From Mississauga to Toronto, Hamilton and Oakville, today’s elections are about more than choosing mayors. They’re about whether our cities can move beyond complacency and start delivering results.
Today, Ontarians will choose the mayors and councillors who will shape their communities for the next four years. The political contests are fascinating, but the real stakes extend far beyond the personalities on the ballot.
In Mississauga, incumbent Mayor Carolyn Parrish faces an extraordinary challenge from her predecessor, Bonnie Crombie, alongside councillors Alvin Tedjo and Dipika Damerla. In Toronto, Olivia Chow seeks another term. Oakville Mayor Rob Burton faces another challenge from Julia Hanna, whom he defeated by just 886 votes in 2022. In Hamilton, Andrea Horwath and Keanin Loomis meet again after a contest decided by fewer than 1,700 votes.
Across Ontario, voters are being asked to choose between continuity and change, experience and new leadership, competing visions of growth and different approaches to municipal spending.
But after interviewing numerous municipal candidates, housing researchers, economists, developers and public-policy experts over the past several months, I’ve become convinced that the most important question isn’t who wins.
It’s whether our cities are actually becoming better places to live.
Municipal government arguably affects our daily lives more directly than any other level of government. It determines the condition of our roads, the reliability of transit, the safety of our neighbourhoods, the property taxes we pay and the development occurring around us.
Yet municipal elections attract remarkably little participation.
In Mississauga’s 2022 election, turnout was just 21.84 per cent. Toronto managed 29.66 per cent.
Think about that. In some of Ontario’s largest cities, seven or eight out of every ten eligible voters didn’t participate. Advance voting has increased substantially this year, including significant gains in Toronto, Mississauga and Oakville. Whether that translates into greater overall turnout remains uncertain.
But the contradiction is striking.
We complain about traffic, taxes, housing and City Hall. Yet when given the opportunity to choose the people responsible for these decisions, most of us stay home.
Perhaps complacency isn’t simply a problem among politicians. Perhaps it’s a problem among voters as well.
Four years ago, housing affordability dominated political debate. Prices were soaring, rents were increasing, and governments promised to accelerate construction.
Today, housing prices have softened, condominium values have declined, and rents have moderated in some markets. Consequently, housing has slipped down the municipal political agenda, displaced by taxes, public safety, homelessness and transportation.
But this apparent improvement conceals a serious problem.
According to recent Urbanation research cited by The Globe and Mail, condominium housing starts in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area have declined approximately 90 per cent from their 2021 peak. The number of apartment units under construction has also fallen substantially.
We may be creating tomorrow’s housing shortage precisely when today’s affordability pressures appear to be easing.
Having spent much of my career in real estate development and financing, I know that housing construction cannot simply be switched on and off. Projects require years of planning, approvals, financing and construction. When development stops, construction capacity disappears, investment capital moves elsewhere and future supply is compromised. But we also need to acknowledge that Ontario has built too many of the wrong kinds of homes.
For much of the past decade, Toronto and Mississauga became increasingly dependent on investor-driven condominium development. We built thousands of studios and one-bedroom apartments—what I’ve sometimes called shoeboxes in the sky.
Many were designed around investment economics rather than the needs of families. We didn’t build enough townhouses, duplexes, triplexes, larger apartments or purpose-built rental housing. Now that the investor condominium market has collapsed, much of the construction industry has collapsed with it.
We need a housing strategy focused not simply on quantity, but on the kinds of homes people actually want to live in. That means missing-middle housing, family-sized apartments, greater density around transit and more opportunities for young families to remain in their communities. It also means confronting development charges, approval delays and regulatory costs that make projects financially unviable.
Mississauga Mayor Carolyn Parrish recently described her administration’s reduction of development charges and elimination of certain charges for larger family-sized units.
Such initiatives deserve consideration. But there’s an essential distinction between approving housing and building it.
Toronto announced its Housing Now initiative in 2019, promising mixed-income housing on city-owned land. Seven years later, recent reporting indicated that none of the program’s planned homes had been completed. We need to stop measuring success by announcements and approvals.
The measure of success is how many homes people can actually move into.
Homelessness has become one of the defining municipal issues of 2026. Encampments, addiction, mental-health challenges and deteriorating public spaces are increasingly visible across Ontario.
The debate is frequently presented as a choice between protecting people experiencing homelessness and protecting residents who want safe parks and neighbourhoods.
That’s a false choice.
People experiencing homelessness deserve dignity, housing and appropriate support. Residents deserve safe and accessible public spaces. Simply moving encampments from one location to another doesn’t solve homelessness. Neither does accepting permanent tent communities as inevitable.
We need solutions appropriate to different circumstances.
Some people primarily need affordable housing or rent assistance. Others require supportive housing, mental-health services or addiction treatment. And we need to recognize that supportive housing involves substantial ongoing costs that municipalities cannot reasonably finance through property taxes alone.
Provincial and federal governments must assume greater responsibility. But spending must also be accompanied by accountability.
How many people move into permanent housing? How many remain housed? How many receive effective treatment? Are we reducing the enormous costs associated with emergency services, hospitals, policing and shelters? Compassion should be measured not simply by how much money we spend, but by whether people’s lives improve.
The objective shouldn’t be to manage homelessness more expensively.
It should be to reduce homelessness.
Public safety has also moved higher on the political agenda. Car thefts, home invasions, break-ins and neighbourhood security have become significant concerns, particularly across the Greater Toronto Area.
Governments have responded with pressure to increase police budgets.
In Peel Region, substantial spending increases have generated debate about police staffing, governance and accountability. There are legitimate arguments for additional resources, particularly where police services have historically been understaffed relative to population. But bigger budgets shouldn’t automatically be considered evidence of better policing.
Are response times improving? Are investigations more effective? Are crimes being prevented? Do residents feel safer?
We also need to recognize that police officers cannot solve every social problem. Mental-health emergencies, addiction and homelessness often require specialized services working alongside police. The challenge is to deploy the right resources to the right problems and measure the results.
Municipal residents deserve safer communities. And taxpayers deserve evidence that increased spending is delivering them.
Few issues illustrate declining expectations more clearly than transportation infrastructure.
Consider the Eglinton Crosstown and Hurontario LRT. Governments announce ambitious projects. Construction begins. Schedules change. Costs increase. Years pass. Meanwhile, residents continue sitting in traffic, waiting for improvements that were promised long ago.
In Mississauga, Carolyn Parrish has emphasized improved GO Transit service rather than some costly subway expansion proposals. In Brampton, Patrick Brown has promoted major infrastructure investments. In Oakville, the future of Midtown around the GO station has become a defining development issue.
These are important choices. But they raise a broader question: Are we planning transportation as a regional system, or allowing municipal boundaries and political considerations to dictate decisions?
People don’t stop travelling when they cross from Mississauga into Toronto or from Oakville into Burlington.
Our transportation planning needs to reflect that reality. We need reliable transit, better roads, improved traffic management, appropriate pedestrian and cycling infrastructure, and more housing and employment near existing transportation networks.
Above all, we need to finish what we start. Congestion isn’t simply an economic cost.
It’s time lost with family, reduced productivity, missed opportunities and a gradual deterioration in quality of life. We should judge infrastructure policy by the improvements people experience, not the projects politicians announce.
Municipalities face enormous financial pressures. Inflation, aging infrastructure, construction costs and growing demands for services are putting pressure on budgets.
Residents want better roads, transit, policing, parks, housing and public services. But understandably, few want to pay substantially higher property taxes.
Municipal leaders must therefore make difficult choices about spending and investment. Yet I think there’s a fundamental distinction between managing a city and building a great city.
Managing a city means balancing budgets, collecting garbage, repairing roads and delivering essential services.
Building a great city requires something more: Vision. Leadership. Ambition. And the ability to turn ideas into reality.
Consider Mississauga. Hazel McCallion helped transform a collection of suburban communities into one of Canada’s largest cities. But what comes next?
Mississauga has constructed an extraordinary number of condominium towers around Square One, yet its downtown still lacks many of the cultural, entertainment and convention facilities that could make it a truly compelling destination.
Why shouldn’t Mississauga have a major convention centre, a vibrant entertainment district and a revitalized Living Arts Centre? Why shouldn’t its downtown become one of Canada’s most exciting urban centres?
Similar questions confront Hamilton as it pursues downtown revitalization, Brampton as it considers its urban future, and Oakville as it debates the scale and character of Midtown development.
These aren’t simply questions about buildings. They’re questions about community identity, economic opportunity and quality of life.
A successful city isn’t one that simply accommodates more people. It’s one that becomes a better place for those people to live.
Earlier this year, I interviewed Karen Stintz, former Toronto city councillor, TTC chair and mayoral candidate, about her book Beyond Good Enough.
Our conversation explored complacency: the tendency of individuals, organizations and communities to gradually lower their expectations until what was once unacceptable becomes normal.
It left me with a question that seems particularly relevant today.
When did we become accustomed to infrastructure projects taking years longer than promised?
To housing developments that are announced but never built?
To rising municipal taxes without consistently demanding better services?
To homelessness becoming a permanent feature of our public spaces?
And when did we stop expecting our political leaders to articulate a compelling vision of what our communities could become?
There’s also a governance question worth considering.
Are our municipal institutions structured to make the difficult decisions growing cities require?
Do mayors have sufficient authority? Do ward-based electoral systems encourage councillors to prioritize local interests over citywide priorities? Are regional governments providing effective coordination?
Leadership matters. But so do the institutions through which leaders govern. Today’s elections offer an opportunity to demand something better. Not simply lower taxes or more spending. Not simply continuity or change.
But competent, accountable leadership capable of delivering measurable improvements.
Four years from now, we should judge today’s winners by straightforward questions. Were more homes built? Did homelessness decline? Did neighbourhoods become safer? Were transit projects completed? Did downtowns become more vibrant? Did residents receive better value for their taxes?
In 2022, municipal elections were largely about recovering from the pandemic and promising a better future.
In 2026, they should be about something more demanding.
We need to stop confusing government activity with government achievement. Announcing a project isn’t the same as completing it. Approving housing isn’t building it. Increasing spending isn’t necessarily improving services.
And winning an election isn’t the same as providing leadership.
But voters have responsibilities too.
If we want better cities, we must demand better leadership—and participate in choosing it.
Today, Ontarians have that opportunity. Because our communities deserve more than good enough.
