Why Brad Bradford’s plan to freeze Toronto property taxes is raising the spectre of Rob Ford - Toronto Star
Brad Bradford is promising a property tax freeze and a budget review, raising the spectre of the Rob Ford era uproar.
Coun. Brad Bradford this week announced a first-year tax freeze and a line-by-line audit of the city’s finances, if he’s elected mayor.
Brad Bradford believes there’s untapped wealth hiding in city coffers. He’s relying on it, in fact, as he advances a campaign that’s promising a line-by-line budget review and a number of pricey promises.
The councillor for Beaches—East York argues that a detailed, external examination of the city’s finances is long overdue, and predicts it will uncover major savings that will help pay for his campaign promises — including costly proposals for the police and TTC — while he limits new revenue through a property tax freeze in his first year.
Bradford’s promised review is raising the spectre of the last time Toronto conducted a similar exercise. That review, under then-mayor Rob Ford, led to uproar at city hall over proposed service cuts, and didn’t deliver the promised savings. And the official who was in charge of the effort 15 years ago cautions that given Toronto’s financial needs, any mayor who repeats the review next term shouldn’t use the money it might turn up to pay for tax holidays or new proposals.
At a press conference this week in the driveway of the rental home of a North York couple, Bradford accused Chow of being unwilling to do the “hard work” of finding savings during her three years in office.
“For NDP Mayor Chow, it is just so much easier to raise everybody’s taxes,” he said.
The mayor, a former New Democrat MP, has raised rates by more than 18 percentage points over her term, including a record 9.5 per cent in 2024, adding $683 to the average bill since 2023. Bradford said renters and owners alike feel the pinch because landlords pass on higher costs to their tenants, and his plan for a one-year tax freeze, which he announced at Tuesday’s mayoral debate, would “provide immediate affordability relief.” If elected Oct. 26, he promised to keep increases during the remainder of his four-year term below the rate of inflation.
