says it will work in lockstep with Canada to meet NATO spending targets.
The DSRB is meant to reduce borrowing costs for military spending by pooling credit strength among allies.
Canada has tried for months to convince the U.K. to join the project, but London has instead been pursuing its own program called the Multilateral Defence Mechanism.
Both countries agreed Sunday to craft a framework for cooperation between both banks, "having mutually concluded that it is best to develop two distinct but complementary institutions."
The two will "work in close partnership" on investment opportunities and challenges, according to a joint media statement.
The DSRB will be based in Canada and has the support of countries such as Belgium, Turkey and Ukraine.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 25, 2026.
By Dylan Robertson | Copyright 2026, The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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'He's earned it': Conservatives want Doerkson as premier amid constitutional question
Conservatives champion Doerkson for premier
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ethan Cairns
Voters gave Lorne Doerkson's B.C. Conservatives a two-thirds majority government on Saturday, now members of his party need to do the same to change their constitution to allow an interim leader to become permanent.
The party's constitution prohibits an interim leader from seeking leadership in subsequent ballot, and change would require the support of two-thirds of the party’s members.
The party's board said after the election was called that if Doerkson became the premier, he would remain leader and that it would pursue appropriate means “to give effect to this intention.”
Conservatives celebrated the win Saturday, praising the premier-designate for uniting the party after a tumultuous few months under the leadership of Kerry-Lynne Findlay, who quit days before the election was called.
Caroline Elliott lost to Findlay for the leadership race by a few percentage points but she won the riding of West Vancouver-Capilano on Saturday.
She said that Doerkson was the "right person" to lead the party to victory as "things were splintering."
"He's earned it. He's earned the trust of British Columbians. He has earned more votes in this general election than we could ever dream of in a leadership race, and so, for me, that's mandate enough and I'll support him for as long as he wants to stay on," she said Saturday.
Doerkson became the party’s interim leader just days before the snap election was called Sept. 22 by outgoing New Democrat premier David Eby, and the victory ends nearly a decade of NDP government in the province.
But how the party's board would ensure Doerkson will lead Conservatives remains unclear.
"A premier chosen by British Columbians deserves the certainty of leading his party. This amendment will provide it," the board's statement said in a social media post on Sept. 23.
Doerkson also has the support of former B.C. premier Gordon Campbell, who called him a "decent, honest, straightforward guy."
"He gets people to understand how good they are and where we can be. We can be a province of possibility and promise again, and I think that's what we're going to get to," Campbell said while attending the Conservative election-night celebration.
Hamish Telford, an associate professor in political science at the University of the Fraser Valley, said it's an interesting situation because a large portion of the party's base wanted to make sure there was no taint of the B.C. Liberals, as was made clear in the leadership results and Findlay's win.
"And now they want to represent themselves as a reincarnation of the B.C. Liberals. How is the base going to react to this new direction of the party? This is now a mainstream business-oriented party, that's not the party they wanted," he said.
Doerkson was elected in 2020 as a B.C. Liberal, which became B.C. United, but jumped to the Conservatives before the 2024 provincial election to win again in Cariboo-Chilcotin.
As recently as the 2020 election, the party received less than two per cent of the vote, but the collapse of BC United paved the way for its rise to official Opposition status and now government.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 25, 2026.
- With files from Brenna Owen and Wolfgang Depner
By Brieanna Charlebois | Copyright 2026, The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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