In the midst of his mayoral election campaign let it be known that Bradford “Brad” Bradford (yes, Brad is short for Bradford) is many things… an urban planner, technically a politician, figuratively a cartoon mob boss.
But further, let it be known that if Bradford “Brad” Bradford, has no haters… I am dead, and my extensive collection of Scrabble memorabilia should be charitably donated.
At the time of this article, Brad Bradford is positioned as the main challenger to incumbent mayor Olivia Chow, polling steadily behind her in second place since February 2026. This is a significant improvement for the urban planner turned two-term city councillor, considering he placed a meagre eighth in the Toronto mayoral election in 2023. This newfound success is largely attributed to Brad’s hard pivot from a relatively progressive policy platform focused on transit and housing to a right-leaning, tough-on-crime platform — shifting his core political agenda to better capture conservative voters. And to his credit – it is working, as evidenced by recent polling. Unfortunately, his lack of conviction in his politics, voting record, and character has seeded increasingly widespread criticism surrounding political opportunism, and the fostering of haters — like me).
Bradical shifts
To begin understanding how to hate on Brad, we look to his earliest and most credible haters, constituents of Beaches East-York.
Therein lies thousands of Bradford haters, who have endured Brad’s antics (brantics?) since his successful election to city office in 2018. Ahead of even the 2023 mayoral election period, Brad’s Beaches East-York constituents launched the ‘Two-Faced Brad’ campaign, highlighting key discrepancies in Brad’s five-year voting record and departures from the progressive campaign promises he was elected on. In 2026, Brad mounts another 3 years of inconsistent political performance to oxygenate the claim that he lacks the political integrity and conviction that the Toronto mayorship will demand.
From his humble Beaches East-York origins, Brad has become famous for his signature move, the ‘Bradford Backslide’ (trademark pending).
In 2023, he ardently campaigned for speed cameras in 2023 but subsequently became the only city councillor to vote against their continuation in 2025. In 2021, he was a vocal supporter of Chow’s proposed private snow removal contracts but Brad slid back to blame her for their disappointing performance. In 2020, Brad objected to the expectation that police officers “act as mental health crisis professionals, conflict negotiators, social workers, and more”, noting that “these are not the objectives of policing, and that racialized communities will only improve with more investment in social services”. He further voiced his commitment to dismantling the “status quo of policies of policing and funding models that perpetuate racism and leave communities under-resourced” — joining 7 other councillors in voting to defund the police budget in 2020 by 10%. Now, he campaigns for their rampant addition across the city at all major transit hubs with the exact expectation he objected to!
Brad’s first term as a city councillor saw him advocate passionately for bike lanes on the Danforth and subsequently vote in favour of new bike lanes on Bloor Street West. Now, in his campaign for mayorship, Bradford vows to remove those same bike lanes for who-knows-what cost, that were just installed in 2021, saying the plan ‘looked good on paper’ but is ‘not working’ and that he ‘got this one wrong.’ An expert in backpedaling.
With foresight this good, who needs Polymarket!
Most damning, in this humble author’s opinion, is his record on the infamous renaming of Yonge-Dundas Square. In 2023, Bradford supported the renaming campaign for Sankofa Square in line with well-documented 2020 and 2021 support for renaming Dundas signages to “confront and correct systemic racism.” Now, with his turncoat freshly ironed and donned, Bradford is pushing another renaming, now to ‘Toronto Square’; what Bradford calls a “more benign” choice. It’s a more sterile, seemingly whiter suggestion conveniently timed with his appeal to conservative Torontonians, paired with a promise to increase police presence in the square to ‘clean it up’ and address safety concerns that are, of course, Chow’s fault.
Curious readers can find a more dedicated Bradford breakdown, alongside analysis of other candidates in the upcoming mayoral election here (if AI generated analysis is your kinda thing).
Even the worst Bradford defenders (Bradfenders?) have to realize eventually that this isn’t an“adaptable” politician who admits when they get things wrong (even if it is a suspicious amount of times). The true danger is the precedent Brad is setting — that politicians can change course at will, on a whim, at the expense of the taxpayer, with little to no repercussions (and actually sometimes, reward!) for poor decision making in the first place. As put by The Provincial Times, Bradford perpetuates an ugly norm that treats previous council decisions as “reversible theatre” to make political gains, eroding further at the ever-precarious public trust in government’s ability to make well-informed policies and decisions. In doing so —and in tandem with his tough-on-crime fearmongering — Bradford joins hands with right-wing populist efforts to undermine and erode trust in democratic institutions for selfish gain.
Meet the Bradford Fan Club!
In September 2022 the Ford Administration bestowed ‘strong mayor powers’, granting expanded executive power to Ontario mayors. Fans of both Ford and Brad will appreciate that Brad has publicly committed to using strong mayor powers, in the name of progress — in contrast to many Ontarian mayors including Olivia Chow, who have rejected the use of strong mayor powers in protection of democratic decision making. While Ford himself has not officially endorsed Bradford, Brad’s advisory team is chock full of ex-Ford staffers and campaigners.
Joining the fanclub, Brad’s shiny new right-wing persona has received endorsement from a range of other unfortunate right-wing groups and individuals from homophobes, islamophobes, and general idiots alike including… anti-LGBTQ+ Turning Point Canada, islamaphobic tweeter Catherine Swift, and Doc von Lichtenberg and Meir Weinstein of the now disbanded terrorist organization Jewish Defense League, which is yet unsurprising considering Brad’s public support of Israel and own record of parroting islamaphobic rhetoric.
However, newfound fame has not stopped the complaints from flowing — the anti-Bradford club is hard at work too!
Brad’s integrity has been formally called into question and investigated by the integrity commissioner for violation of conduct in 2023 for misusing constituent contact information without consent for which he was formally reprimanded and offered a public apology. Since, two further complaints have been filed with the integrity commissioner; one in May 2026 for participating in a ‘pay-to-access facetime with Brad’ event, and another in July 2026 for failing to declare a conflict of interest in a vote about development charges.
Bradford shmadford
Since Toronto’s amalgamation, no mayor has lost their first re-election. The odds are not with Brad.
There is valid criticism to be made about the shortcomings of a party system that does not allow admission of error and course correction — but Brad’s boldfaced (or bradfaced) hubris to storm forward with a track record this deplorable should ring major alarms. Our ever-increasing proximity to a fascist dystopia is made plain by the success of zeitgeist leeches like Bradford whose singular talent is to morph into whatever siphon of political clout the political landscape is hospitable to.
Though he is receiving truckloads of criticism from haters-alike, his campaign’s trajectory illuminates the degeneration of political integrity as meritable currency in elections, and normalizes the culture war-mongering brand of politicking deployed by right-wing populist leaders everywhere to exploit sensationalized fear, and direct attention away from root causes.
While it is not in the priority agenda of revolutionary socialists to focus efforts on supporting or endorsing candidates for campaign and election, it is a priority to promote awareness and consciousness of the working class, empower workers to represent their interests in all avenues, and build community on trust and integrity — and it is the opinion of this humble hater, that Mr. Bradford ‘Brad’ Bradford deserves the hate.
Author
Did you like this article? Help us produce more like it by donating $1, $2, or $5. Donate
