Black people were 39.4% of the incidents in which Toronto police used force in 2020. They were about 10% of the city’s population, the police service’s own race-based data showed. Black people were also 2.3 times as likely as white people to have a firearm pointed at them.
Olivia Chow inherited those numbers, and she asks Toronto voters today for her first full term as mayor. Coun. Brad Bradford is her main challenger. In the police, youth jobs and transit announcements reported this month, neither candidate sets a target for Black residents. Here is what each has done or promised on the issues readers raised.
On policing, Chow says her administration has “hired more than a thousand police officers and mental health crisis workers” and that emergency response times are down nearly 50% from their 2023 peak, CP24 reported. She has also promised to reopen 54 Division in 2030, with $120.2 million in the 2025 budget. Bradford would hire 1,000 net new officers in four years, at about $143 million a year, roughly 10% of the police budget of $1.43 billion. The service’s existing plan is about 502 net new officers by 2029. CP24’s account of the two plans does not mention racial profiling or race-based data.
That silence matters because the police data came with an apology. In 2022 the interim chief apologized to Black residents when the figures came out, and an activist answered, “We do not accept your apology,” CBC reported. When she ran for mayor in 2014, Chow told a Black mayoral forum she would sit on the police board to stop racial profiling, which she called “demoralizing,” as New Canadian Media reported.
On housing, a City of Toronto report has found that one in five Black Torontonians lives in core housing need, double the rate of non-racialized residents. Chow proposes a “Bad Landlords Task Force.” Bradford proposes a public dashboard of building violations, according to The Globe and Mail. Neither plan is aimed at Black tenants specifically.
On transit, the 2026 city budget froze TTC fares for a third straight year. Chow now promises a fourth freeze and free rides after 10 paid rides in a week. Bradford promises platform doors at the busiest stations and a permanent police presence at Union Station.
On Black business, the city’s Action Plan to Confront Anti-Black Racism, adopted in 2017, directed staff to target Black-owned firms in the city’s social procurement program. The plan lists 22 recommendations and 80 actions, and the city says 96% of the actions are complete. We could not find a published total of what the city has spent with Black-owned firms since 2023. Bradford’s youth jobs plan reserves at least 30% of 15,000 positions for people facing the “steepest barriers,” a group not defined by race.
What is still missing sits on the city’s own calendar. A renewed 10-year anti-Black racism plan is not due before council until the second quarter of 2027, after the winner has taken office. In December the plan’s advisory committee, chaired by Deputy Mayor Amber Morley, asked council to budget $250,000 per neighbourhood for community-led planning.
Polls are open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. today. Voters must cast a ballot in the ward where they live. Find your voting place at toronto.ca/Elections, on your mailed voter information card or on its digital copy. Bring that card and ID showing your name and Toronto address. Photo ID is not required. Call 311 for help.
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