Important dates for voters

For over four decades, Olivia Chow has talked the talk and walked the walk when it comes to her support for LGBTQ rights. From her anti-discrimination advocacy as a Toronto Board of Education member in the 1980s to her outspoken support for same-sex marriage and gender-identity protections as a member of Parliament (MP), Chow has been a longtime supporter of Canada’s queer community.

Chow, who became Toronto’s mayor in 2023, is in a tight reelection race that will take place on Oct. 26 against Brad Bradford, an urban planner and member of the Toronto City Council. Chow’s platform is centered on fighting rising costs, community safety, affordable housing and fixing the city’s public transportation system, while Bradford’s is focused on decreasing crime and transportation congestion and increasing affordability and city cleanliness.

Bradford’s LGBTQ track record isn’t bad: Earlier this week, he took part in an LGBTQ inclusion forum, where he said that “we need to make sure this is a city that comes together and rallies around unity and make sure that in all the spaces we are all seen, there is a place of tolerance and in fact celebration for all of us.”

Despite this, Chow—who appeared and spoke at an Uncloseted Media fundraiser in May—has put her allyship toward Toronto’s queer community front and center for nearly half a century. Here’s a timeline of her support for LGBTQ causes.

Dropped my vote in a Canada Post mailbox in Toronto on Thursday October 8, 2026. Used the prepaid envelope, followed the instructions and all. Apparently it didn't make it through by Wednesday October 14, 12pm. Something doesn't make sense to me. Very disappointed, as I'm unlikely able to vote in person now.

Did anyone else have the same issue or similar issue mailing by Canada Post?

I used to like sitting on this bench and eating my lunch or dinner with some beer at Christie pits, what happened to it?

Like you can't deny your own record. The slum lord building in his own riding was in terrible shape with rodents and roaches and leaking roof and no functioning ventilation and Olivia went there and did one million reno and charged the landlord on HIS behalf, he did not even show up at the event in the building with Olivia. His own constituents constantly complain about his MIA. He voted yes to bike lane and then changed to no to align with the province aka Doug Ford. He cannot explain how to fund the city except a old stunt by Rob Ford"line by line review" Rob did that with KPMG and the conclusion was to slash libraries and core services like snow plowing and grass cutting. His own wife is a developer and his entire family is all about privatization and he dares to touch our drinking water and hands over to Doug for privatization just like his support to trample the island for an American owned airport.

The Forest Hill and other ultra rich back him up for a reason! They do not care about the middle and lower class. He was the vice chair of the budget committee and created hand in hand with John Tory (when he was busy with the office female staff in an affair) a 6 billion budget hole to Olivia and then blame Olivia for trying to fix the city. That's rich coming from him for years in the council yet did not achieve a thing!

He simply is a mediocre guy that does NOT care about his constituents but cares only about the power so he can help his wife as a developer and their circle of friends in the gravy train. Sounds familiar? Yeah Doug Ford 2.0!

Enough is enough. He is not trustworthy!!!!

Since Brad Bradford kept screaming at Olivia Chow during the TVO debate, making her unable to answer his question on how she came up with her $6 Billion number, I decided to take a crack at it.

Promises Bradford is making that costs money

• $205M a year for TTC platform edge doors based on city feasibility study citing $4.1B over 20 years
• Since he wants to pay all capital projects with debt financing at a proposed max interest rate of 4%, that's an additional $8.2M a year
• $140M per year to hire 1000 additional police officers based on their 2026 hiring budget without factoring in annual salary increases
• $75.6M a year for the 4% interest to pay for water-based capital projects that are costed at $18.9B over next 10 years
• $10M in refunds to TTC riders whenever the service is delayed. I'm using amounts based on fares collected in 2025 and a conservative estimate of 1% of all trips being late by 15 minutes.
• $10M for the police substation at Union Station. I'm estimating 25% of the cost of a full police station, which was $40M in 2011.
• $4M to remove Scarborough rapid bus lanes, based on Eglinton East costs. More if he also rips out Bathurst and Dufferin.
• $3.5M (low estimate since it's based on 2011-2013 rates) for consulting services by KPMG or equivalent for Bradford's line-by-line review
• $305K to rename Sankofa Square based on what it cost to change it from YDS

Revenues Bradford plans on slashing

• $792.6M in lost revenue per year from eliminating municipal land transfer tax based on 2025 figures
• $75M in 2027 of lost property tax revenue due to freezing residential property taxes assuming 2% inflation based on 2026 figure of $3.747B
• Bradford wants to keep property tax increases in the next three years after at below inflation, so assuming inflation is 2%, if he only increases it by 1%, that's $37.5M per year
• $31.225M from 25% reduction to industrial property tax based on 2% share of $6.245B levy

So based on this, if Bradford is elected, he wants to spend an additional $1.743B while reducing revenues by $3.52B over his term. That's roughly $5.26B.

I'm sure there are people much smarter than me who can make better sense of these numbers or even poke holes at what I'm missing in these calculations. Feel free to contribute.

The King Street Priority Corridor has been an unmistakable success, when officers are on duty travel time between Bathurst and Jarvis drops from 45 minutes to 15, that's faster than cars ever were. In fact, the fact that an individual cars spend so little time on King and can't park means that fully blocking car traffic on the corridor will not meaningfully increase congestion from what it is now. To ease cars traffic, we can remove that useless section of streetcar track along Wellington, allowing cars an alternative to Richmond. Pedestrianizing King between Bathurst and Jarvis is simply better for everybody.

Apparently some of the crew quite enjoyed the work as they told the protesters to chant louder (p6) while they cut metal anchors with angle grinder.

Cyclists meet up at Tom Riley Park on Sunday Oct 17 after 12 pm to ride and show solidarity!

Just some photos from a walk on 2026-06-30

I've added description of the location to every photo, as best as I can remember, because my posts getting removed by the moderators for lack of accurate descriptions.

Enjoy!

So of course I hear a lot about the plan to remove the bike lanes. They've been doing construction here on the Danforth for the last couple months; and now that they're finishing I see they rebuilt the bike lanes.

Not complaining, just wondering why if they're planning to remove them anyway? Or is that actually not a sure thing?