Brad Bradford

Bradford MacDonald Bradford (né Leckie; born August 1, 1986) is a Canadian politician and former urban planner who has represented Ward 19 Beaches—East York on Toronto City Council since 2018. He is a candidate in the 2026 Toronto mayoral election and previously contested the 2023 mayoral by-election, placing eighth.

Early life Bradford was born to Valerie Bradford, who gave her son the first name Bradford, to continue her family name (as her father and uncle had five daughters combined and no sons), along with her spouse's last name, Leckie. When he was seven, his mother left her spouse and raised her three children as a single mother and reverted to using her original surname. Deciding he wanted to use his mother's surname, Bradford adopted his present surname.

Education and planning career Bradford holds a Bachelor of Environmental Studies (BES), in urban and regional environments from York University, and a Master of Arts (MA) in urban planning from the University of Waterloo. After leaving school, Bradford was a planning consultant and worked in stakeholder engagement and special projects at the City of Toronto in chief planner Jennifer Keesmaat's office.

Political career

Toronto City Councillor Bradford was elected to Toronto City Council in the 2018 municipal election, representing Ward 19 Beaches—East York. He was re-elected in the 2022 municipal election, and placed eighth in the 2023 by-election for mayor, which was won by Olivia Chow.

Following the 2022 election, Bradford was appointed as the chair of the planning and housing committee. Following the election of Mayor Chow, Bradford was named vice-chair. On December 16, 2024, the mayor shuffled her committee appointments, and Bradford was replaced as vice-chair by Frances Nunziata. Despite the shuffle, Chow stated that "Councillor Bradford is an important voice in housing at the City and will continue his work on the Planning and Housing Committee". Bradford described the move as "politics at its worst." In an article on his website explaining his vote, Bradford wrote that while he is "not interested in the politics of alienating police", he is "equally uninterested in maintaining the status quo of policies and funding models perpetuating racism and leaving communities under-resourced."

During the 2023 budget debate, the proposed TPS budget included a $48.3 million increase. Councillor Alejandra Bravo moved a motion to transfer $900,000 from the proposed increase to operating more warming spaces. Bradford questioned if the motion was meant to "defund the police".

During Bradford's 2026 campaign for mayor, he proposed hiring 1000 new police officers. Councillor Shelley Caroll, the chair of the Budget Committee and the Toronto Police Service Board, estimated that the proposal would cost "well over $100 million". The proposal was also endorsed by Mayor John Tory and was estimated to cost the city $6 million to implement. In his remarks on the item, Bradford questioned if it "makes sense to name streets and plazas and transit stations after someone with a disputed, controversial and problematic past", stating that he viewed the answer as "pretty clearly no", adding that he did not feel a need to delay, and that the renaming would be a step towards confronting systemic racism. As estimated costs for the original initiative grew to $13 million, Bradford voted for a new plan in presented to council in December 2023, which was also endorsed by Mayor Chow, to defer renaming the street and only move ahead with the square, two subway stations and a library branch at a cost of $2.7 million.

In June 2024, Bradford indicated that he was concerned about the rising costs of the initiative and believed the project should be paused, stating in an interview with CBC News that "the city is broke and this is something the vast majority of Torontonians weren't asking for." He later introduced an unsuccessful motion aimed at blocking the renaming of the square by redirecting the funding towards accessibility and safety improvements. During his 2026 mayoral campaign, Bradford proposed again renaming the square. He released a plan which would change the name to "Toronto Square" and establish a police sub-station in the square as part of efforts to "clean up" the square.

Bike lanes In 2020, Bradford wrote an op-ed in Spacing titled: Bike lanes are the path to main street recovery on the Danforth and across the city. In his article, Bradford argues that bike lanes are critical to economic development, particularly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Bradford praises the approval of 40 kilometres of bike lanes across the city including on Danforth Avenue in his ward, and notes the importance of active transportation infrastructure in not only recovery from the pandemic, but also "our long term physical and mental health, and the health of our environment."

Bradford supported a council motion in June 2023 to expand the cycling network, including by extending the Bloor Street bike lanes from Runnymede Road to Resurrection Road.

During his 2026 campaign for mayor, he committed to removing the section of bike lanes from Runnymede Road to Resurrection Road and replacing them with new bike lanes on residential roads and in parks. Acknowledging that he previously voted to install the section of bike lane, he said he voted in support "when they were plans on paper, and that was done with the very best of intentions." But that it "became clear that council, including me, got this one wrong."

Campaigns

2018 election

During the 2018 municipal election campaign, Bradford received endorsements from Mayor John Tory, Deputy Mayor Ana Bailão, former Liberal member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) Arthur Potts, Councillor Mary-Margaret McMahon (the previous incumbent of ward 32, which made up a part of the current ward boundaries), and former Toronto chief planner and mayoral candidate Jennifer Keesmaat.

Bradford defeated candidate Matthew Kellway, who represented Beaches—East York federally from 2011 to 2015 as the New Democratic MP.

2022 election

Bradford campaigned on the need for affordable housing, to improve parks, improving transportation, and reducing crime in the 2022 election. He ran against five other candidates and was endorsed by Mayor John Tory.

2023 mayoral by-election

Following the resignation of Mayor Tory in February 2023, Bradford formed an advisory committee to explore a run for mayor of Toronto.

He was advised by Liberals Khokon Abbas, a consultant, former candidate Andrea Barrack and campaign strategist Bob Lopinski, as well as Progressive Conservatives Dennis Matthews and Kory Teneycke, who worked on Premier Doug Ford's campaign team. Bradford hired Matt Hiraishi, who previously worked as chief of staff and former campaign manager to Ontario education minister Stephen Lecce, as his campaign manager.

One of the first platform items he released was a plan to increase public safety on the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC). He proposed establishing a new agency to respond to mental health crises, expanding cell phone service throughout the subway system, hire an additional 40 special constables and 50 police officers to patrol the TTC and, and retrofit subway stations to include platform doors.

Bradford proposed redeploying 200 parking enforcement officers at 50 intersections during rush hour, and create a new office to coordinate construction and maintenance projects.

Shortly after he indicated he was considering a run for mayor, a postering campaign describing him as "two-faced Brad" began to circulate in his ward.

He lost the election to Olivia Chow, coming in eighth place with 9,254 votes (1.28%).

Integrity commissioner investigation

In July 2024, Integrity Commissioner Jonathan Batty found that Bradford improperly used constituents' personal information obtained from his city hall office for campaign purposes during the 2023 by-election for mayor, violating city council's code of conduct.

In April and May 2023, Bradford's campaign sent out mass emails announcing the opening of a campaign office and criticizing Olivia Chow. Four constituents subsequently submitted complaints to the integrity commissioner; while they had previously contacted Bradford in his capacity as councillor, they did not sign up to receive campaign communications. In the lead-up to the election, Bradford has held "campaign-style" events outside of his ward to criticize incumbent mayor Olivia Chow. On October 1, 2025, Bradford confirmed his intention to run for mayor the following year, registering as a candidate on May 1, 2026.

Prior to formally registering as a candidate, developer Nick Ainis hosted an event in Concord, Ontario, titled "An Evening With Brad Bradford", selling tickets for $250. Candidates are prohibited from raising or spending money to campaign until registering, and a complaint was filed by Progress Toronto who called for an investigation by the integrity commissioner. The complaint described the event a "cash-for-access" arrangement, noting the potential for there to be a violation of the city's code of conduct. The group did not provide evidence of wrongdoing and Bradford dismissed the complaint as a "smear". The developer told the Toronto Star that revenue would be used to pay for the event and fund his podcast.

Personal life Bradford's mother, Valerie Bradford, was elected as the member of Parliament (MP) for Kitchener South—Hespeler in the 2021 federal election. He has two daughters, Briar and Bronwyn, with his wife Kathryn.

Election results +2023 Toronto mayoral by-election Mayoral Candidate Vote % Olivia Chow 269,372 37.17%Ana Bailão 235,175 32.46%Mark Saunders 62,167 8.58%Anthony Furey 35,899 4.96%Josh Matlow 35,572 4.91%Mitzie Hunter 21,299 2.93%Chloe Brown 18,831 2.60%Brad Bradford 9,254 1.28%Chris Saccoccia 8,001 1.10%Anthony Perruzza 3,025 0.42%Xiao Hua Gong 2,983 0.41%Lyall Sanders 2,775 0.38%Giorgio Mammoliti 1,105 0.15%Bahira Abdulsalam 913 0.13%Sharif Ahmed 814 0.11%Raksheni Sivaneswaran 779 0.11%Dionysios Apostolopoulos 726 0.10%Logan Choy 695 0.10%Toby Heaps 593 0.08%Roland Chan 515 0.07%Reginald Tull 482 0.07%Rob Davis 378 0.05%Jamie Atkinson 361 0.05%Frank D'Amico 357 0.05%Gru Jesse Allan 352 0.05%Frank D'Angelo 343 0.05%Eliazar Bonilla 310 0.04%Heather He 297 0.04%Kiri Vadivelu 290 0.04%Jose Baking 284 0.04%Danny Chevalier Romero 281 0.04%Monica Forrester 278 0.04%Cleveland Marshall 270 0.04%Kevin Clarke 265 0.04%Blake Acton 264 0.04%Mark LeLiever 259 0.04%Thomas Hall 258 0.04%Asadul Alam 257 0.04%Celina Caesar-Chavannes 254 0.03%Knia Singh 246 0.03%Rick Lee 241 0.03%Emmanuel Acquaye 236 0.03%Willie Reodica 225 0.03%Patricia Johnston 217 0.03%Gordon Cohen 214 0.03%Ben Bankas 203 0.03%Bob Murphy 203 0.03%Feng Gao 198 0.03%Habiba Desai 196 0.03%Sarah Climenhaga 195 0.03%Darren Atkinson 192 0.03%D!ONNE Renée 188 0.03%Nathalie Xian Yi Yan 180 0.02%Ari Grosman 177 0.02%Paul Collins 168 0.02%Sandeep Srivastava 166 0.02%Monowar Hossain 164 0.02%Norman MacLeod 163 0.02%Jody Williams 160 0.02%Claudette Beals 151 0.02%Mason Carrie 150 0.02%Atef Aly 147 0.02%Syed Jaffery 147 0.02%Kris Langenfeld 137 0.02%Matti Charlton 134 0.02%Partap Dua Singh 132 0.02%Meir Straus 129 0.02%Samson Deb 129 0.02%Peter Handjis 127 0.02%Steve Mann 127 0.02%Weizhen Tang 125 0.02%David Gulyas 120 0.02%Michael Lamoureux 120 0.02%Glen Benway 118 0.02%John Winter 118 0.02%Michael Jensen 115 0.02%Robert Shusterman 114 0.02%Brian Buffey 113 0.02%Scott Furnival 110 0.02%Walayat Khan 109 0.01%Adil Goraya 104 0.01%James Guglielmin 101 0.01%Simryn Fenby 97 0.01%Cory Deville 96 0.01%Serge Korovitsyn 96 0.01%Rocco Schipano 94 0.01%Brian Graff 89 0.01%Isabella Gamk 88 0.01%Michael Nicula 88 0.01%Jeffery Tunney 83 0.01%Yuanqian Wei 78 0.01%John Ransome 75 0.01%Mitchell Toye 72 0.01%Phillip D'Cruze 68 0.01%Walter Rubino 67 0.01%John Letonja 45 0.01%Sheila Igodan 42 0.01%Erwin Sniedzins 38 0.01%Jamil Nowwarah 38 0.01%Jack Weenen 30 0.00%Daniel Irmya 27 0.00% 722,877 100%