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Dispatch from the Beaches — I’m about to say goodbye to Natalie Johnson.
We’re standing at an intersection at around 4:30 p.m. It’s the best place to greet people heading home, she says.
Right on cue, an email from Nate Erskine-Smith to his supporters arrives in my inbox. The subject line: “Talk vs. action.”
We read it together on the sidewalk.
“It’s easy to say ‘rebuild the ramp’ on the campaign trail,” Erskine-Smith writes. “Of course, rebuilding the ramp at Logan (Avenue) is a fairy tale of untold waste. Better to have an actual plan.”
“He’s trying to insinuate that I want something that I’m not calling for,” says Johnson, calmly, if a little exasperated. To some, she’s become known as the “ramp lady.” (Ask her, and she’ll probably show you a sign she’s put up: “Bring Back the Gardiner Ramp.”)
Then, Erskine-Smith, campaigning as the de facto incumbent, has some news: The city will accelerate construction of the Cherry Street ramp, with work set to begin in the new year. (In a video posted later that night, Johnson accused Erskine-Smith of “taking credit” for the plan.)
For background: The Logan ramps, which gave east-end motorists direct access to and from the Gardiner Expressway, came down in 2021 as part of a long-planned reconstruction of the highway.
The city’s answer was to build replacement ramps east of Cherry Street. Five years later, not a shovel has hit the ground. The reason: The new ramps would depend on a much larger reconstruction of the Gardiner between Cherry Street and the Don Valley Parkway, including a realignment of the elevated highway that has yet to begin.
For months, both Johnson and Erskine-Smith have sparred over the east-end highway ramps, even as the Ford government could soon have the last word on when — and if — they get built. Yet for all their disagreements, both are essentially calling for the same thing. And that, in many ways, is the story of Beaches-East York — a contest between two candidates who know their way around politics, albeit from opposite sides of it, each convinced they’re the one who can deliver.
Johnson has covered Toronto City Hall for 16 years. (She says her bosses would occasionally ask whether she’d consider covering something else, including provincial politics. Her answer was always no.)
“I’ve always just been so passionate about City Hall because I love the impact it can have on people,” she says from across the table on a Starbucks patio, before we head out to knock doors.
She’d also been asked by “various parties” over the years whether she’d consider running. “I always said, ‘No, I love my job as a journalist,’” she explains. This time, the opportunity brought together two things close to home: the politics she’d spent years covering and the community where she’s raising her family. She took a leave of absence from CTV to consider a run. By May 11, she’d made up her mind.
The move from reporter to candidate hasn’t felt like much of a leap, Johnson says. In some ways, she’d been doing a version of the job for years. Neighbours would stop her with city problems, a construction mess or a policy that made no sense, and even when it wasn’t a story, she’d connect them with someone who could help. Now she’s simply “moving to the solution side of the same issues I’ve always been passionate about.”
“Instead of knocking on someone’s door with a microphone saying, ‘Tell me about the parking problem on your street,’ it’s like, ‘How do we fix the parking problem on your street?’”
The harder adjustment has been picking a side. Reporters hear everyone out, and Johnson admits she has “a natural empathy for hearing from all stakeholders.” At some point, she says, a candidate has to decide what she’s actually for.
Behind the scenes: Before making her pitch to voters, Johnson sounded out a few people. Among them was Erskine-Smith, who was then chasing the Liberal nomination in Scarborough Southwest. Once the nomination contest was decided, the two met at East Lynn Park, where he shared some advice.
Weeks later, Johnson’s phone rang. It was Erskine-Smith, calling about an hour before news broke that they’d soon be opponents.
She doesn’t hide what she makes of it. “I don’t think that City Hall should be a consolation prize for a higher order of government,” Johnson says. “It is too difficult a job to come into that role as a backup plan and expect to do a good job if your heart isn’t in it 1,000 per cent.”
It’s the closest thing she has to a thesis on her opponent, and Johnson says it comes back to her at the door. Residents who bring up Erskine-Smith’s name tend to start with a qualifier: “I voted for him federally, but I don’t like that he’s trying to come back.”
But Johnson is careful not to make it personal. “You can like Nate and you can like me,” she says. “One of us has a career’s worth of experience at City Hall and understanding municipal issues, and the other has his expertise in federal government.”
We head out to knock doors, and it’s quickly clear the ward has noticed her. Five months in, she’s no stranger on these streets. Her lawn signs are everywhere, and the people behind them seem to mean it. One woman, climbing out of her car, spots Johnson and skips the pleasantries. “We already voted for you,” she says. “I’m hoping for some fresh perspective in this ward.”
A few houses down, another resident calls after her: “Good luck. We hope you win!”
Johnson has been at this since May, often spending eight to 12 hours a day. The doorstep, she says, has been a relief from the toxicity online. “People are almost entirely polite, pleasant, and positive.”
But the support isn’t only coming from the curb. Johnson has drawn star power from across the political spectrum, including from former premier Kathleen Wynne and former federal Conservative leader Erin O’Toole. She says that’s how municipal politics should work. “It doesn’t have to be partisan at the city level.”
Johnson’s independence has skeptics. Some have tried to paint her as the political heir of Brad Bradford, who has represented the ward since 2018 and is now running for mayor. She says some crossover is inevitable in his home ward, where her volunteers include supporters of both Bradford and Olivia Chow.
But Johnson won’t seek his endorsement, or anyone else’s in the mayor’s race. “I’d rather be an independent candidate,” she says.
In her years covering council, Johnson says, ideology was the biggest thing slowing it down. So she plans to work with whoever wins, on council and in the mayor’s office. The same goes for the local MP, Tanveer Shahnawaz, a former Erskine-Smith aide who has endorsed him. Johnson would have preferred he stay out of the race. “Can I look past that in order to keep my eyes on the prize, which is to do good things in this ward? Yes.”
Erskine-Smith carries himself like a man seeking re-election, backed by a decade as the riding’s MP, a stint in cabinet and the mayor’s blessing. But not long ago, he had his sights set on the job Bonnie Crombie beat him to in 2023.
Erskine-Smith had planned to leave federal politics before the last election, but was pulled back in when the Liberals were in dire straits, and stayed on as Justin Trudeau gave way to Mark Carney. When Carney dropped him from cabinet — a decision Erskine-Smith said at the time made it “impossible not to feel disrespected” — he turned his attention back to provincial politics. The plan: Win the Liberal nomination in Scarborough Southwest and, he hoped, the party’s leadership.
It went, in his words, “sideways.” Asked whether he’d do it again, he doesn’t hedge. “If I’d known how it was going to happen, I would not have done that.”
But Erskine-Smith likens politics to pushing a boulder up a hill: sometimes it gets there, sometimes it doesn’t. This time it rolled back. He bristles at the suggestion from some around him that the experience scarred him, calling that “maybe a bit dramatic,” but acknowledges it made him grow cynical. The party, he says, needs to do things differently.
Then he waves it off.
“It’s behind me.”
For a while, it seemed politics was too. At his farewell party in East York, supporters were already urging him to run again — for something, anything, it seemed. Some were pushing him to run provincially — even raising money for a possible leadership bid — while others wanted him to challenge Johnson. Erskine-Smith spent the summer coaching baseball as he considered his next move, including a return to law or a job in the non-profit sector. Even those closest to him didn’t expect him to run.
Then Chow called. “Olivia Chow is a very persuasive person,” he says. The two met at a hotel in May, where, he says, she encouraged him to run.
So he did. “My life would have been easier if I returned to law,” Erskine-Smith says. “But you live once, and you step up and serve.”
The candidate who emerged is almost aggressively local. His pitch? Responsiveness. The most common complaint he hears at the doors, he says, is that Bradford, the outgoing councillor, has been “missing in action.” Erskine-Smith hands out his cellphone number and says he’s already compiled a to-do list of roughly 150 items, ranging from flood mitigation to better snacks at East York Memorial Arena — the latter a request from the wife of a law school classmate.
Erskine-Smith knows some see council as a stopover — a place to wait out a second Chow term before running for mayor himself, or a route back to a bigger stage. He turns it on Bradford. “We have had a councillor who has been running for mayor for the last three to four years, if not before then, and I think the community has suffered for it,” he says.
Ask him about Bradford personally and he insists there’s no feud; the two used to co-host New Year’s Levees. What bothers him is the trajectory. Bradford came to council as an advocate for housing and active transportation, Erskine-Smith argues, but is “now running a campaign as some archconservative.” “ The incessant flip-flopping is maddening to me. It’s anathema to my politics,” he says.
The same instinct, honesty over expediency, is why he has little time for Johnson’s neutrality. In an election, he says, “you support who you think is best,” and you’re upfront about it. Staying out of the mayor’s race, in his view, doesn’t put anyone above it.
But whoever wins, he says he’ll work with them. “However the chips fall, you work as best as you can to deliver for your community.”
Out on the street, Erskine-Smith rarely needs an introduction. At one door, he starts his pitch and the resident cuts him off: “Of course I know who you are.”
The four kids who stop him on the sidewalk are less sure.
“What are you running for?”
City councillor, he explains.
“Oh,” one says. “I thought it was a race and you were actually running.”
Then, by way of credentials: “I placed second in my school’s track and field.”
Before long, they want in. “If you knock on doors with me, we’re more likely to win!” he tells them. They follow him to the neighbour’s house, then the next, and the next.
At one door, one of the kids beats him to the introduction: “He’s running for president!”
The resident laughs and turns to Erskine-Smith, who she recognizes, with a correction. “You’ll be prime minister one day.”
Further along, he stops to chat with another supportive resident. An 11-year-old, jumping up and down, chimes in.
“I’m Team Nate, too!” she says.
Then, after a pause: “I don’t know what this is about, though.”
A message from Uber:
— T-8 days until the House is back.
Signs of life: The sessional bells — it’s been a while, hasn’t it? — will ring out starting at 8:30 a.m. for routine testing and maintenance.
Happening this week:
Mea culpa! Last week, we reported that Nate Erskine-Smith’s defamation dispute with Quito Maggi was heading back to court on Friday. A correction: The hearing is actually scheduled for Wednesday. Maggi is seeking to overturn a ruling in Erskine-Smith’s favour that awarded him $25,000 in damages.
— Fundraising watch: Tomorrow at 6 p.m., Seniors and Accessibility Minister Raymond Cho will host a $100-a-ticket fundraiser in Toronto.
Associate Attorney General Michael Tibollo is hosting a $350-a-ticket “fall social” in Vaughan on Wednesday at 7 p.m.
Save the date: The NDP is turning 65, and Marit Stiles is throwing a party. She’ll host a $500-a-ticket “leader’s levee” at Arcadian Court on November 14, complete with live entertainment, passed canapés and two drinks.
— 🍴 On the lunch menu: Monday: Jerk chicken with rice and coleslaw. Tuesday: Ginger beef with rice and vegetables. Wednesday: Pork schnitzel with spaetzle and vegetable. Thursday: Fish and chips. Friday: Peri Peri chicken with potatoes and vegetables.
— First: Navdeep Bains won’t put his name on the New Leaf Liberals’ pledge for party renewal.
The context: The group’s pledge, which it had asked leadership candidates to sign, called for earlier and more open nominations, more power for local riding associations, greater transparency around party spending and decision-making, plus an overhaul of fundraising and organizing, among other changes. Three candidates have signed on: Stephanie Bowman, Lee Fairclough and Dylan Marando.
The response: “Party renewal isn’t something done to members — it has to be built with them,” Jamie Kippen, Bains’ campaign director, wrote in an email, a copy of which we’ve obtained.
Kippen said the campaign supports the pledge’s principles and commends the work behind it, but has decided against signing any pledges. “As a campaign, we have taken the position to not sign any pledge — while we are supportive of members, commissions and organizations that are all passionate about the future of our party,” he wrote.
The reaction: “We strongly believe the New Leaf Pledge for Renewal should be the basis for rebuilding this party,” the group said in a statement, thanking Bowman, Fairclough and Marando for signing on and “showing their commitment to leading from the front on this issue.”
But one New Leaf didn’t pull any punches. “Nav has been utterly disappointing in a contest completely lacking a standout. It was his to lose the minute Nate [Erskine-Smith] was turfed, and boy has he done everything possible to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory here.”
Then came a follow-up text: “Shit, that response is longer than any of Nav’s policy planks.”
— Pedalling past the facts: “As Premier Doug Ford readied his war on bike lanes, provincial bureaucrats raised facts refuting his core arguments and had to call in extra staff to deal with a blizzard of public feedback, according to internal records obtained by the Star.”
— A dimmer deal: “The Ontario Electricity Rebate will be cut by a third… going from covering 23.5 per cent of electricity bill costs currently, to 15.7 per cent starting Nov. 1.” The Trillium has more.
Meanwhile: “Ontario will import power from the United States this winter, the province’s independent electricity operator has announced, just a few months after Premier Doug Ford threatened to cut exports to the U.S. amid the ongoing trade war.”
— Gambling on silence: “The government agency responsible for online gambling in Ontario secretly shelved a research study intended to track rates of problem gambling in the province… However, records obtained by the Star through freedom of information legislation reveal that iGaming executives were concerned when researchers reported problem gambling rates significantly higher than expected, and quietly decided the research would be kept confidential.”
A message from Uber:
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Through Hope Air, with support from Uber, Canadians in need are able to get to their important appointments. Learn more about Uber and Hope Air’s work at uber.com/hopeair.
— Over in Brampton: A decision to let residents vote at multiple polling stations within their ward has some candidates worried about election integrity. The Pointer has more.
— Power to the province? One of Thunder Bay’s would-be mayors is calling on the Ford government to strip the city of strong mayor powers.
— John Michael McGrath says shareholders in Stelco’s parent company have good reason to keep their antennas up.
— On crime, Martin Regg Cohn argues that Olivia Chow and Brad Bradford “are talking past each other — and us, by talking over our heads.”
— Out-of-date property values are distorting municipal taxation — and Premier Ford isn’t doing anything about it, writes Randall Denley. “Due to Ford’s inaction, Ontarians pay property taxes not on the value of their house or condo today, but on what it was worth back in 2016. It’s as if time stopped a decade ago.”
— Ontario’s labour market looks a lot less healthy once you stop averaging it, argues Graeme Gordon.
— Noted: Flags on government buildings are at half-mast in the wake of Saturday’s incident at CFB Wainwright in Alberta. Premier Doug Ford wrote: “As Canadians, let’s come together to support our brave men and women in uniform, who put their lives on the line to protect our freedoms and our country. Ontario stands ready to help the recovery efforts however we can.”
“Canadians stand with you,” the NDP leader said.
— Noted: Former premier Kathleen Wynne endorsed Olivia Chow on Sunday.
— Hired: Amanda Brodhagen is the new chief to Associate Minister of Energy-Intensive Industries Matthew Rae.
— In memoriam: Former NDP MPP Irene Mathyssen has died at 75.
From her obituary: “Those who knew Irene will also remember her extraordinary kindness and warmth. She was always ready with a hug, a smile and a genuine interest in the people around her. It was that generosity of spirit, as much as her many accomplishments, that made Irene so deeply loved by New Democrats and by the communities she served.” More.
Thank you for reading POLICORNER. How are you gearing up for the fall session? I want to hear from you, and I’ll keep you anonymous. That’s all for now, but not for the week. More reporting to come.
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Dispatch from the Beaches — I’m about to say goodbye to Natalie Johnson.
We’re standing at an intersection at around 4:30 p.m. It’s the best place to greet people heading home, she says.
Right on cue, an email from Nate Erskine-Smith to his supporters arrives in my inbox. The subject line: “Talk vs. action.”
We read it together on the sidewalk.
“It’s easy to say ‘rebuild the ramp’ on the campaign trail,” Erskine-Smith writes. “Of course, rebuilding the ramp at Logan (Avenue) is a fairy tale of untold waste. Better to have an actual plan.”
“He’s trying to insinuate that I want something that I’m not calling for,” says Johnson, calmly, if a little exasperated. To some, she’s become known as the “ramp lady.” (Ask her, and she’ll probably show you a sign she’s put up: “Bring Back the Gardiner Ramp.”)
Then, Erskine-Smith, campaigning as the de facto incumbent, has some news: The city will accelerate construction of the Cherry Street ramp, with work set to begin in the new year. (In a video posted later that night, Johnson accused Erskine-Smith of “taking credit” for the plan.)
For background: The Logan ramps, which gave east-end motorists direct access to and from the Gardiner Expressway, came down in 2021 as part of a long-planned reconstruction of the highway.
The city’s answer was to build replacement ramps east of Cherry Street. Five years later, not a shovel has hit the ground. The reason: The new ramps would depend on a much larger reconstruction of the Gardiner between Cherry Street and the Don Valley Parkway, including a realignment of the elevated highway that has yet to begin.
For months, both Johnson and Erskine-Smith have sparred over the east-end highway ramps, even as the Ford government could soon have the last word on when — and if — they get built. Yet for all their disagreements, both are essentially calling for the same thing. And that, in many ways, is the story of Beaches-East York — a contest between two candidates who know their way around politics, albeit from opposite sides of it, each convinced they’re the one who can deliver.
Johnson has covered Toronto City Hall for 16 years. (She says her bosses would occasionally ask whether she’d consider covering something else, including provincial politics. Her answer was always no.)
“I’ve always just been so passionate about City Hall because I love the impact it can have on people,” she says from across the table on a Starbucks patio, before we head out to knock doors.
She’d also been asked by “various parties” over the years whether she’d consider running. “I always said, ‘No, I love my job as a journalist,’” she explains. This time, the opportunity brought together two things close to home: the politics she’d spent years covering and the community where she’s raising her family. She took a leave of absence from CTV to consider a run. By May 11, she’d made up her mind.
The move from reporter to candidate hasn’t felt like much of a leap, Johnson says. In some ways, she’d been doing a version of the job for years. Neighbours would stop her with city problems, a construction mess or a policy that made no sense, and even when it wasn’t a story, she’d connect them with someone who could help. Now she’s simply “moving to the solution side of the same issues I’ve always been passionate about.”
“Instead of knocking on someone’s door with a microphone saying, ‘Tell me about the parking problem on your street,’ it’s like, ‘How do we fix the parking problem on your street?’”
The harder adjustment has been picking a side. Reporters hear everyone out, and Johnson admits she has “a natural empathy for hearing from all stakeholders.” At some point, she says, a candidate has to decide what she’s actually for.
Behind the scenes: Before making her pitch to voters, Johnson sounded out a few people. Among them was Erskine-Smith, who was then chasing the Liberal nomination in Scarborough Southwest. Once the nomination contest was decided, the two met at East Lynn Park, where he shared some advice.
Weeks later, Johnson’s phone rang. It was Erskine-Smith, calling about an hour before news broke that they’d soon be opponents.
She doesn’t hide what she makes of it. “I don’t think that City Hall should be a consolation prize for a higher order of government,” Johnson says. “It is too difficult a job to come into that role as a backup plan and expect to do a good job if your heart isn’t in it 1,000 per cent.”
It’s the closest thing she has to a thesis on her opponent, and Johnson says it comes back to her at the door. Residents who bring up Erskine-Smith’s name tend to start with a qualifier: “I voted for him federally, but I don’t like that he’s trying to come back.”
But Johnson is careful not to make it personal. “You can like Nate and you can like me,” she says. “One of us has a career’s worth of experience at City Hall and understanding municipal issues, and the other has his expertise in federal government.”
We head out to knock doors, and it’s quickly clear the ward has noticed her. Five months in, she’s no stranger on these streets. Her lawn signs are everywhere, and the people behind them seem to mean it. One woman, climbing out of her car, spots Johnson and skips the pleasantries. “We already voted for you,” she says. “I’m hoping for some fresh perspective in this ward.”
A few houses down, another resident calls after her: “Good luck. We hope you win!”
Johnson has been at this since May, often spending eight to 12 hours a day. The doorstep, she says, has been a relief from the toxicity online. “People are almost entirely polite, pleasant, and positive.”
But the support isn’t only coming from the curb. Johnson has drawn star power from across the political spectrum, including from former premier Kathleen Wynne and former federal Conservative leader Erin O’Toole. She says that’s how municipal politics should work. “It doesn’t have to be partisan at the city level.”
Johnson’s independence has skeptics. Some have tried to paint her as the political heir of Brad Bradford, who has represented the ward since 2018 and is now running for mayor. She says some crossover is inevitable in his home ward, where her volunteers include supporters of both Bradford and Olivia Chow.
But Johnson won’t seek his endorsement, or anyone else’s in the mayor’s race. “I’d rather be an independent candidate,” she says.
In her years covering council, Johnson says, ideology was the biggest thing slowing it down. So she plans to work with whoever wins, on council and in the mayor’s office. The same goes for the local MP, Tanveer Shahnawaz, a former Erskine-Smith aide who has endorsed him. Johnson would have preferred he stay out of the race. “Can I look past that in order to keep my eyes on the prize, which is to do good things in this ward? Yes.”
Erskine-Smith carries himself like a man seeking re-election, backed by a decade as the riding’s MP, a stint in cabinet and the mayor’s blessing. But not long ago, he had his sights set on the job Bonnie Crombie beat him to in 2023.
Erskine-Smith had planned to leave federal politics before the last election, but was pulled back in when the Liberals were in dire straits, and stayed on as Justin Trudeau gave way to Mark Carney. When Carney dropped him from cabinet — a decision Erskine-Smith said at the time made it “impossible not to feel disrespected” — he turned his attention back to provincial politics. The plan: Win the Liberal nomination in Scarborough Southwest and, he hoped, the party’s leadership.
It went, in his words, “sideways.” Asked whether he’d do it again, he doesn’t hedge. “If I’d known how it was going to happen, I would not have done that.”
But Erskine-Smith likens politics to pushing a boulder up a hill: sometimes it gets there, sometimes it doesn’t. This time it rolled back. He bristles at the suggestion from some around him that the experience scarred him, calling that “maybe a bit dramatic,” but acknowledges it made him grow cynical. The party, he says, needs to do things differently.
Then he waves it off.
“It’s behind me.”
For a while, it seemed politics was too. At his farewell party in East York, supporters were already urging him to run again — for something, anything, it seemed. Some were pushing him to run provincially — even raising money for a possible leadership bid — while others wanted him to challenge Johnson. Erskine-Smith spent the summer coaching baseball as he considered his next move, including a return to law or a job in the non-profit sector. Even those closest to him didn’t expect him to run.
Then Chow called. “Olivia Chow is a very persuasive person,” he says. The two met at a hotel in May, where, he says, she encouraged him to run.
So he did. “My life would have been easier if I returned to law,” Erskine-Smith says. “But you live once, and you step up and serve.”
The candidate who emerged is almost aggressively local. His pitch? Responsiveness. The most common complaint he hears at the doors, he says, is that Bradford, the outgoing councillor, has been “missing in action.” Erskine-Smith hands out his cellphone number and says he’s already compiled a to-do list of roughly 150 items, ranging from flood mitigation to better snacks at East York Memorial Arena — the latter a request from the wife of a law school classmate.
Erskine-Smith knows some see council as a stopover — a place to wait out a second Chow term before running for mayor himself, or a route back to a bigger stage. He turns it on Bradford. “We have had a councillor who has been running for mayor for the last three to four years, if not before then, and I think the community has suffered for it,” he says.
Ask him about Bradford personally and he insists there’s no feud; the two used to co-host New Year’s Levees. What bothers him is the trajectory. Bradford came to council as an advocate for housing and active transportation, Erskine-Smith argues, but is “now running a campaign as some archconservative.” “ The incessant flip-flopping is maddening to me. It’s anathema to my politics,” he says.
The same instinct, honesty over expediency, is why he has little time for Johnson’s neutrality. In an election, he says, “you support who you think is best,” and you’re upfront about it. Staying out of the mayor’s race, in his view, doesn’t put anyone above it.
But whoever wins, he says he’ll work with them. “However the chips fall, you work as best as you can to deliver for your community.”
Out on the street, Erskine-Smith rarely needs an introduction. At one door, he starts his pitch and the resident cuts him off: “Of course I know who you are.”
The four kids who stop him on the sidewalk are less sure.
“What are you running for?”
City councillor, he explains.
“Oh,” one says. “I thought it was a race and you were actually running.”
Then, by way of credentials: “I placed second in my school’s track and field.”
Before long, they want in. “If you knock on doors with me, we’re more likely to win!” he tells them. They follow him to the neighbour’s house, then the next, and the next.
At one door, one of the kids beats him to the introduction: “He’s running for president!”
The resident laughs and turns to Erskine-Smith, who she recognizes, with a correction. “You’ll be prime minister one day.”
Further along, he stops to chat with another supportive resident. An 11-year-old, jumping up and down, chimes in.
“I’m Team Nate, too!” she says.
Then, after a pause: “I don’t know what this is about, though.”
A message from Uber:
— T-8 days until the House is back.
Signs of life: The sessional bells — it’s been a while, hasn’t it? — will ring out starting at 8:30 a.m. for routine testing and maintenance.
Happening this week:
Mea culpa! Last week, we reported that Nate Erskine-Smith’s defamation dispute with Quito Maggi was heading back to court on Friday. A correction: The hearing is actually scheduled for Wednesday. Maggi is seeking to overturn a ruling in Erskine-Smith’s favour that awarded him $25,000 in damages.
— Fundraising watch: Tomorrow at 6 p.m., Seniors and Accessibility Minister Raymond Cho will host a $100-a-ticket fundraiser in Toronto.
Associate Attorney General Michael Tibollo is hosting a $350-a-ticket “fall social” in Vaughan on Wednesday at 7 p.m.
Save the date: The NDP is turning 65, and Marit Stiles is throwing a party. She’ll host a $500-a-ticket “leader’s levee” at Arcadian Court on November 14, complete with live entertainment, passed canapés and two drinks.
— 🍴 On the lunch menu: Monday: Jerk chicken with rice and coleslaw. Tuesday: Ginger beef with rice and vegetables. Wednesday: Pork schnitzel with spaetzle and vegetable. Thursday: Fish and chips. Friday: Peri Peri chicken with potatoes and vegetables.
— First: Navdeep Bains won’t put his name on the New Leaf Liberals’ pledge for party renewal.
The context: The group’s pledge, which it had asked leadership candidates to sign, called for earlier and more open nominations, more power for local riding associations, greater transparency around party spending and decision-making, plus an overhaul of fundraising and organizing, among other changes. Three candidates have signed on: Stephanie Bowman, Lee Fairclough and Dylan Marando.
The response: “Party renewal isn’t something done to members — it has to be built with them,” Jamie Kippen, Bains’ campaign director, wrote in an email, a copy of which we’ve obtained.
Kippen said the campaign supports the pledge’s principles and commends the work behind it, but has decided against signing any pledges. “As a campaign, we have taken the position to not sign any pledge — while we are supportive of members, commissions and organizations that are all passionate about the future of our party,” he wrote.
The reaction: “We strongly believe the New Leaf Pledge for Renewal should be the basis for rebuilding this party,” the group said in a statement, thanking Bowman, Fairclough and Marando for signing on and “showing their commitment to leading from the front on this issue.”
But one New Leaf didn’t pull any punches. “Nav has been utterly disappointing in a contest completely lacking a standout. It was his to lose the minute Nate [Erskine-Smith] was turfed, and boy has he done everything possible to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory here.”
Then came a follow-up text: “Shit, that response is longer than any of Nav’s policy planks.”
— Pedalling past the facts: “As Premier Doug Ford readied his war on bike lanes, provincial bureaucrats raised facts refuting his core arguments and had to call in extra staff to deal with a blizzard of public feedback, according to internal records obtained by the Star.”
— A dimmer deal: “The Ontario Electricity Rebate will be cut by a third… going from covering 23.5 per cent of electricity bill costs currently, to 15.7 per cent starting Nov. 1.” The Trillium has more.
Meanwhile: “Ontario will import power from the United States this winter, the province’s independent electricity operator has announced, just a few months after Premier Doug Ford threatened to cut exports to the U.S. amid the ongoing trade war.”
— Gambling on silence: “The government agency responsible for online gambling in Ontario secretly shelved a research study intended to track rates of problem gambling in the province… However, records obtained by the Star through freedom of information legislation reveal that iGaming executives were concerned when researchers reported problem gambling rates significantly higher than expected, and quietly decided the research would be kept confidential.”
A message from Uber:
Through Hope Air, with support from Uber, Canadians in need are able to get to their important appointments. Learn more about Uber and Hope Air’s work at uber.com/hopeair.
— Over in Brampton: A decision to let residents vote at multiple polling stations within their ward has some candidates worried about election integrity. The Pointer has more.
— Power to the province? One of Thunder Bay’s would-be mayors is calling on the Ford government to strip the city of strong mayor powers.
— John Michael McGrath says shareholders in Stelco’s parent company have good reason to keep their antennas up.
— On crime, Martin Regg Cohn argues that Olivia Chow and Brad Bradford “are talking past each other — and us, by talking over our heads.”
— Out-of-date property values are distorting municipal taxation — and Premier Ford isn’t doing anything about it, writes Randall Denley. “Due to Ford’s inaction, Ontarians pay property taxes not on the value of their house or condo today, but on what it was worth back in 2016. It’s as if time stopped a decade ago.”
— Ontario’s labour market looks a lot less healthy once you stop averaging it, argues Graeme Gordon.
— Noted: Flags on government buildings are at half-mast in the wake of Saturday’s incident at CFB Wainwright in Alberta. Premier Doug Ford wrote: “As Canadians, let’s come together to support our brave men and women in uniform, who put their lives on the line to protect our freedoms and our country. Ontario stands ready to help the recovery efforts however we can.”
“Canadians stand with you,” the NDP leader said.
— Noted: Former premier Kathleen Wynne endorsed Olivia Chow on Sunday.
— Hired: Amanda Brodhagen is the new chief to Associate Minister of Energy-Intensive Industries Matthew Rae.
— In memoriam: Former NDP MPP Irene Mathyssen has died at 75.
From her obituary: “Those who knew Irene will also remember her extraordinary kindness and warmth. She was always ready with a hug, a smile and a genuine interest in the people around her. It was that generosity of spirit, as much as her many accomplishments, that made Irene so deeply loved by New Democrats and by the communities she served.” More.
Thank you for reading POLICORNER. How are you gearing up for the fall session? I want to hear from you, and I’ll keep you anonymous. That’s all for now, but not for the week. More reporting to come.
Got 5+ on your team? Team subscriptions are available. Got a client with a message to reach the province’s most powerful players? Ask for our ad rates. Reach out.
Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up now.
Dispatch from the Beaches — I’m about to say goodbye to Natalie Johnson.
We’re standing at an intersection at around 4:30 p.m. It’s the best place to greet people heading home, she says.
Right on cue, an email from Nate Erskine-Smith to his supporters arrives in my inbox. The subject line: “Talk vs. action.”
We read it together on the sidewalk.
“It’s easy to say ‘rebuild the ramp’ on the campaign trail,” Erskine-Smith writes. “Of course, rebuilding the ramp at Logan (Avenue) is a fairy tale of untold waste. Better to have an actual plan.”
“He’s trying to insinuate that I want something that I’m not calling for,” says Johnson, calmly, if a little exasperated. To some, she’s become known as the “ramp lady.” (Ask her, and she’ll probably show you a sign she’s put up: “Bring Back the Gardiner Ramp.”)
Then, Erskine-Smith, campaigning as the de facto incumbent, has some news: The city will accelerate construction of the Cherry Street ramp, with work set to begin in the new year. (In a video posted later that night, Johnson accused Erskine-Smith of “taking credit” for the plan.)
For background: The Logan ramps, which gave east-end motorists direct access to and from the Gardiner Expressway, came down in 2021 as part of a long-planned reconstruction of the highway.
The city’s answer was to build replacement ramps east of Cherry Street. Five years later, not a shovel has hit the ground. The reason: The new ramps would depend on a much larger reconstruction of the Gardiner between Cherry Street and the Don Valley Parkway, including a realignment of the elevated highway that has yet to begin.
For months, both Johnson and Erskine-Smith have sparred over the east-end highway ramps, even as the Ford government could soon have the last word on when — and if — they get built. Yet for all their disagreements, both are essentially calling for the same thing. And that, in many ways, is the story of Beaches-East York — a contest between two candidates who know their way around politics, albeit from opposite sides of it, each convinced they’re the one who can deliver.
Johnson has covered Toronto City Hall for 16 years. (She says her bosses would occasionally ask whether she’d consider covering something else, including provincial politics. Her answer was always no.)
“I’ve always just been so passionate about City Hall because I love the impact it can have on people,” she says from across the table on a Starbucks patio, before we head out to knock doors.
She’d also been asked by “various parties” over the years whether she’d consider running. “I always said, ‘No, I love my job as a journalist,’” she explains. This time, the opportunity brought together two things close to home: the politics she’d spent years covering and the community where she’s raising her family. She took a leave of absence from CTV to consider a run. By May 11, she’d made up her mind.
The move from reporter to candidate hasn’t felt like much of a leap, Johnson says. In some ways, she’d been doing a version of the job for years. Neighbours would stop her with city problems, a construction mess or a policy that made no sense, and even when it wasn’t a story, she’d connect them with someone who could help. Now she’s simply “moving to the solution side of the same issues I’ve always been passionate about.”
“Instead of knocking on someone’s door with a microphone saying, ‘Tell me about the parking problem on your street,’ it’s like, ‘How do we fix the parking problem on your street?’”
The harder adjustment has been picking a side. Reporters hear everyone out, and Johnson admits she has “a natural empathy for hearing from all stakeholders.” At some point, she says, a candidate has to decide what she’s actually for.
Behind the scenes: Before making her pitch to voters, Johnson sounded out a few people. Among them was Erskine-Smith, who was then chasing the Liberal nomination in Scarborough Southwest. Once the nomination contest was decided, the two met at East Lynn Park, where he shared some advice.
Weeks later, Johnson’s phone rang. It was Erskine-Smith, calling about an hour before news broke that they’d soon be opponents.
She doesn’t hide what she makes of it. “I don’t think that City Hall should be a consolation prize for a higher order of government,” Johnson says. “It is too difficult a job to come into that role as a backup plan and expect to do a good job if your heart isn’t in it 1,000 per cent.”
It’s the closest thing she has to a thesis on her opponent, and Johnson says it comes back to her at the door. Residents who bring up Erskine-Smith’s name tend to start with a qualifier: “I voted for him federally, but I don’t like that he’s trying to come back.”
But Johnson is careful not to make it personal. “You can like Nate and you can like me,” she says. “One of us has a career’s worth of experience at City Hall and understanding municipal issues, and the other has his expertise in federal government.”
We head out to knock doors, and it’s quickly clear the ward has noticed her. Five months in, she’s no stranger on these streets. Her lawn signs are everywhere, and the people behind them seem to mean it. One woman, climbing out of her car, spots Johnson and skips the pleasantries. “We already voted for you,” she says. “I’m hoping for some fresh perspective in this ward.”
A few houses down, another resident calls after her: “Good luck. We hope you win!”
Johnson has been at this since May, often spending eight to 12 hours a day. The doorstep, she says, has been a relief from the toxicity online. “People are almost entirely polite, pleasant, and positive.”
But the support isn’t only coming from the curb. Johnson has drawn star power from across the political spectrum, including from former premier Kathleen Wynne and former federal Conservative leader Erin O’Toole. She says that’s how municipal politics should work. “It doesn’t have to be partisan at the city level.”
Johnson’s independence has skeptics. Some have tried to paint her as the political heir of Brad Bradford, who has represented the ward since 2018 and is now running for mayor. She says some crossover is inevitable in his home ward, where her volunteers include supporters of both Bradford and Olivia Chow.
But Johnson won’t seek his endorsement, or anyone else’s in the mayor’s race. “I’d rather be an independent candidate,” she says.
In her years covering council, Johnson says, ideology was the biggest thing slowing it down. So she plans to work with whoever wins, on council and in the mayor’s office. The same goes for the local MP, Tanveer Shahnawaz, a former Erskine-Smith aide who has endorsed him. Johnson would have preferred he stay out of the race. “Can I look past that in order to keep my eyes on the prize, which is to do good things in this ward? Yes.”
Erskine-Smith carries himself like a man seeking re-election, backed by a decade as the riding’s MP, a stint in cabinet and the mayor’s blessing. But not long ago, he had his sights set on the job Bonnie Crombie beat him to in 2023.
Erskine-Smith had planned to leave federal politics before the last election, but was pulled back in when the Liberals were in dire straits, and stayed on as Justin Trudeau gave way to Mark Carney. When Carney dropped him from cabinet — a decision Erskine-Smith said at the time made it “impossible not to feel disrespected” — he turned his attention back to provincial politics. The plan: Win the Liberal nomination in Scarborough Southwest and, he hoped, the party’s leadership.
It went, in his words, “sideways.” Asked whether he’d do it again, he doesn’t hedge. “If I’d known how it was going to happen, I would not have done that.”
But Erskine-Smith likens politics to pushing a boulder up a hill: sometimes it gets there, sometimes it doesn’t. This time it rolled back. He bristles at the suggestion from some around him that the experience scarred him, calling that “maybe a bit dramatic,” but acknowledges it made him grow cynical. The party, he says, needs to do things differently.
Then he waves it off.
“It’s behind me.”
For a while, it seemed politics was too. At his farewell party in East York, supporters were already urging him to run again — for something, anything, it seemed. Some were pushing him to run provincially — even raising money for a possible leadership bid — while others wanted him to challenge Johnson. Erskine-Smith spent the summer coaching baseball as he considered his next move, including a return to law or a job in the non-profit sector. Even those closest to him didn’t expect him to run.
Then Chow called. “Olivia Chow is a very persuasive person,” he says. The two met at a hotel in May, where, he says, she encouraged him to run.
So he did. “My life would have been easier if I returned to law,” Erskine-Smith says. “But you live once, and you step up and serve.”
The candidate who emerged is almost aggressively local. His pitch? Responsiveness. The most common complaint he hears at the doors, he says, is that Bradford, the outgoing councillor, has been “missing in action.” Erskine-Smith hands out his cellphone number and says he’s already compiled a to-do list of roughly 150 items, ranging from flood mitigation to better snacks at East York Memorial Arena — the latter a request from the wife of a law school classmate.
Erskine-Smith knows some see council as a stopover — a place to wait out a second Chow term before running for mayor himself, or a route back to a bigger stage. He turns it on Bradford. “We have had a councillor who has been running for mayor for the last three to four years, if not before then, and I think the community has suffered for it,” he says.
Ask him about Bradford personally and he insists there’s no feud; the two used to co-host New Year’s Levees. What bothers him is the trajectory. Bradford came to council as an advocate for housing and active transportation, Erskine-Smith argues, but is “now running a campaign as some archconservative.” “ The incessant flip-flopping is maddening to me. It’s anathema to my politics,” he says.
The same instinct, honesty over expediency, is why he has little time for Johnson’s neutrality. In an election, he says, “you support who you think is best,” and you’re upfront about it. Staying out of the mayor’s race, in his view, doesn’t put anyone above it.
But whoever wins, he says he’ll work with them. “However the chips fall, you work as best as you can to deliver for your community.”
Out on the street, Erskine-Smith rarely needs an introduction. At one door, he starts his pitch and the resident cuts him off: “Of course I know who you are.”
The four kids who stop him on the sidewalk are less sure.
“What are you running for?”
City councillor, he explains.
“Oh,” one says. “I thought it was a race and you were actually running.”
Then, by way of credentials: “I placed second in my school’s track and field.”
Before long, they want in. “If you knock on doors with me, we’re more likely to win!” he tells them. They follow him to the neighbour’s house, then the next, and the next.
At one door, one of the kids beats him to the introduction: “He’s running for president!”
The resident laughs and turns to Erskine-Smith, who she recognizes, with a correction. “You’ll be prime minister one day.”
Further along, he stops to chat with another supportive resident. An 11-year-old, jumping up and down, chimes in.
“I’m Team Nate, too!” she says.
Then, after a pause: “I don’t know what this is about, though.”
A message from Uber:
— T-8 days until the House is back.
Signs of life: The sessional bells — it’s been a while, hasn’t it? — will ring out starting at 8:30 a.m. for routine testing and maintenance.
Happening this week:
Mea culpa! Last week, we reported that Nate Erskine-Smith’s defamation dispute with Quito Maggi was heading back to court on Friday. A correction: The hearing is actually scheduled for Wednesday. Maggi is seeking to overturn a ruling in Erskine-Smith’s favour that awarded him $25,000 in damages.
— Fundraising watch: Tomorrow at 6 p.m., Seniors and Accessibility Minister Raymond Cho will host a $100-a-ticket fundraiser in Toronto.
Associate Attorney General Michael Tibollo is hosting a $350-a-ticket “fall social” in Vaughan on Wednesday at 7 p.m.
Save the date: The NDP is turning 65, and Marit Stiles is throwing a party. She’ll host a $500-a-ticket “leader’s levee” at Arcadian Court on November 14, complete with live entertainment, passed canapés and two drinks.
— 🍴 On the lunch menu: Monday: Jerk chicken with rice and coleslaw. Tuesday: Ginger beef with rice and vegetables. Wednesday: Pork schnitzel with spaetzle and vegetable. Thursday: Fish and chips. Friday: Peri Peri chicken with potatoes and vegetables.
— First: Navdeep Bains won’t put his name on the New Leaf Liberals’ pledge for party renewal.
The context: The group’s pledge, which it had asked leadership candidates to sign, called for earlier and more open nominations, more power for local riding associations, greater transparency around party spending and decision-making, plus an overhaul of fundraising and organizing, among other changes. Three candidates have signed on: Stephanie Bowman, Lee Fairclough and Dylan Marando.
The response: “Party renewal isn’t something done to members — it has to be built with them,” Jamie Kippen, Bains’ campaign director, wrote in an email, a copy of which we’ve obtained.
Kippen said the campaign supports the pledge’s principles and commends the work behind it, but has decided against signing any pledges. “As a campaign, we have taken the position to not sign any pledge — while we are supportive of members, commissions and organizations that are all passionate about the future of our party,” he wrote.
The reaction: “We strongly believe the New Leaf Pledge for Renewal should be the basis for rebuilding this party,” the group said in a statement, thanking Bowman, Fairclough and Marando for signing on and “showing their commitment to leading from the front on this issue.”
But one New Leaf didn’t pull any punches. “Nav has been utterly disappointing in a contest completely lacking a standout. It was his to lose the minute Nate [Erskine-Smith] was turfed, and boy has he done everything possible to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory here.”
Then came a follow-up text: “Shit, that response is longer than any of Nav’s policy planks.”
— Pedalling past the facts: “As Premier Doug Ford readied his war on bike lanes, provincial bureaucrats raised facts refuting his core arguments and had to call in extra staff to deal with a blizzard of public feedback, according to internal records obtained by the Star.”
— A dimmer deal: “The Ontario Electricity Rebate will be cut by a third… going from covering 23.5 per cent of electricity bill costs currently, to 15.7 per cent starting Nov. 1.” The Trillium has more.
Meanwhile: “Ontario will import power from the United States this winter, the province’s independent electricity operator has announced, just a few months after Premier Doug Ford threatened to cut exports to the U.S. amid the ongoing trade war.”
— Gambling on silence: “The government agency responsible for online gambling in Ontario secretly shelved a research study intended to track rates of problem gambling in the province… However, records obtained by the Star through freedom of information legislation reveal that iGaming executives were concerned when researchers reported problem gambling rates significantly higher than expected, and quietly decided the research would be kept confidential.”
A message from Uber:
Through Hope Air, with support from Uber, Canadians in need are able to get to their important appointments. Learn more about Uber and Hope Air’s work at uber.com/hopeair.
— Over in Brampton: A decision to let residents vote at multiple polling stations within their ward has some candidates worried about election integrity. The Pointer has more.
— Power to the province? One of Thunder Bay’s would-be mayors is calling on the Ford government to strip the city of strong mayor powers.
— John Michael McGrath says shareholders in Stelco’s parent company have good reason to keep their antennas up.
— On crime, Martin Regg Cohn argues that Olivia Chow and Brad Bradford “are talking past each other — and us, by talking over our heads.”
— Out-of-date property values are distorting municipal taxation — and Premier Ford isn’t doing anything about it, writes Randall Denley. “Due to Ford’s inaction, Ontarians pay property taxes not on the value of their house or condo today, but on what it was worth back in 2016. It’s as if time stopped a decade ago.”
— Ontario’s labour market looks a lot less healthy once you stop averaging it, argues Graeme Gordon.
— Noted: Flags on government buildings are at half-mast in the wake of Saturday’s incident at CFB Wainwright in Alberta. Premier Doug Ford wrote: “As Canadians, let’s come together to support our brave men and women in uniform, who put their lives on the line to protect our freedoms and our country. Ontario stands ready to help the recovery efforts however we can.”
“Canadians stand with you,” the NDP leader said.
— Noted: Former premier Kathleen Wynne endorsed Olivia Chow on Sunday.
— Hired: Amanda Brodhagen is the new chief to Associate Minister of Energy-Intensive Industries Matthew Rae.
— In memoriam: Former NDP MPP Irene Mathyssen has died at 75.
From her obituary: “Those who knew Irene will also remember her extraordinary kindness and warmth. She was always ready with a hug, a smile and a genuine interest in the people around her. It was that generosity of spirit, as much as her many accomplishments, that made Irene so deeply loved by New Democrats and by the communities she served.” More.
Thank you for reading POLICORNER. How are you gearing up for the fall session? I want to hear from you, and I’ll keep you anonymous. That’s all for now, but not for the week. More reporting to come.
Got 5+ on your team? Team subscriptions are available. Got a client with a message to reach the province’s most powerful players? Ask for our ad rates. Reach out.
Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up now.
Dispatch from the Beaches — I’m about to say goodbye to Natalie Johnson.
We’re standing at an intersection at around 4:30 p.m. It’s the best place to greet people heading home, she says.
Right on cue, an email from Nate Erskine-Smith to his supporters arrives in my inbox. The subject line: “Talk vs. action.”
We read it together on the sidewalk.
“It’s easy to say ‘rebuild the ramp’ on the campaign trail,” Erskine-Smith writes. “Of course, rebuilding the ramp at Logan (Avenue) is a fairy tale of untold waste. Better to have an actual plan.”
“He’s trying to insinuate that I want something that I’m not calling for,” says Johnson, calmly, if a little exasperated. To some, she’s become known as the “ramp lady.” (Ask her, and she’ll probably show you a sign she’s put up: “Bring Back the Gardiner Ramp.”)
Then, Erskine-Smith, campaigning as the de facto incumbent, has some news: The city will accelerate construction of the Cherry Street ramp, with work set to begin in the new year. (In a video posted later that night, Johnson accused Erskine-Smith of “taking credit” for the plan.)
For background: The Logan ramps, which gave east-end motorists direct access to and from the Gardiner Expressway, came down in 2021 as part of a long-planned reconstruction of the highway.
The city’s answer was to build replacement ramps east of Cherry Street. Five years later, not a shovel has hit the ground. The reason: The new ramps would depend on a much larger reconstruction of the Gardiner between Cherry Street and the Don Valley Parkway, including a realignment of the elevated highway that has yet to begin.
For months, both Johnson and Erskine-Smith have sparred over the east-end highway ramps, even as the Ford government could soon have the last word on when — and if — they get built. Yet for all their disagreements, both are essentially calling for the same thing. And that, in many ways, is the story of Beaches-East York — a contest between two candidates who know their way around politics, albeit from opposite sides of it, each convinced they’re the one who can deliver.
Johnson has covered Toronto City Hall for 16 years. (She says her bosses would occasionally ask whether she’d consider covering something else, including provincial politics. Her answer was always no.)
“I’ve always just been so passionate about City Hall because I love the impact it can have on people,” she says from across the table on a Starbucks patio, before we head out to knock doors.
She’d also been asked by “various parties” over the years whether she’d consider running. “I always said, ‘No, I love my job as a journalist,’” she explains. This time, the opportunity brought together two things close to home: the politics she’d spent years covering and the community where she’s raising her family. She took a leave of absence from CTV to consider a run. By May 11, she’d made up her mind.
The move from reporter to candidate hasn’t felt like much of a leap, Johnson says. In some ways, she’d been doing a version of the job for years. Neighbours would stop her with city problems, a construction mess or a policy that made no sense, and even when it wasn’t a story, she’d connect them with someone who could help. Now she’s simply “moving to the solution side of the same issues I’ve always been passionate about.”
“Instead of knocking on someone’s door with a microphone saying, ‘Tell me about the parking problem on your street,’ it’s like, ‘How do we fix the parking problem on your street?’”
The harder adjustment has been picking a side. Reporters hear everyone out, and Johnson admits she has “a natural empathy for hearing from all stakeholders.” At some point, she says, a candidate has to decide what she’s actually for.
Behind the scenes: Before making her pitch to voters, Johnson sounded out a few people. Among them was Erskine-Smith, who was then chasing the Liberal nomination in Scarborough Southwest. Once the nomination contest was decided, the two met at East Lynn Park, where he shared some advice.
Weeks later, Johnson’s phone rang. It was Erskine-Smith, calling about an hour before news broke that they’d soon be opponents.
She doesn’t hide what she makes of it. “I don’t think that City Hall should be a consolation prize for a higher order of government,” Johnson says. “It is too difficult a job to come into that role as a backup plan and expect to do a good job if your heart isn’t in it 1,000 per cent.”
It’s the closest thing she has to a thesis on her opponent, and Johnson says it comes back to her at the door. Residents who bring up Erskine-Smith’s name tend to start with a qualifier: “I voted for him federally, but I don’t like that he’s trying to come back.”
But Johnson is careful not to make it personal. “You can like Nate and you can like me,” she says. “One of us has a career’s worth of experience at City Hall and understanding municipal issues, and the other has his expertise in federal government.”
We head out to knock doors, and it’s quickly clear the ward has noticed her. Five months in, she’s no stranger on these streets. Her lawn signs are everywhere, and the people behind them seem to mean it. One woman, climbing out of her car, spots Johnson and skips the pleasantries. “We already voted for you,” she says. “I’m hoping for some fresh perspective in this ward.”
A few houses down, another resident calls after her: “Good luck. We hope you win!”
Johnson has been at this since May, often spending eight to 12 hours a day. The doorstep, she says, has been a relief from the toxicity online. “People are almost entirely polite, pleasant, and positive.”
But the support isn’t only coming from the curb. Johnson has drawn star power from across the political spectrum, including from former premier Kathleen Wynne and former federal Conservative leader Erin O’Toole. She says that’s how municipal politics should work. “It doesn’t have to be partisan at the city level.”
Johnson’s independence has skeptics. Some have tried to paint her as the political heir of Brad Bradford, who has represented the ward since 2018 and is now running for mayor. She says some crossover is inevitable in his home ward, where her volunteers include supporters of both Bradford and Olivia Chow.
But Johnson won’t seek his endorsement, or anyone else’s in the mayor’s race. “I’d rather be an independent candidate,” she says.
In her years covering council, Johnson says, ideology was the biggest thing slowing it down. So she plans to work with whoever wins, on council and in the mayor’s office. The same goes for the local MP, Tanveer Shahnawaz, a former Erskine-Smith aide who has endorsed him. Johnson would have preferred he stay out of the race. “Can I look past that in order to keep my eyes on the prize, which is to do good things in this ward? Yes.”
Erskine-Smith carries himself like a man seeking re-election, backed by a decade as the riding’s MP, a stint in cabinet and the mayor’s blessing. But not long ago, he had his sights set on the job Bonnie Crombie beat him to in 2023.
Erskine-Smith had planned to leave federal politics before the last election, but was pulled back in when the Liberals were in dire straits, and stayed on as Justin Trudeau gave way to Mark Carney. When Carney dropped him from cabinet — a decision Erskine-Smith said at the time made it “impossible not to feel disrespected” — he turned his attention back to provincial politics. The plan: Win the Liberal nomination in Scarborough Southwest and, he hoped, the party’s leadership.
It went, in his words, “sideways.” Asked whether he’d do it again, he doesn’t hedge. “If I’d known how it was going to happen, I would not have done that.”
But Erskine-Smith likens politics to pushing a boulder up a hill: sometimes it gets there, sometimes it doesn’t. This time it rolled back. He bristles at the suggestion from some around him that the experience scarred him, calling that “maybe a bit dramatic,” but acknowledges it made him grow cynical. The party, he says, needs to do things differently.
Then he waves it off.
“It’s behind me.”
For a while, it seemed politics was too. At his farewell party in East York, supporters were already urging him to run again — for something, anything, it seemed. Some were pushing him to run provincially — even raising money for a possible leadership bid — while others wanted him to challenge Johnson. Erskine-Smith spent the summer coaching baseball as he considered his next move, including a return to law or a job in the non-profit sector. Even those closest to him didn’t expect him to run.
Then Chow called. “Olivia Chow is a very persuasive person,” he says. The two met at a hotel in May, where, he says, she encouraged him to run.
So he did. “My life would have been easier if I returned to law,” Erskine-Smith says. “But you live once, and you step up and serve.”
The candidate who emerged is almost aggressively local. His pitch? Responsiveness. The most common complaint he hears at the doors, he says, is that Bradford, the outgoing councillor, has been “missing in action.” Erskine-Smith hands out his cellphone number and says he’s already compiled a to-do list of roughly 150 items, ranging from flood mitigation to better snacks at East York Memorial Arena — the latter a request from the wife of a law school classmate.
Erskine-Smith knows some see council as a stopover — a place to wait out a second Chow term before running for mayor himself, or a route back to a bigger stage. He turns it on Bradford. “We have had a councillor who has been running for mayor for the last three to four years, if not before then, and I think the community has suffered for it,” he says.
Ask him about Bradford personally and he insists there’s no feud; the two used to co-host New Year’s Levees. What bothers him is the trajectory. Bradford came to council as an advocate for housing and active transportation, Erskine-Smith argues, but is “now running a campaign as some archconservative.” “ The incessant flip-flopping is maddening to me. It’s anathema to my politics,” he says.
The same instinct, honesty over expediency, is why he has little time for Johnson’s neutrality. In an election, he says, “you support who you think is best,” and you’re upfront about it. Staying out of the mayor’s race, in his view, doesn’t put anyone above it.
But whoever wins, he says he’ll work with them. “However the chips fall, you work as best as you can to deliver for your community.”
Out on the street, Erskine-Smith rarely needs an introduction. At one door, he starts his pitch and the resident cuts him off: “Of course I know who you are.”
The four kids who stop him on the sidewalk are less sure.
“What are you running for?”
City councillor, he explains.
“Oh,” one says. “I thought it was a race and you were actually running.”
Then, by way of credentials: “I placed second in my school’s track and field.”
Before long, they want in. “If you knock on doors with me, we’re more likely to win!” he tells them. They follow him to the neighbour’s house, then the next, and the next.
At one door, one of the kids beats him to the introduction: “He’s running for president!”
The resident laughs and turns to Erskine-Smith, who she recognizes, with a correction. “You’ll be prime minister one day.”
Further along, he stops to chat with another supportive resident. An 11-year-old, jumping up and down, chimes in.
“I’m Team Nate, too!” she says.
Then, after a pause: “I don’t know what this is about, though.”
A message from Uber:
— T-8 days until the House is back.
Signs of life: The sessional bells — it’s been a while, hasn’t it? — will ring out starting at 8:30 a.m. for routine testing and maintenance.
Happening this week:
Mea culpa! Last week, we reported that Nate Erskine-Smith’s defamation dispute with Quito Maggi was heading back to court on Friday. A correction: The hearing is actually scheduled for Wednesday. Maggi is seeking to overturn a ruling in Erskine-Smith’s favour that awarded him $25,000 in damages.
— Fundraising watch: Tomorrow at 6 p.m., Seniors and Accessibility Minister Raymond Cho will host a $100-a-ticket fundraiser in Toronto.
Associate Attorney General Michael Tibollo is hosting a $350-a-ticket “fall social” in Vaughan on Wednesday at 7 p.m.
Save the date: The NDP is turning 65, and Marit Stiles is throwing a party. She’ll host a $500-a-ticket “leader’s levee” at Arcadian Court on November 14, complete with live entertainment, passed canapés and two drinks.
— 🍴 On the lunch menu: Monday: Jerk chicken with rice and coleslaw. Tuesday: Ginger beef with rice and vegetables. Wednesday: Pork schnitzel with spaetzle and vegetable. Thursday: Fish and chips. Friday: Peri Peri chicken with potatoes and vegetables.
— First: Navdeep Bains won’t put his name on the New Leaf Liberals’ pledge for party renewal.
The context: The group’s pledge, which it had asked leadership candidates to sign, called for earlier and more open nominations, more power for local riding associations, greater transparency around party spending and decision-making, plus an overhaul of fundraising and organizing, among other changes. Three candidates have signed on: Stephanie Bowman, Lee Fairclough and Dylan Marando.
The response: “Party renewal isn’t something done to members — it has to be built with them,” Jamie Kippen, Bains’ campaign director, wrote in an email, a copy of which we’ve obtained.
Kippen said the campaign supports the pledge’s principles and commends the work behind it, but has decided against signing any pledges. “As a campaign, we have taken the position to not sign any pledge — while we are supportive of members, commissions and organizations that are all passionate about the future of our party,” he wrote.
The reaction: “We strongly believe the New Leaf Pledge for Renewal should be the basis for rebuilding this party,” the group said in a statement, thanking Bowman, Fairclough and Marando for signing on and “showing their commitment to leading from the front on this issue.”
But one New Leaf didn’t pull any punches. “Nav has been utterly disappointing in a contest completely lacking a standout. It was his to lose the minute Nate [Erskine-Smith] was turfed, and boy has he done everything possible to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory here.”
Then came a follow-up text: “Shit, that response is longer than any of Nav’s policy planks.”
— Pedalling past the facts: “As Premier Doug Ford readied his war on bike lanes, provincial bureaucrats raised facts refuting his core arguments and had to call in extra staff to deal with a blizzard of public feedback, according to internal records obtained by the Star.”
— A dimmer deal: “The Ontario Electricity Rebate will be cut by a third… going from covering 23.5 per cent of electricity bill costs currently, to 15.7 per cent starting Nov. 1.” The Trillium has more.
Meanwhile: “Ontario will import power from the United States this winter, the province’s independent electricity operator has announced, just a few months after Premier Doug Ford threatened to cut exports to the U.S. amid the ongoing trade war.”
— Gambling on silence: “The government agency responsible for online gambling in Ontario secretly shelved a research study intended to track rates of problem gambling in the province… However, records obtained by the Star through freedom of information legislation reveal that iGaming executives were concerned when researchers reported problem gambling rates significantly higher than expected, and quietly decided the research would be kept confidential.”
A message from Uber:
Through Hope Air, with support from Uber, Canadians in need are able to get to their important appointments. Learn more about Uber and Hope Air’s work at uber.com/hopeair.
— Over in Brampton: A decision to let residents vote at multiple polling stations within their ward has some candidates worried about election integrity. The Pointer has more.
— Power to the province? One of Thunder Bay’s would-be mayors is calling on the Ford government to strip the city of strong mayor powers.
— John Michael McGrath says shareholders in Stelco’s parent company have good reason to keep their antennas up.
— On crime, Martin Regg Cohn argues that Olivia Chow and Brad Bradford “are talking past each other — and us, by talking over our heads.”
— Out-of-date property values are distorting municipal taxation — and Premier Ford isn’t doing anything about it, writes Randall Denley. “Due to Ford’s inaction, Ontarians pay property taxes not on the value of their house or condo today, but on what it was worth back in 2016. It’s as if time stopped a decade ago.”
— Ontario’s labour market looks a lot less healthy once you stop averaging it, argues Graeme Gordon.
— Noted: Flags on government buildings are at half-mast in the wake of Saturday’s incident at CFB Wainwright in Alberta. Premier Doug Ford wrote: “As Canadians, let’s come together to support our brave men and women in uniform, who put their lives on the line to protect our freedoms and our country. Ontario stands ready to help the recovery efforts however we can.”
“Canadians stand with you,” the NDP leader said.
— Noted: Former premier Kathleen Wynne endorsed Olivia Chow on Sunday.
— Hired: Amanda Brodhagen is the new chief to Associate Minister of Energy-Intensive Industries Matthew Rae.
— In memoriam: Former NDP MPP Irene Mathyssen has died at 75.
From her obituary: “Those who knew Irene will also remember her extraordinary kindness and warmth. She was always ready with a hug, a smile and a genuine interest in the people around her. It was that generosity of spirit, as much as her many accomplishments, that made Irene so deeply loved by New Democrats and by the communities she served.” More.
Thank you for reading POLICORNER. How are you gearing up for the fall session? I want to hear from you, and I’ll keep you anonymous. That’s all for now, but not for the week. More reporting to come.
Got 5+ on your team? Team subscriptions are available. Got a client with a message to reach the province’s most powerful players? Ask for our ad rates. Reach out.
Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up now.
Dispatch from the Beaches — I’m about to say goodbye to Natalie Johnson.
We’re standing at an intersection at around 4:30 p.m. It’s the best place to greet people heading home, she says.
Right on cue, an email from Nate Erskine-Smith to his supporters arrives in my inbox. The subject line: “Talk vs. action.”
We read it together on the sidewalk.
“It’s easy to say ‘rebuild the ramp’ on the campaign trail,” Erskine-Smith writes. “Of course, rebuilding the ramp at Logan (Avenue) is a fairy tale of untold waste. Better to have an actual plan.”
“He’s trying to insinuate that I want something that I’m not calling for,” says Johnson, calmly, if a little exasperated. To some, she’s become known as the “ramp lady.” (Ask her, and she’ll probably show you a sign she’s put up: “Bring Back the Gardiner Ramp.”)
Then, Erskine-Smith, campaigning as the de facto incumbent, has some news: The city will accelerate construction of the Cherry Street ramp, with work set to begin in the new year. (In a video posted later that night, Johnson accused Erskine-Smith of “taking credit” for the plan.)
For background: The Logan ramps, which gave east-end motorists direct access to and from the Gardiner Expressway, came down in 2021 as part of a long-planned reconstruction of the highway.
The city’s answer was to build replacement ramps east of Cherry Street. Five years later, not a shovel has hit the ground. The reason: The new ramps would depend on a much larger reconstruction of the Gardiner between Cherry Street and the Don Valley Parkway, including a realignment of the elevated highway that has yet to begin.
For months, both Johnson and Erskine-Smith have sparred over the east-end highway ramps, even as the Ford government could soon have the last word on when — and if — they get built. Yet for all their disagreements, both are essentially calling for the same thing. And that, in many ways, is the story of Beaches-East York — a contest between two candidates who know their way around politics, albeit from opposite sides of it, each convinced they’re the one who can deliver.
Johnson has covered Toronto City Hall for 16 years. (She says her bosses would occasionally ask whether she’d consider covering something else, including provincial politics. Her answer was always no.)
“I’ve always just been so passionate about City Hall because I love the impact it can have on people,” she says from across the table on a Starbucks patio, before we head out to knock doors.
She’d also been asked by “various parties” over the years whether she’d consider running. “I always said, ‘No, I love my job as a journalist,’” she explains. This time, the opportunity brought together two things close to home: the politics she’d spent years covering and the community where she’s raising her family. She took a leave of absence from CTV to consider a run. By May 11, she’d made up her mind.
The move from reporter to candidate hasn’t felt like much of a leap, Johnson says. In some ways, she’d been doing a version of the job for years. Neighbours would stop her with city problems, a construction mess or a policy that made no sense, and even when it wasn’t a story, she’d connect them with someone who could help. Now she’s simply “moving to the solution side of the same issues I’ve always been passionate about.”
“Instead of knocking on someone’s door with a microphone saying, ‘Tell me about the parking problem on your street,’ it’s like, ‘How do we fix the parking problem on your street?’”
The harder adjustment has been picking a side. Reporters hear everyone out, and Johnson admits she has “a natural empathy for hearing from all stakeholders.” At some point, she says, a candidate has to decide what she’s actually for.
Behind the scenes: Before making her pitch to voters, Johnson sounded out a few people. Among them was Erskine-Smith, who was then chasing the Liberal nomination in Scarborough Southwest. Once the nomination contest was decided, the two met at East Lynn Park, where he shared some advice.
Weeks later, Johnson’s phone rang. It was Erskine-Smith, calling about an hour before news broke that they’d soon be opponents.
She doesn’t hide what she makes of it. “I don’t think that City Hall should be a consolation prize for a higher order of government,” Johnson says. “It is too difficult a job to come into that role as a backup plan and expect to do a good job if your heart isn’t in it 1,000 per cent.”
It’s the closest thing she has to a thesis on her opponent, and Johnson says it comes back to her at the door. Residents who bring up Erskine-Smith’s name tend to start with a qualifier: “I voted for him federally, but I don’t like that he’s trying to come back.”
But Johnson is careful not to make it personal. “You can like Nate and you can like me,” she says. “One of us has a career’s worth of experience at City Hall and understanding municipal issues, and the other has his expertise in federal government.”
We head out to knock doors, and it’s quickly clear the ward has noticed her. Five months in, she’s no stranger on these streets. Her lawn signs are everywhere, and the people behind them seem to mean it. One woman, climbing out of her car, spots Johnson and skips the pleasantries. “We already voted for you,” she says. “I’m hoping for some fresh perspective in this ward.”
A few houses down, another resident calls after her: “Good luck. We hope you win!”
Johnson has been at this since May, often spending eight to 12 hours a day. The doorstep, she says, has been a relief from the toxicity online. “People are almost entirely polite, pleasant, and positive.”
But the support isn’t only coming from the curb. Johnson has drawn star power from across the political spectrum, including from former premier Kathleen Wynne and former federal Conservative leader Erin O’Toole. She says that’s how municipal politics should work. “It doesn’t have to be partisan at the city level.”
Johnson’s independence has skeptics. Some have tried to paint her as the political heir of Brad Bradford, who has represented the ward since 2018 and is now running for mayor. She says some crossover is inevitable in his home ward, where her volunteers include supporters of both Bradford and Olivia Chow.
But Johnson won’t seek his endorsement, or anyone else’s in the mayor’s race. “I’d rather be an independent candidate,” she says.
In her years covering council, Johnson says, ideology was the biggest thing slowing it down. So she plans to work with whoever wins, on council and in the mayor’s office. The same goes for the local MP, Tanveer Shahnawaz, a former Erskine-Smith aide who has endorsed him. Johnson would have preferred he stay out of the race. “Can I look past that in order to keep my eyes on the prize, which is to do good things in this ward? Yes.”
Erskine-Smith carries himself like a man seeking re-election, backed by a decade as the riding’s MP, a stint in cabinet and the mayor’s blessing. But not long ago, he had his sights set on the job Bonnie Crombie beat him to in 2023.
Erskine-Smith had planned to leave federal politics before the last election, but was pulled back in when the Liberals were in dire straits, and stayed on as Justin Trudeau gave way to Mark Carney. When Carney dropped him from cabinet — a decision Erskine-Smith said at the time made it “impossible not to feel disrespected” — he turned his attention back to provincial politics. The plan: Win the Liberal nomination in Scarborough Southwest and, he hoped, the party’s leadership.
It went, in his words, “sideways.” Asked whether he’d do it again, he doesn’t hedge. “If I’d known how it was going to happen, I would not have done that.”
But Erskine-Smith likens politics to pushing a boulder up a hill: sometimes it gets there, sometimes it doesn’t. This time it rolled back. He bristles at the suggestion from some around him that the experience scarred him, calling that “maybe a bit dramatic,” but acknowledges it made him grow cynical. The party, he says, needs to do things differently.
Then he waves it off.
“It’s behind me.”
For a while, it seemed politics was too. At his farewell party in East York, supporters were already urging him to run again — for something, anything, it seemed. Some were pushing him to run provincially — even raising money for a possible leadership bid — while others wanted him to challenge Johnson. Erskine-Smith spent the summer coaching baseball as he considered his next move, including a return to law or a job in the non-profit sector. Even those closest to him didn’t expect him to run.
Then Chow called. “Olivia Chow is a very persuasive person,” he says. The two met at a hotel in May, where, he says, she encouraged him to run.
So he did. “My life would have been easier if I returned to law,” Erskine-Smith says. “But you live once, and you step up and serve.”
The candidate who emerged is almost aggressively local. His pitch? Responsiveness. The most common complaint he hears at the doors, he says, is that Bradford, the outgoing councillor, has been “missing in action.” Erskine-Smith hands out his cellphone number and says he’s already compiled a to-do list of roughly 150 items, ranging from flood mitigation to better snacks at East York Memorial Arena — the latter a request from the wife of a law school classmate.
Erskine-Smith knows some see council as a stopover — a place to wait out a second Chow term before running for mayor himself, or a route back to a bigger stage. He turns it on Bradford. “We have had a councillor who has been running for mayor for the last three to four years, if not before then, and I think the community has suffered for it,” he says.
Ask him about Bradford personally and he insists there’s no feud; the two used to co-host New Year’s Levees. What bothers him is the trajectory. Bradford came to council as an advocate for housing and active transportation, Erskine-Smith argues, but is “now running a campaign as some archconservative.” “ The incessant flip-flopping is maddening to me. It’s anathema to my politics,” he says.
The same instinct, honesty over expediency, is why he has little time for Johnson’s neutrality. In an election, he says, “you support who you think is best,” and you’re upfront about it. Staying out of the mayor’s race, in his view, doesn’t put anyone above it.
But whoever wins, he says he’ll work with them. “However the chips fall, you work as best as you can to deliver for your community.”
Out on the street, Erskine-Smith rarely needs an introduction. At one door, he starts his pitch and the resident cuts him off: “Of course I know who you are.”
The four kids who stop him on the sidewalk are less sure.
“What are you running for?”
City councillor, he explains.
“Oh,” one says. “I thought it was a race and you were actually running.”
Then, by way of credentials: “I placed second in my school’s track and field.”
Before long, they want in. “If you knock on doors with me, we’re more likely to win!” he tells them. They follow him to the neighbour’s house, then the next, and the next.
At one door, one of the kids beats him to the introduction: “He’s running for president!”
The resident laughs and turns to Erskine-Smith, who she recognizes, with a correction. “You’ll be prime minister one day.”
Further along, he stops to chat with another supportive resident. An 11-year-old, jumping up and down, chimes in.
“I’m Team Nate, too!” she says.
Then, after a pause: “I don’t know what this is about, though.”
A message from Uber:
— T-8 days until the House is back.
Signs of life: The sessional bells — it’s been a while, hasn’t it? — will ring out starting at 8:30 a.m. for routine testing and maintenance.
Happening this week:
Mea culpa! Last week, we reported that Nate Erskine-Smith’s defamation dispute with Quito Maggi was heading back to court on Friday. A correction: The hearing is actually scheduled for Wednesday. Maggi is seeking to overturn a ruling in Erskine-Smith’s favour that awarded him $25,000 in damages.
— Fundraising watch: Tomorrow at 6 p.m., Seniors and Accessibility Minister Raymond Cho will host a $100-a-ticket fundraiser in Toronto.
Associate Attorney General Michael Tibollo is hosting a $350-a-ticket “fall social” in Vaughan on Wednesday at 7 p.m.
Save the date: The NDP is turning 65, and Marit Stiles is throwing a party. She’ll host a $500-a-ticket “leader’s levee” at Arcadian Court on November 14, complete with live entertainment, passed canapés and two drinks.
— 🍴 On the lunch menu: Monday: Jerk chicken with rice and coleslaw. Tuesday: Ginger beef with rice and vegetables. Wednesday: Pork schnitzel with spaetzle and vegetable. Thursday: Fish and chips. Friday: Peri Peri chicken with potatoes and vegetables.
— First: Navdeep Bains won’t put his name on the New Leaf Liberals’ pledge for party renewal.
The context: The group’s pledge, which it had asked leadership candidates to sign, called for earlier and more open nominations, more power for local riding associations, greater transparency around party spending and decision-making, plus an overhaul of fundraising and organizing, among other changes. Three candidates have signed on: Stephanie Bowman, Lee Fairclough and Dylan Marando.
The response: “Party renewal isn’t something done to members — it has to be built with them,” Jamie Kippen, Bains’ campaign director, wrote in an email, a copy of which we’ve obtained.
Kippen said the campaign supports the pledge’s principles and commends the work behind it, but has decided against signing any pledges. “As a campaign, we have taken the position to not sign any pledge — while we are supportive of members, commissions and organizations that are all passionate about the future of our party,” he wrote.
The reaction: “We strongly believe the New Leaf Pledge for Renewal should be the basis for rebuilding this party,” the group said in a statement, thanking Bowman, Fairclough and Marando for signing on and “showing their commitment to leading from the front on this issue.”
But one New Leaf didn’t pull any punches. “Nav has been utterly disappointing in a contest completely lacking a standout. It was his to lose the minute Nate [Erskine-Smith] was turfed, and boy has he done everything possible to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory here.”
Then came a follow-up text: “Shit, that response is longer than any of Nav’s policy planks.”
— Pedalling past the facts: “As Premier Doug Ford readied his war on bike lanes, provincial bureaucrats raised facts refuting his core arguments and had to call in extra staff to deal with a blizzard of public feedback, according to internal records obtained by the Star.”
— A dimmer deal: “The Ontario Electricity Rebate will be cut by a third… going from covering 23.5 per cent of electricity bill costs currently, to 15.7 per cent starting Nov. 1.” The Trillium has more.
Meanwhile: “Ontario will import power from the United States this winter, the province’s independent electricity operator has announced, just a few months after Premier Doug Ford threatened to cut exports to the U.S. amid the ongoing trade war.”
— Gambling on silence: “The government agency responsible for online gambling in Ontario secretly shelved a research study intended to track rates of problem gambling in the province… However, records obtained by the Star through freedom of information legislation reveal that iGaming executives were concerned when researchers reported problem gambling rates significantly higher than expected, and quietly decided the research would be kept confidential.”
A message from Uber:
Through Hope Air, with support from Uber, Canadians in need are able to get to their important appointments. Learn more about Uber and Hope Air’s work at uber.com/hopeair.
— Over in Brampton: A decision to let residents vote at multiple polling stations within their ward has some candidates worried about election integrity. The Pointer has more.
— Power to the province? One of Thunder Bay’s would-be mayors is calling on the Ford government to strip the city of strong mayor powers.
— John Michael McGrath says shareholders in Stelco’s parent company have good reason to keep their antennas up.
— On crime, Martin Regg Cohn argues that Olivia Chow and Brad Bradford “are talking past each other — and us, by talking over our heads.”
— Out-of-date property values are distorting municipal taxation — and Premier Ford isn’t doing anything about it, writes Randall Denley. “Due to Ford’s inaction, Ontarians pay property taxes not on the value of their house or condo today, but on what it was worth back in 2016. It’s as if time stopped a decade ago.”
— Ontario’s labour market looks a lot less healthy once you stop averaging it, argues Graeme Gordon.
— Noted: Flags on government buildings are at half-mast in the wake of Saturday’s incident at CFB Wainwright in Alberta. Premier Doug Ford wrote: “As Canadians, let’s come together to support our brave men and women in uniform, who put their lives on the line to protect our freedoms and our country. Ontario stands ready to help the recovery efforts however we can.”
“Canadians stand with you,” the NDP leader said.
— Noted: Former premier Kathleen Wynne endorsed Olivia Chow on Sunday.
— Hired: Amanda Brodhagen is the new chief to Associate Minister of Energy-Intensive Industries Matthew Rae.
— In memoriam: Former NDP MPP Irene Mathyssen has died at 75.
From her obituary: “Those who knew Irene will also remember her extraordinary kindness and warmth. She was always ready with a hug, a smile and a genuine interest in the people around her. It was that generosity of spirit, as much as her many accomplishments, that made Irene so deeply loved by New Democrats and by the communities she served.” More.
Thank you for reading POLICORNER. How are you gearing up for the fall session? I want to hear from you, and I’ll keep you anonymous. That’s all for now, but not for the week. More reporting to come.
Got 5+ on your team? Team subscriptions are available. Got a client with a message to reach the province’s most powerful players? Ask for our ad rates. Reach out.
Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up now.
Dispatch from the Beaches — I’m about to say goodbye to Natalie Johnson.
We’re standing at an intersection at around 4:30 p.m. It’s the best place to greet people heading home, she says.
Right on cue, an email from Nate Erskine-Smith to his supporters arrives in my inbox. The subject line: “Talk vs. action.”
We read it together on the sidewalk.
“It’s easy to say ‘rebuild the ramp’ on the campaign trail,” Erskine-Smith writes. “Of course, rebuilding the ramp at Logan (Avenue) is a fairy tale of untold waste. Better to have an actual plan.”
“He’s trying to insinuate that I want something that I’m not calling for,” says Johnson, calmly, if a little exasperated. To some, she’s become known as the “ramp lady.” (Ask her, and she’ll probably show you a sign she’s put up: “Bring Back the Gardiner Ramp.”)
Then, Erskine-Smith, campaigning as the de facto incumbent, has some news: The city will accelerate construction of the Cherry Street ramp, with work set to begin in the new year. (In a video posted later that night, Johnson accused Erskine-Smith of “taking credit” for the plan.)
For background: The Logan ramps, which gave east-end motorists direct access to and from the Gardiner Expressway, came down in 2021 as part of a long-planned reconstruction of the highway.
The city’s answer was to build replacement ramps east of Cherry Street. Five years later, not a shovel has hit the ground. The reason: The new ramps would depend on a much larger reconstruction of the Gardiner between Cherry Street and the Don Valley Parkway, including a realignment of the elevated highway that has yet to begin.
For months, both Johnson and Erskine-Smith have sparred over the east-end highway ramps, even as the Ford government could soon have the last word on when — and if — they get built. Yet for all their disagreements, both are essentially calling for the same thing. And that, in many ways, is the story of Beaches-East York — a contest between two candidates who know their way around politics, albeit from opposite sides of it, each convinced they’re the one who can deliver.
Johnson has covered Toronto City Hall for 16 years. (She says her bosses would occasionally ask whether she’d consider covering something else, including provincial politics. Her answer was always no.)
“I’ve always just been so passionate about City Hall because I love the impact it can have on people,” she says from across the table on a Starbucks patio, before we head out to knock doors.
She’d also been asked by “various parties” over the years whether she’d consider running. “I always said, ‘No, I love my job as a journalist,’” she explains. This time, the opportunity brought together two things close to home: the politics she’d spent years covering and the community where she’s raising her family. She took a leave of absence from CTV to consider a run. By May 11, she’d made up her mind.
The move from reporter to candidate hasn’t felt like much of a leap, Johnson says. In some ways, she’d been doing a version of the job for years. Neighbours would stop her with city problems, a construction mess or a policy that made no sense, and even when it wasn’t a story, she’d connect them with someone who could help. Now she’s simply “moving to the solution side of the same issues I’ve always been passionate about.”
“Instead of knocking on someone’s door with a microphone saying, ‘Tell me about the parking problem on your street,’ it’s like, ‘How do we fix the parking problem on your street?’”
The harder adjustment has been picking a side. Reporters hear everyone out, and Johnson admits she has “a natural empathy for hearing from all stakeholders.” At some point, she says, a candidate has to decide what she’s actually for.
Behind the scenes: Before making her pitch to voters, Johnson sounded out a few people. Among them was Erskine-Smith, who was then chasing the Liberal nomination in Scarborough Southwest. Once the nomination contest was decided, the two met at East Lynn Park, where he shared some advice.
Weeks later, Johnson’s phone rang. It was Erskine-Smith, calling about an hour before news broke that they’d soon be opponents.
She doesn’t hide what she makes of it. “I don’t think that City Hall should be a consolation prize for a higher order of government,” Johnson says. “It is too difficult a job to come into that role as a backup plan and expect to do a good job if your heart isn’t in it 1,000 per cent.”
It’s the closest thing she has to a thesis on her opponent, and Johnson says it comes back to her at the door. Residents who bring up Erskine-Smith’s name tend to start with a qualifier: “I voted for him federally, but I don’t like that he’s trying to come back.”
But Johnson is careful not to make it personal. “You can like Nate and you can like me,” she says. “One of us has a career’s worth of experience at City Hall and understanding municipal issues, and the other has his expertise in federal government.”
We head out to knock doors, and it’s quickly clear the ward has noticed her. Five months in, she’s no stranger on these streets. Her lawn signs are everywhere, and the people behind them seem to mean it. One woman, climbing out of her car, spots Johnson and skips the pleasantries. “We already voted for you,” she says. “I’m hoping for some fresh perspective in this ward.”
A few houses down, another resident calls after her: “Good luck. We hope you win!”
Johnson has been at this since May, often spending eight to 12 hours a day. The doorstep, she says, has been a relief from the toxicity online. “People are almost entirely polite, pleasant, and positive.”
But the support isn’t only coming from the curb. Johnson has drawn star power from across the political spectrum, including from former premier Kathleen Wynne and former federal Conservative leader Erin O’Toole. She says that’s how municipal politics should work. “It doesn’t have to be partisan at the city level.”
Johnson’s independence has skeptics. Some have tried to paint her as the political heir of Brad Bradford, who has represented the ward since 2018 and is now running for mayor. She says some crossover is inevitable in his home ward, where her volunteers include supporters of both Bradford and Olivia Chow.
But Johnson won’t seek his endorsement, or anyone else’s in the mayor’s race. “I’d rather be an independent candidate,” she says.
In her years covering council, Johnson says, ideology was the biggest thing slowing it down. So she plans to work with whoever wins, on council and in the mayor’s office. The same goes for the local MP, Tanveer Shahnawaz, a former Erskine-Smith aide who has endorsed him. Johnson would have preferred he stay out of the race. “Can I look past that in order to keep my eyes on the prize, which is to do good things in this ward? Yes.”
Erskine-Smith carries himself like a man seeking re-election, backed by a decade as the riding’s MP, a stint in cabinet and the mayor’s blessing. But not long ago, he had his sights set on the job Bonnie Crombie beat him to in 2023.
Erskine-Smith had planned to leave federal politics before the last election, but was pulled back in when the Liberals were in dire straits, and stayed on as Justin Trudeau gave way to Mark Carney. When Carney dropped him from cabinet — a decision Erskine-Smith said at the time made it “impossible not to feel disrespected” — he turned his attention back to provincial politics. The plan: Win the Liberal nomination in Scarborough Southwest and, he hoped, the party’s leadership.
It went, in his words, “sideways.” Asked whether he’d do it again, he doesn’t hedge. “If I’d known how it was going to happen, I would not have done that.”
But Erskine-Smith likens politics to pushing a boulder up a hill: sometimes it gets there, sometimes it doesn’t. This time it rolled back. He bristles at the suggestion from some around him that the experience scarred him, calling that “maybe a bit dramatic,” but acknowledges it made him grow cynical. The party, he says, needs to do things differently.
Then he waves it off.
“It’s behind me.”
For a while, it seemed politics was too. At his farewell party in East York, supporters were already urging him to run again — for something, anything, it seemed. Some were pushing him to run provincially — even raising money for a possible leadership bid — while others wanted him to challenge Johnson. Erskine-Smith spent the summer coaching baseball as he considered his next move, including a return to law or a job in the non-profit sector. Even those closest to him didn’t expect him to run.
Then Chow called. “Olivia Chow is a very persuasive person,” he says. The two met at a hotel in May, where, he says, she encouraged him to run.
So he did. “My life would have been easier if I returned to law,” Erskine-Smith says. “But you live once, and you step up and serve.”
The candidate who emerged is almost aggressively local. His pitch? Responsiveness. The most common complaint he hears at the doors, he says, is that Bradford, the outgoing councillor, has been “missing in action.” Erskine-Smith hands out his cellphone number and says he’s already compiled a to-do list of roughly 150 items, ranging from flood mitigation to better snacks at East York Memorial Arena — the latter a request from the wife of a law school classmate.
Erskine-Smith knows some see council as a stopover — a place to wait out a second Chow term before running for mayor himself, or a route back to a bigger stage. He turns it on Bradford. “We have had a councillor who has been running for mayor for the last three to four years, if not before then, and I think the community has suffered for it,” he says.
Ask him about Bradford personally and he insists there’s no feud; the two used to co-host New Year’s Levees. What bothers him is the trajectory. Bradford came to council as an advocate for housing and active transportation, Erskine-Smith argues, but is “now running a campaign as some archconservative.” “ The incessant flip-flopping is maddening to me. It’s anathema to my politics,” he says.
The same instinct, honesty over expediency, is why he has little time for Johnson’s neutrality. In an election, he says, “you support who you think is best,” and you’re upfront about it. Staying out of the mayor’s race, in his view, doesn’t put anyone above it.
But whoever wins, he says he’ll work with them. “However the chips fall, you work as best as you can to deliver for your community.”
Out on the street, Erskine-Smith rarely needs an introduction. At one door, he starts his pitch and the resident cuts him off: “Of course I know who you are.”
The four kids who stop him on the sidewalk are less sure.
“What are you running for?”
City councillor, he explains.
“Oh,” one says. “I thought it was a race and you were actually running.”
Then, by way of credentials: “I placed second in my school’s track and field.”
Before long, they want in. “If you knock on doors with me, we’re more likely to win!” he tells them. They follow him to the neighbour’s house, then the next, and the next.
At one door, one of the kids beats him to the introduction: “He’s running for president!”
The resident laughs and turns to Erskine-Smith, who she recognizes, with a correction. “You’ll be prime minister one day.”
Further along, he stops to chat with another supportive resident. An 11-year-old, jumping up and down, chimes in.
“I’m Team Nate, too!” she says.
Then, after a pause: “I don’t know what this is about, though.”
A message from Uber:
— T-8 days until the House is back.
Signs of life: The sessional bells — it’s been a while, hasn’t it? — will ring out starting at 8:30 a.m. for routine testing and maintenance.
Happening this week:
Mea culpa! Last week, we reported that Nate Erskine-Smith’s defamation dispute with Quito Maggi was heading back to court on Friday. A correction: The hearing is actually scheduled for Wednesday. Maggi is seeking to overturn a ruling in Erskine-Smith’s favour that awarded him $25,000 in damages.
— Fundraising watch: Tomorrow at 6 p.m., Seniors and Accessibility Minister Raymond Cho will host a $100-a-ticket fundraiser in Toronto.
Associate Attorney General Michael Tibollo is hosting a $350-a-ticket “fall social” in Vaughan on Wednesday at 7 p.m.
Save the date: The NDP is turning 65, and Marit Stiles is throwing a party. She’ll host a $500-a-ticket “leader’s levee” at Arcadian Court on November 14, complete with live entertainment, passed canapés and two drinks.
— 🍴 On the lunch menu: Monday: Jerk chicken with rice and coleslaw. Tuesday: Ginger beef with rice and vegetables. Wednesday: Pork schnitzel with spaetzle and vegetable. Thursday: Fish and chips. Friday: Peri Peri chicken with potatoes and vegetables.
— First: Navdeep Bains won’t put his name on the New Leaf Liberals’ pledge for party renewal.
The context: The group’s pledge, which it had asked leadership candidates to sign, called for earlier and more open nominations, more power for local riding associations, greater transparency around party spending and decision-making, plus an overhaul of fundraising and organizing, among other changes. Three candidates have signed on: Stephanie Bowman, Lee Fairclough and Dylan Marando.
The response: “Party renewal isn’t something done to members — it has to be built with them,” Jamie Kippen, Bains’ campaign director, wrote in an email, a copy of which we’ve obtained.
Kippen said the campaign supports the pledge’s principles and commends the work behind it, but has decided against signing any pledges. “As a campaign, we have taken the position to not sign any pledge — while we are supportive of members, commissions and organizations that are all passionate about the future of our party,” he wrote.
The reaction: “We strongly believe the New Leaf Pledge for Renewal should be the basis for rebuilding this party,” the group said in a statement, thanking Bowman, Fairclough and Marando for signing on and “showing their commitment to leading from the front on this issue.”
But one New Leaf didn’t pull any punches. “Nav has been utterly disappointing in a contest completely lacking a standout. It was his to lose the minute Nate [Erskine-Smith] was turfed, and boy has he done everything possible to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory here.”
Then came a follow-up text: “Shit, that response is longer than any of Nav’s policy planks.”
— Pedalling past the facts: “As Premier Doug Ford readied his war on bike lanes, provincial bureaucrats raised facts refuting his core arguments and had to call in extra staff to deal with a blizzard of public feedback, according to internal records obtained by the Star.”
— A dimmer deal: “The Ontario Electricity Rebate will be cut by a third… going from covering 23.5 per cent of electricity bill costs currently, to 15.7 per cent starting Nov. 1.” The Trillium has more.
Meanwhile: “Ontario will import power from the United States this winter, the province’s independent electricity operator has announced, just a few months after Premier Doug Ford threatened to cut exports to the U.S. amid the ongoing trade war.”
— Gambling on silence: “The government agency responsible for online gambling in Ontario secretly shelved a research study intended to track rates of problem gambling in the province… However, records obtained by the Star through freedom of information legislation reveal that iGaming executives were concerned when researchers reported problem gambling rates significantly higher than expected, and quietly decided the research would be kept confidential.”
A message from Uber:
Through Hope Air, with support from Uber, Canadians in need are able to get to their important appointments. Learn more about Uber and Hope Air’s work at uber.com/hopeair.
— Over in Brampton: A decision to let residents vote at multiple polling stations within their ward has some candidates worried about election integrity. The Pointer has more.
— Power to the province? One of Thunder Bay’s would-be mayors is calling on the Ford government to strip the city of strong mayor powers.
— John Michael McGrath says shareholders in Stelco’s parent company have good reason to keep their antennas up.
— On crime, Martin Regg Cohn argues that Olivia Chow and Brad Bradford “are talking past each other — and us, by talking over our heads.”
— Out-of-date property values are distorting municipal taxation — and Premier Ford isn’t doing anything about it, writes Randall Denley. “Due to Ford’s inaction, Ontarians pay property taxes not on the value of their house or condo today, but on what it was worth back in 2016. It’s as if time stopped a decade ago.”
— Ontario’s labour market looks a lot less healthy once you stop averaging it, argues Graeme Gordon.
— Noted: Flags on government buildings are at half-mast in the wake of Saturday’s incident at CFB Wainwright in Alberta. Premier Doug Ford wrote: “As Canadians, let’s come together to support our brave men and women in uniform, who put their lives on the line to protect our freedoms and our country. Ontario stands ready to help the recovery efforts however we can.”
“Canadians stand with you,” the NDP leader said.
— Noted: Former premier Kathleen Wynne endorsed Olivia Chow on Sunday.
— Hired: Amanda Brodhagen is the new chief to Associate Minister of Energy-Intensive Industries Matthew Rae.
— In memoriam: Former NDP MPP Irene Mathyssen has died at 75.
From her obituary: “Those who knew Irene will also remember her extraordinary kindness and warmth. She was always ready with a hug, a smile and a genuine interest in the people around her. It was that generosity of spirit, as much as her many accomplishments, that made Irene so deeply loved by New Democrats and by the communities she served.” More.
Thank you for reading POLICORNER. How are you gearing up for the fall session? I want to hear from you, and I’ll keep you anonymous. That’s all for now, but not for the week. More reporting to come.
Got 5+ on your team? Team subscriptions are available. Got a client with a message to reach the province’s most powerful players? Ask for our ad rates. Reach out.
Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up now.
Dispatch from the Beaches — I’m about to say goodbye to Natalie Johnson.
We’re standing at an intersection at around 4:30 p.m. It’s the best place to greet people heading home, she says.
Right on cue, an email from Nate Erskine-Smith to his supporters arrives in my inbox. The subject line: “Talk vs. action.”
We read it together on the sidewalk.
“It’s easy to say ‘rebuild the ramp’ on the campaign trail,” Erskine-Smith writes. “Of course, rebuilding the ramp at Logan (Avenue) is a fairy tale of untold waste. Better to have an actual plan.”
“He’s trying to insinuate that I want something that I’m not calling for,” says Johnson, calmly, if a little exasperated. To some, she’s become known as the “ramp lady.” (Ask her, and she’ll probably show you a sign she’s put up: “Bring Back the Gardiner Ramp.”)
Then, Erskine-Smith, campaigning as the de facto incumbent, has some news: The city will accelerate construction of the Cherry Street ramp, with work set to begin in the new year. (In a video posted later that night, Johnson accused Erskine-Smith of “taking credit” for the plan.)
For background: The Logan ramps, which gave east-end motorists direct access to and from the Gardiner Expressway, came down in 2021 as part of a long-planned reconstruction of the highway.
The city’s answer was to build replacement ramps east of Cherry Street. Five years later, not a shovel has hit the ground. The reason: The new ramps would depend on a much larger reconstruction of the Gardiner between Cherry Street and the Don Valley Parkway, including a realignment of the elevated highway that has yet to begin.
For months, both Johnson and Erskine-Smith have sparred over the east-end highway ramps, even as the Ford government could soon have the last word on when — and if — they get built. Yet for all their disagreements, both are essentially calling for the same thing. And that, in many ways, is the story of Beaches-East York — a contest between two candidates who know their way around politics, albeit from opposite sides of it, each convinced they’re the one who can deliver.
Johnson has covered Toronto City Hall for 16 years. (She says her bosses would occasionally ask whether she’d consider covering something else, including provincial politics. Her answer was always no.)
“I’ve always just been so passionate about City Hall because I love the impact it can have on people,” she says from across the table on a Starbucks patio, before we head out to knock doors.
She’d also been asked by “various parties” over the years whether she’d consider running. “I always said, ‘No, I love my job as a journalist,’” she explains. This time, the opportunity brought together two things close to home: the politics she’d spent years covering and the community where she’s raising her family. She took a leave of absence from CTV to consider a run. By May 11, she’d made up her mind.
The move from reporter to candidate hasn’t felt like much of a leap, Johnson says. In some ways, she’d been doing a version of the job for years. Neighbours would stop her with city problems, a construction mess or a policy that made no sense, and even when it wasn’t a story, she’d connect them with someone who could help. Now she’s simply “moving to the solution side of the same issues I’ve always been passionate about.”
“Instead of knocking on someone’s door with a microphone saying, ‘Tell me about the parking problem on your street,’ it’s like, ‘How do we fix the parking problem on your street?’”
The harder adjustment has been picking a side. Reporters hear everyone out, and Johnson admits she has “a natural empathy for hearing from all stakeholders.” At some point, she says, a candidate has to decide what she’s actually for.
Behind the scenes: Before making her pitch to voters, Johnson sounded out a few people. Among them was Erskine-Smith, who was then chasing the Liberal nomination in Scarborough Southwest. Once the nomination contest was decided, the two met at East Lynn Park, where he shared some advice.
Weeks later, Johnson’s phone rang. It was Erskine-Smith, calling about an hour before news broke that they’d soon be opponents.
She doesn’t hide what she makes of it. “I don’t think that City Hall should be a consolation prize for a higher order of government,” Johnson says. “It is too difficult a job to come into that role as a backup plan and expect to do a good job if your heart isn’t in it 1,000 per cent.”
It’s the closest thing she has to a thesis on her opponent, and Johnson says it comes back to her at the door. Residents who bring up Erskine-Smith’s name tend to start with a qualifier: “I voted for him federally, but I don’t like that he’s trying to come back.”
But Johnson is careful not to make it personal. “You can like Nate and you can like me,” she says. “One of us has a career’s worth of experience at City Hall and understanding municipal issues, and the other has his expertise in federal government.”
We head out to knock doors, and it’s quickly clear the ward has noticed her. Five months in, she’s no stranger on these streets. Her lawn signs are everywhere, and the people behind them seem to mean it. One woman, climbing out of her car, spots Johnson and skips the pleasantries. “We already voted for you,” she says. “I’m hoping for some fresh perspective in this ward.”
A few houses down, another resident calls after her: “Good luck. We hope you win!”
Johnson has been at this since May, often spending eight to 12 hours a day. The doorstep, she says, has been a relief from the toxicity online. “People are almost entirely polite, pleasant, and positive.”
But the support isn’t only coming from the curb. Johnson has drawn star power from across the political spectrum, including from former premier Kathleen Wynne and former federal Conservative leader Erin O’Toole. She says that’s how municipal politics should work. “It doesn’t have to be partisan at the city level.”
Johnson’s independence has skeptics. Some have tried to paint her as the political heir of Brad Bradford, who has represented the ward since 2018 and is now running for mayor. She says some crossover is inevitable in his home ward, where her volunteers include supporters of both Bradford and Olivia Chow.
But Johnson won’t seek his endorsement, or anyone else’s in the mayor’s race. “I’d rather be an independent candidate,” she says.
In her years covering council, Johnson says, ideology was the biggest thing slowing it down. So she plans to work with whoever wins, on council and in the mayor’s office. The same goes for the local MP, Tanveer Shahnawaz, a former Erskine-Smith aide who has endorsed him. Johnson would have preferred he stay out of the race. “Can I look past that in order to keep my eyes on the prize, which is to do good things in this ward? Yes.”
Erskine-Smith carries himself like a man seeking re-election, backed by a decade as the riding’s MP, a stint in cabinet and the mayor’s blessing. But not long ago, he had his sights set on the job Bonnie Crombie beat him to in 2023.
Erskine-Smith had planned to leave federal politics before the last election, but was pulled back in when the Liberals were in dire straits, and stayed on as Justin Trudeau gave way to Mark Carney. When Carney dropped him from cabinet — a decision Erskine-Smith said at the time made it “impossible not to feel disrespected” — he turned his attention back to provincial politics. The plan: Win the Liberal nomination in Scarborough Southwest and, he hoped, the party’s leadership.
It went, in his words, “sideways.” Asked whether he’d do it again, he doesn’t hedge. “If I’d known how it was going to happen, I would not have done that.”
But Erskine-Smith likens politics to pushing a boulder up a hill: sometimes it gets there, sometimes it doesn’t. This time it rolled back. He bristles at the suggestion from some around him that the experience scarred him, calling that “maybe a bit dramatic,” but acknowledges it made him grow cynical. The party, he says, needs to do things differently.
Then he waves it off.
“It’s behind me.”
For a while, it seemed politics was too. At his farewell party in East York, supporters were already urging him to run again — for something, anything, it seemed. Some were pushing him to run provincially — even raising money for a possible leadership bid — while others wanted him to challenge Johnson. Erskine-Smith spent the summer coaching baseball as he considered his next move, including a return to law or a job in the non-profit sector. Even those closest to him didn’t expect him to run.
Then Chow called. “Olivia Chow is a very persuasive person,” he says. The two met at a hotel in May, where, he says, she encouraged him to run.
So he did. “My life would have been easier if I returned to law,” Erskine-Smith says. “But you live once, and you step up and serve.”
The candidate who emerged is almost aggressively local. His pitch? Responsiveness. The most common complaint he hears at the doors, he says, is that Bradford, the outgoing councillor, has been “missing in action.” Erskine-Smith hands out his cellphone number and says he’s already compiled a to-do list of roughly 150 items, ranging from flood mitigation to better snacks at East York Memorial Arena — the latter a request from the wife of a law school classmate.
Erskine-Smith knows some see council as a stopover — a place to wait out a second Chow term before running for mayor himself, or a route back to a bigger stage. He turns it on Bradford. “We have had a councillor who has been running for mayor for the last three to four years, if not before then, and I think the community has suffered for it,” he says.
Ask him about Bradford personally and he insists there’s no feud; the two used to co-host New Year’s Levees. What bothers him is the trajectory. Bradford came to council as an advocate for housing and active transportation, Erskine-Smith argues, but is “now running a campaign as some archconservative.” “ The incessant flip-flopping is maddening to me. It’s anathema to my politics,” he says.
The same instinct, honesty over expediency, is why he has little time for Johnson’s neutrality. In an election, he says, “you support who you think is best,” and you’re upfront about it. Staying out of the mayor’s race, in his view, doesn’t put anyone above it.
But whoever wins, he says he’ll work with them. “However the chips fall, you work as best as you can to deliver for your community.”
Out on the street, Erskine-Smith rarely needs an introduction. At one door, he starts his pitch and the resident cuts him off: “Of course I know who you are.”
The four kids who stop him on the sidewalk are less sure.
“What are you running for?”
City councillor, he explains.
“Oh,” one says. “I thought it was a race and you were actually running.”
Then, by way of credentials: “I placed second in my school’s track and field.”
Before long, they want in. “If you knock on doors with me, we’re more likely to win!” he tells them. They follow him to the neighbour’s house, then the next, and the next.
At one door, one of the kids beats him to the introduction: “He’s running for president!”
The resident laughs and turns to Erskine-Smith, who she recognizes, with a correction. “You’ll be prime minister one day.”
Further along, he stops to chat with another supportive resident. An 11-year-old, jumping up and down, chimes in.
“I’m Team Nate, too!” she says.
Then, after a pause: “I don’t know what this is about, though.”
A message from Uber:
— T-8 days until the House is back.
Signs of life: The sessional bells — it’s been a while, hasn’t it? — will ring out starting at 8:30 a.m. for routine testing and maintenance.
Happening this week:
Mea culpa! Last week, we reported that Nate Erskine-Smith’s defamation dispute with Quito Maggi was heading back to court on Friday. A correction: The hearing is actually scheduled for Wednesday. Maggi is seeking to overturn a ruling in Erskine-Smith’s favour that awarded him $25,000 in damages.
— Fundraising watch: Tomorrow at 6 p.m., Seniors and Accessibility Minister Raymond Cho will host a $100-a-ticket fundraiser in Toronto.
Associate Attorney General Michael Tibollo is hosting a $350-a-ticket “fall social” in Vaughan on Wednesday at 7 p.m.
Save the date: The NDP is turning 65, and Marit Stiles is throwing a party. She’ll host a $500-a-ticket “leader’s levee” at Arcadian Court on November 14, complete with live entertainment, passed canapés and two drinks.
— 🍴 On the lunch menu: Monday: Jerk chicken with rice and coleslaw. Tuesday: Ginger beef with rice and vegetables. Wednesday: Pork schnitzel with spaetzle and vegetable. Thursday: Fish and chips. Friday: Peri Peri chicken with potatoes and vegetables.
— First: Navdeep Bains won’t put his name on the New Leaf Liberals’ pledge for party renewal.
The context: The group’s pledge, which it had asked leadership candidates to sign, called for earlier and more open nominations, more power for local riding associations, greater transparency around party spending and decision-making, plus an overhaul of fundraising and organizing, among other changes. Three candidates have signed on: Stephanie Bowman, Lee Fairclough and Dylan Marando.
The response: “Party renewal isn’t something done to members — it has to be built with them,” Jamie Kippen, Bains’ campaign director, wrote in an email, a copy of which we’ve obtained.
Kippen said the campaign supports the pledge’s principles and commends the work behind it, but has decided against signing any pledges. “As a campaign, we have taken the position to not sign any pledge — while we are supportive of members, commissions and organizations that are all passionate about the future of our party,” he wrote.
The reaction: “We strongly believe the New Leaf Pledge for Renewal should be the basis for rebuilding this party,” the group said in a statement, thanking Bowman, Fairclough and Marando for signing on and “showing their commitment to leading from the front on this issue.”
But one New Leaf didn’t pull any punches. “Nav has been utterly disappointing in a contest completely lacking a standout. It was his to lose the minute Nate [Erskine-Smith] was turfed, and boy has he done everything possible to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory here.”
Then came a follow-up text: “Shit, that response is longer than any of Nav’s policy planks.”
— Pedalling past the facts: “As Premier Doug Ford readied his war on bike lanes, provincial bureaucrats raised facts refuting his core arguments and had to call in extra staff to deal with a blizzard of public feedback, according to internal records obtained by the Star.”
— A dimmer deal: “The Ontario Electricity Rebate will be cut by a third… going from covering 23.5 per cent of electricity bill costs currently, to 15.7 per cent starting Nov. 1.” The Trillium has more.
Meanwhile: “Ontario will import power from the United States this winter, the province’s independent electricity operator has announced, just a few months after Premier Doug Ford threatened to cut exports to the U.S. amid the ongoing trade war.”
— Gambling on silence: “The government agency responsible for online gambling in Ontario secretly shelved a research study intended to track rates of problem gambling in the province… However, records obtained by the Star through freedom of information legislation reveal that iGaming executives were concerned when researchers reported problem gambling rates significantly higher than expected, and quietly decided the research would be kept confidential.”
A message from Uber:
Through Hope Air, with support from Uber, Canadians in need are able to get to their important appointments. Learn more about Uber and Hope Air’s work at uber.com/hopeair.
— Over in Brampton: A decision to let residents vote at multiple polling stations within their ward has some candidates worried about election integrity. The Pointer has more.
— Power to the province? One of Thunder Bay’s would-be mayors is calling on the Ford government to strip the city of strong mayor powers.
— John Michael McGrath says shareholders in Stelco’s parent company have good reason to keep their antennas up.
— On crime, Martin Regg Cohn argues that Olivia Chow and Brad Bradford “are talking past each other — and us, by talking over our heads.”
— Out-of-date property values are distorting municipal taxation — and Premier Ford isn’t doing anything about it, writes Randall Denley. “Due to Ford’s inaction, Ontarians pay property taxes not on the value of their house or condo today, but on what it was worth back in 2016. It’s as if time stopped a decade ago.”
— Ontario’s labour market looks a lot less healthy once you stop averaging it, argues Graeme Gordon.
— Noted: Flags on government buildings are at half-mast in the wake of Saturday’s incident at CFB Wainwright in Alberta. Premier Doug Ford wrote: “As Canadians, let’s come together to support our brave men and women in uniform, who put their lives on the line to protect our freedoms and our country. Ontario stands ready to help the recovery efforts however we can.”
“Canadians stand with you,” the NDP leader said.
— Noted: Former premier Kathleen Wynne endorsed Olivia Chow on Sunday.
— Hired: Amanda Brodhagen is the new chief to Associate Minister of Energy-Intensive Industries Matthew Rae.
— In memoriam: Former NDP MPP Irene Mathyssen has died at 75.
From her obituary: “Those who knew Irene will also remember her extraordinary kindness and warmth. She was always ready with a hug, a smile and a genuine interest in the people around her. It was that generosity of spirit, as much as her many accomplishments, that made Irene so deeply loved by New Democrats and by the communities she served.” More.
Thank you for reading POLICORNER. How are you gearing up for the fall session? I want to hear from you, and I’ll keep you anonymous. That’s all for now, but not for the week. More reporting to come.
Got 5+ on your team? Team subscriptions are available. Got a client with a message to reach the province’s most powerful players? Ask for our ad rates. Reach out.
Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up now.
Dispatch from the Beaches — I’m about to say goodbye to Natalie Johnson.
We’re standing at an intersection at around 4:30 p.m. It’s the best place to greet people heading home, she says.
Right on cue, an email from Nate Erskine-Smith to his supporters arrives in my inbox. The subject line: “Talk vs. action.”
We read it together on the sidewalk.
“It’s easy to say ‘rebuild the ramp’ on the campaign trail,” Erskine-Smith writes. “Of course, rebuilding the ramp at Logan (Avenue) is a fairy tale of untold waste. Better to have an actual plan.”
“He’s trying to insinuate that I want something that I’m not calling for,” says Johnson, calmly, if a little exasperated. To some, she’s become known as the “ramp lady.” (Ask her, and she’ll probably show you a sign she’s put up: “Bring Back the Gardiner Ramp.”)
Then, Erskine-Smith, campaigning as the de facto incumbent, has some news: The city will accelerate construction of the Cherry Street ramp, with work set to begin in the new year. (In a video posted later that night, Johnson accused Erskine-Smith of “taking credit” for the plan.)
For background: The Logan ramps, which gave east-end motorists direct access to and from the Gardiner Expressway, came down in 2021 as part of a long-planned reconstruction of the highway.
The city’s answer was to build replacement ramps east of Cherry Street. Five years later, not a shovel has hit the ground. The reason: The new ramps would depend on a much larger reconstruction of the Gardiner between Cherry Street and the Don Valley Parkway, including a realignment of the elevated highway that has yet to begin.
For months, both Johnson and Erskine-Smith have sparred over the east-end highway ramps, even as the Ford government could soon have the last word on when — and if — they get built. Yet for all their disagreements, both are essentially calling for the same thing. And that, in many ways, is the story of Beaches-East York — a contest between two candidates who know their way around politics, albeit from opposite sides of it, each convinced they’re the one who can deliver.
Johnson has covered Toronto City Hall for 16 years. (She says her bosses would occasionally ask whether she’d consider covering something else, including provincial politics. Her answer was always no.)
“I’ve always just been so passionate about City Hall because I love the impact it can have on people,” she says from across the table on a Starbucks patio, before we head out to knock doors.
She’d also been asked by “various parties” over the years whether she’d consider running. “I always said, ‘No, I love my job as a journalist,’” she explains. This time, the opportunity brought together two things close to home: the politics she’d spent years covering and the community where she’s raising her family. She took a leave of absence from CTV to consider a run. By May 11, she’d made up her mind.
The move from reporter to candidate hasn’t felt like much of a leap, Johnson says. In some ways, she’d been doing a version of the job for years. Neighbours would stop her with city problems, a construction mess or a policy that made no sense, and even when it wasn’t a story, she’d connect them with someone who could help. Now she’s simply “moving to the solution side of the same issues I’ve always been passionate about.”
“Instead of knocking on someone’s door with a microphone saying, ‘Tell me about the parking problem on your street,’ it’s like, ‘How do we fix the parking problem on your street?’”
The harder adjustment has been picking a side. Reporters hear everyone out, and Johnson admits she has “a natural empathy for hearing from all stakeholders.” At some point, she says, a candidate has to decide what she’s actually for.
Behind the scenes: Before making her pitch to voters, Johnson sounded out a few people. Among them was Erskine-Smith, who was then chasing the Liberal nomination in Scarborough Southwest. Once the nomination contest was decided, the two met at East Lynn Park, where he shared some advice.
Weeks later, Johnson’s phone rang. It was Erskine-Smith, calling about an hour before news broke that they’d soon be opponents.
She doesn’t hide what she makes of it. “I don’t think that City Hall should be a consolation prize for a higher order of government,” Johnson says. “It is too difficult a job to come into that role as a backup plan and expect to do a good job if your heart isn’t in it 1,000 per cent.”
It’s the closest thing she has to a thesis on her opponent, and Johnson says it comes back to her at the door. Residents who bring up Erskine-Smith’s name tend to start with a qualifier: “I voted for him federally, but I don’t like that he’s trying to come back.”
But Johnson is careful not to make it personal. “You can like Nate and you can like me,” she says. “One of us has a career’s worth of experience at City Hall and understanding municipal issues, and the other has his expertise in federal government.”
We head out to knock doors, and it’s quickly clear the ward has noticed her. Five months in, she’s no stranger on these streets. Her lawn signs are everywhere, and the people behind them seem to mean it. One woman, climbing out of her car, spots Johnson and skips the pleasantries. “We already voted for you,” she says. “I’m hoping for some fresh perspective in this ward.”
A few houses down, another resident calls after her: “Good luck. We hope you win!”
Johnson has been at this since May, often spending eight to 12 hours a day. The doorstep, she says, has been a relief from the toxicity online. “People are almost entirely polite, pleasant, and positive.”
But the support isn’t only coming from the curb. Johnson has drawn star power from across the political spectrum, including from former premier Kathleen Wynne and former federal Conservative leader Erin O’Toole. She says that’s how municipal politics should work. “It doesn’t have to be partisan at the city level.”
Johnson’s independence has skeptics. Some have tried to paint her as the political heir of Brad Bradford, who has represented the ward since 2018 and is now running for mayor. She says some crossover is inevitable in his home ward, where her volunteers include supporters of both Bradford and Olivia Chow.
But Johnson won’t seek his endorsement, or anyone else’s in the mayor’s race. “I’d rather be an independent candidate,” she says.
In her years covering council, Johnson says, ideology was the biggest thing slowing it down. So she plans to work with whoever wins, on council and in the mayor’s office. The same goes for the local MP, Tanveer Shahnawaz, a former Erskine-Smith aide who has endorsed him. Johnson would have preferred he stay out of the race. “Can I look past that in order to keep my eyes on the prize, which is to do good things in this ward? Yes.”
Erskine-Smith carries himself like a man seeking re-election, backed by a decade as the riding’s MP, a stint in cabinet and the mayor’s blessing. But not long ago, he had his sights set on the job Bonnie Crombie beat him to in 2023.
Erskine-Smith had planned to leave federal politics before the last election, but was pulled back in when the Liberals were in dire straits, and stayed on as Justin Trudeau gave way to Mark Carney. When Carney dropped him from cabinet — a decision Erskine-Smith said at the time made it “impossible not to feel disrespected” — he turned his attention back to provincial politics. The plan: Win the Liberal nomination in Scarborough Southwest and, he hoped, the party’s leadership.
It went, in his words, “sideways.” Asked whether he’d do it again, he doesn’t hedge. “If I’d known how it was going to happen, I would not have done that.”
But Erskine-Smith likens politics to pushing a boulder up a hill: sometimes it gets there, sometimes it doesn’t. This time it rolled back. He bristles at the suggestion from some around him that the experience scarred him, calling that “maybe a bit dramatic,” but acknowledges it made him grow cynical. The party, he says, needs to do things differently.
Then he waves it off.
“It’s behind me.”
For a while, it seemed politics was too. At his farewell party in East York, supporters were already urging him to run again — for something, anything, it seemed. Some were pushing him to run provincially — even raising money for a possible leadership bid — while others wanted him to challenge Johnson. Erskine-Smith spent the summer coaching baseball as he considered his next move, including a return to law or a job in the non-profit sector. Even those closest to him didn’t expect him to run.
Then Chow called. “Olivia Chow is a very persuasive person,” he says. The two met at a hotel in May, where, he says, she encouraged him to run.
So he did. “My life would have been easier if I returned to law,” Erskine-Smith says. “But you live once, and you step up and serve.”
The candidate who emerged is almost aggressively local. His pitch? Responsiveness. The most common complaint he hears at the doors, he says, is that Bradford, the outgoing councillor, has been “missing in action.” Erskine-Smith hands out his cellphone number and says he’s already compiled a to-do list of roughly 150 items, ranging from flood mitigation to better snacks at East York Memorial Arena — the latter a request from the wife of a law school classmate.
Erskine-Smith knows some see council as a stopover — a place to wait out a second Chow term before running for mayor himself, or a route back to a bigger stage. He turns it on Bradford. “We have had a councillor who has been running for mayor for the last three to four years, if not before then, and I think the community has suffered for it,” he says.
Ask him about Bradford personally and he insists there’s no feud; the two used to co-host New Year’s Levees. What bothers him is the trajectory. Bradford came to council as an advocate for housing and active transportation, Erskine-Smith argues, but is “now running a campaign as some archconservative.” “ The incessant flip-flopping is maddening to me. It’s anathema to my politics,” he says.
The same instinct, honesty over expediency, is why he has little time for Johnson’s neutrality. In an election, he says, “you support who you think is best,” and you’re upfront about it. Staying out of the mayor’s race, in his view, doesn’t put anyone above it.
But whoever wins, he says he’ll work with them. “However the chips fall, you work as best as you can to deliver for your community.”
Out on the street, Erskine-Smith rarely needs an introduction. At one door, he starts his pitch and the resident cuts him off: “Of course I know who you are.”
The four kids who stop him on the sidewalk are less sure.
“What are you running for?”
City councillor, he explains.
“Oh,” one says. “I thought it was a race and you were actually running.”
Then, by way of credentials: “I placed second in my school’s track and field.”
Before long, they want in. “If you knock on doors with me, we’re more likely to win!” he tells them. They follow him to the neighbour’s house, then the next, and the next.
At one door, one of the kids beats him to the introduction: “He’s running for president!”
The resident laughs and turns to Erskine-Smith, who she recognizes, with a correction. “You’ll be prime minister one day.”
Further along, he stops to chat with another supportive resident. An 11-year-old, jumping up and down, chimes in.
“I’m Team Nate, too!” she says.
Then, after a pause: “I don’t know what this is about, though.”
A message from Uber:
— T-8 days until the House is back.
Signs of life: The sessional bells — it’s been a while, hasn’t it? — will ring out starting at 8:30 a.m. for routine testing and maintenance.
Happening this week:
Mea culpa! Last week, we reported that Nate Erskine-Smith’s defamation dispute with Quito Maggi was heading back to court on Friday. A correction: The hearing is actually scheduled for Wednesday. Maggi is seeking to overturn a ruling in Erskine-Smith’s favour that awarded him $25,000 in damages.
— Fundraising watch: Tomorrow at 6 p.m., Seniors and Accessibility Minister Raymond Cho will host a $100-a-ticket fundraiser in Toronto.
Associate Attorney General Michael Tibollo is hosting a $350-a-ticket “fall social” in Vaughan on Wednesday at 7 p.m.
Save the date: The NDP is turning 65, and Marit Stiles is throwing a party. She’ll host a $500-a-ticket “leader’s levee” at Arcadian Court on November 14, complete with live entertainment, passed canapés and two drinks.
— 🍴 On the lunch menu: Monday: Jerk chicken with rice and coleslaw. Tuesday: Ginger beef with rice and vegetables. Wednesday: Pork schnitzel with spaetzle and vegetable. Thursday: Fish and chips. Friday: Peri Peri chicken with potatoes and vegetables.
— First: Navdeep Bains won’t put his name on the New Leaf Liberals’ pledge for party renewal.
The context: The group’s pledge, which it had asked leadership candidates to sign, called for earlier and more open nominations, more power for local riding associations, greater transparency around party spending and decision-making, plus an overhaul of fundraising and organizing, among other changes. Three candidates have signed on: Stephanie Bowman, Lee Fairclough and Dylan Marando.
The response: “Party renewal isn’t something done to members — it has to be built with them,” Jamie Kippen, Bains’ campaign director, wrote in an email, a copy of which we’ve obtained.
Kippen said the campaign supports the pledge’s principles and commends the work behind it, but has decided against signing any pledges. “As a campaign, we have taken the position to not sign any pledge — while we are supportive of members, commissions and organizations that are all passionate about the future of our party,” he wrote.
The reaction: “We strongly believe the New Leaf Pledge for Renewal should be the basis for rebuilding this party,” the group said in a statement, thanking Bowman, Fairclough and Marando for signing on and “showing their commitment to leading from the front on this issue.”
But one New Leaf didn’t pull any punches. “Nav has been utterly disappointing in a contest completely lacking a standout. It was his to lose the minute Nate [Erskine-Smith] was turfed, and boy has he done everything possible to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory here.”
Then came a follow-up text: “Shit, that response is longer than any of Nav’s policy planks.”
— Pedalling past the facts: “As Premier Doug Ford readied his war on bike lanes, provincial bureaucrats raised facts refuting his core arguments and had to call in extra staff to deal with a blizzard of public feedback, according to internal records obtained by the Star.”
— A dimmer deal: “The Ontario Electricity Rebate will be cut by a third… going from covering 23.5 per cent of electricity bill costs currently, to 15.7 per cent starting Nov. 1.” The Trillium has more.
Meanwhile: “Ontario will import power from the United States this winter, the province’s independent electricity operator has announced, just a few months after Premier Doug Ford threatened to cut exports to the U.S. amid the ongoing trade war.”
— Gambling on silence: “The government agency responsible for online gambling in Ontario secretly shelved a research study intended to track rates of problem gambling in the province… However, records obtained by the Star through freedom of information legislation reveal that iGaming executives were concerned when researchers reported problem gambling rates significantly higher than expected, and quietly decided the research would be kept confidential.”
A message from Uber:
Through Hope Air, with support from Uber, Canadians in need are able to get to their important appointments. Learn more about Uber and Hope Air’s work at uber.com/hopeair.
— Over in Brampton: A decision to let residents vote at multiple polling stations within their ward has some candidates worried about election integrity. The Pointer has more.
— Power to the province? One of Thunder Bay’s would-be mayors is calling on the Ford government to strip the city of strong mayor powers.
— John Michael McGrath says shareholders in Stelco’s parent company have good reason to keep their antennas up.
— On crime, Martin Regg Cohn argues that Olivia Chow and Brad Bradford “are talking past each other — and us, by talking over our heads.”
— Out-of-date property values are distorting municipal taxation — and Premier Ford isn’t doing anything about it, writes Randall Denley. “Due to Ford’s inaction, Ontarians pay property taxes not on the value of their house or condo today, but on what it was worth back in 2016. It’s as if time stopped a decade ago.”
— Ontario’s labour market looks a lot less healthy once you stop averaging it, argues Graeme Gordon.
— Noted: Flags on government buildings are at half-mast in the wake of Saturday’s incident at CFB Wainwright in Alberta. Premier Doug Ford wrote: “As Canadians, let’s come together to support our brave men and women in uniform, who put their lives on the line to protect our freedoms and our country. Ontario stands ready to help the recovery efforts however we can.”
“Canadians stand with you,” the NDP leader said.
— Noted: Former premier Kathleen Wynne endorsed Olivia Chow on Sunday.
— Hired: Amanda Brodhagen is the new chief to Associate Minister of Energy-Intensive Industries Matthew Rae.
— In memoriam: Former NDP MPP Irene Mathyssen has died at 75.
From her obituary: “Those who knew Irene will also remember her extraordinary kindness and warmth. She was always ready with a hug, a smile and a genuine interest in the people around her. It was that generosity of spirit, as much as her many accomplishments, that made Irene so deeply loved by New Democrats and by the communities she served.” More.
Thank you for reading POLICORNER. How are you gearing up for the fall session? I want to hear from you, and I’ll keep you anonymous. That’s all for now, but not for the week. More reporting to come.
Got 5+ on your team? Team subscriptions are available. Got a client with a message to reach the province’s most powerful players? Ask for our ad rates. Reach out.
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Dispatch from the Beaches — I’m about to say goodbye to Natalie Johnson.
We’re standing at an intersection at around 4:30 p.m. It’s the best place to greet people heading home, she says.
Right on cue, an email from Nate Erskine-Smith to his supporters arrives in my inbox. The subject line: “Talk vs. action.”
We read it together on the sidewalk.
“It’s easy to say ‘rebuild the ramp’ on the campaign trail,” Erskine-Smith writes. “Of course, rebuilding the ramp at Logan (Avenue) is a fairy tale of untold waste. Better to have an actual plan.”
“He’s trying to insinuate that I want something that I’m not calling for,” says Johnson, calmly, if a little exasperated. To some, she’s become known as the “ramp lady.” (Ask her, and she’ll probably show you a sign she’s put up: “Bring Back the Gardiner Ramp.”)
Then, Erskine-Smith, campaigning as the de facto incumbent, has some news: The city will accelerate construction of the Cherry Street ramp, with work set to begin in the new year. (In a video posted later that night, Johnson accused Erskine-Smith of “taking credit” for the plan.)
For background: The Logan ramps, which gave east-end motorists direct access to and from the Gardiner Expressway, came down in 2021 as part of a long-planned reconstruction of the highway.
The city’s answer was to build replacement ramps east of Cherry Street. Five years later, not a shovel has hit the ground. The reason: The new ramps would depend on a much larger reconstruction of the Gardiner between Cherry Street and the Don Valley Parkway, including a realignment of the elevated highway that has yet to begin.
For months, both Johnson and Erskine-Smith have sparred over the east-end highway ramps, even as the Ford government could soon have the last word on when — and if — they get built. Yet for all their disagreements, both are essentially calling for the same thing. And that, in many ways, is the story of Beaches-East York — a contest between two candidates who know their way around politics, albeit from opposite sides of it, each convinced they’re the one who can deliver.
Johnson has covered Toronto City Hall for 16 years. (She says her bosses would occasionally ask whether she’d consider covering something else, including provincial politics. Her answer was always no.)
“I’ve always just been so passionate about City Hall because I love the impact it can have on people,” she says from across the table on a Starbucks patio, before we head out to knock doors.
She’d also been asked by “various parties” over the years whether she’d consider running. “I always said, ‘No, I love my job as a journalist,’” she explains. This time, the opportunity brought together two things close to home: the politics she’d spent years covering and the community where she’s raising her family. She took a leave of absence from CTV to consider a run. By May 11, she’d made up her mind.
The move from reporter to candidate hasn’t felt like much of a leap, Johnson says. In some ways, she’d been doing a version of the job for years. Neighbours would stop her with city problems, a construction mess or a policy that made no sense, and even when it wasn’t a story, she’d connect them with someone who could help. Now she’s simply “moving to the solution side of the same issues I’ve always been passionate about.”
“Instead of knocking on someone’s door with a microphone saying, ‘Tell me about the parking problem on your street,’ it’s like, ‘How do we fix the parking problem on your street?’”
The harder adjustment has been picking a side. Reporters hear everyone out, and Johnson admits she has “a natural empathy for hearing from all stakeholders.” At some point, she says, a candidate has to decide what she’s actually for.
Behind the scenes: Before making her pitch to voters, Johnson sounded out a few people. Among them was Erskine-Smith, who was then chasing the Liberal nomination in Scarborough Southwest. Once the nomination contest was decided, the two met at East Lynn Park, where he shared some advice.
Weeks later, Johnson’s phone rang. It was Erskine-Smith, calling about an hour before news broke that they’d soon be opponents.
She doesn’t hide what she makes of it. “I don’t think that City Hall should be a consolation prize for a higher order of government,” Johnson says. “It is too difficult a job to come into that role as a backup plan and expect to do a good job if your heart isn’t in it 1,000 per cent.”
It’s the closest thing she has to a thesis on her opponent, and Johnson says it comes back to her at the door. Residents who bring up Erskine-Smith’s name tend to start with a qualifier: “I voted for him federally, but I don’t like that he’s trying to come back.”
But Johnson is careful not to make it personal. “You can like Nate and you can like me,” she says. “One of us has a career’s worth of experience at City Hall and understanding municipal issues, and the other has his expertise in federal government.”
We head out to knock doors, and it’s quickly clear the ward has noticed her. Five months in, she’s no stranger on these streets. Her lawn signs are everywhere, and the people behind them seem to mean it. One woman, climbing out of her car, spots Johnson and skips the pleasantries. “We already voted for you,” she says. “I’m hoping for some fresh perspective in this ward.”
A few houses down, another resident calls after her: “Good luck. We hope you win!”
Johnson has been at this since May, often spending eight to 12 hours a day. The doorstep, she says, has been a relief from the toxicity online. “People are almost entirely polite, pleasant, and positive.”
But the support isn’t only coming from the curb. Johnson has drawn star power from across the political spectrum, including from former premier Kathleen Wynne and former federal Conservative leader Erin O’Toole. She says that’s how municipal politics should work. “It doesn’t have to be partisan at the city level.”
Johnson’s independence has skeptics. Some have tried to paint her as the political heir of Brad Bradford, who has represented the ward since 2018 and is now running for mayor. She says some crossover is inevitable in his home ward, where her volunteers include supporters of both Bradford and Olivia Chow.
But Johnson won’t seek his endorsement, or anyone else’s in the mayor’s race. “I’d rather be an independent candidate,” she says.
In her years covering council, Johnson says, ideology was the biggest thing slowing it down. So she plans to work with whoever wins, on council and in the mayor’s office. The same goes for the local MP, Tanveer Shahnawaz, a former Erskine-Smith aide who has endorsed him. Johnson would have preferred he stay out of the race. “Can I look past that in order to keep my eyes on the prize, which is to do good things in this ward? Yes.”
Erskine-Smith carries himself like a man seeking re-election, backed by a decade as the riding’s MP, a stint in cabinet and the mayor’s blessing. But not long ago, he had his sights set on the job Bonnie Crombie beat him to in 2023.
Erskine-Smith had planned to leave federal politics before the last election, but was pulled back in when the Liberals were in dire straits, and stayed on as Justin Trudeau gave way to Mark Carney. When Carney dropped him from cabinet — a decision Erskine-Smith said at the time made it “impossible not to feel disrespected” — he turned his attention back to provincial politics. The plan: Win the Liberal nomination in Scarborough Southwest and, he hoped, the party’s leadership.
It went, in his words, “sideways.” Asked whether he’d do it again, he doesn’t hedge. “If I’d known how it was going to happen, I would not have done that.”
But Erskine-Smith likens politics to pushing a boulder up a hill: sometimes it gets there, sometimes it doesn’t. This time it rolled back. He bristles at the suggestion from some around him that the experience scarred him, calling that “maybe a bit dramatic,” but acknowledges it made him grow cynical. The party, he says, needs to do things differently.
Then he waves it off.
“It’s behind me.”
For a while, it seemed politics was too. At his farewell party in East York, supporters were already urging him to run again — for something, anything, it seemed. Some were pushing him to run provincially — even raising money for a possible leadership bid — while others wanted him to challenge Johnson. Erskine-Smith spent the summer coaching baseball as he considered his next move, including a return to law or a job in the non-profit sector. Even those closest to him didn’t expect him to run.
Then Chow called. “Olivia Chow is a very persuasive person,” he says. The two met at a hotel in May, where, he says, she encouraged him to run.
So he did. “My life would have been easier if I returned to law,” Erskine-Smith says. “But you live once, and you step up and serve.”
The candidate who emerged is almost aggressively local. His pitch? Responsiveness. The most common complaint he hears at the doors, he says, is that Bradford, the outgoing councillor, has been “missing in action.” Erskine-Smith hands out his cellphone number and says he’s already compiled a to-do list of roughly 150 items, ranging from flood mitigation to better snacks at East York Memorial Arena — the latter a request from the wife of a law school classmate.
Erskine-Smith knows some see council as a stopover — a place to wait out a second Chow term before running for mayor himself, or a route back to a bigger stage. He turns it on Bradford. “We have had a councillor who has been running for mayor for the last three to four years, if not before then, and I think the community has suffered for it,” he says.
Ask him about Bradford personally and he insists there’s no feud; the two used to co-host New Year’s Levees. What bothers him is the trajectory. Bradford came to council as an advocate for housing and active transportation, Erskine-Smith argues, but is “now running a campaign as some archconservative.” “ The incessant flip-flopping is maddening to me. It’s anathema to my politics,” he says.
The same instinct, honesty over expediency, is why he has little time for Johnson’s neutrality. In an election, he says, “you support who you think is best,” and you’re upfront about it. Staying out of the mayor’s race, in his view, doesn’t put anyone above it.
But whoever wins, he says he’ll work with them. “However the chips fall, you work as best as you can to deliver for your community.”
Out on the street, Erskine-Smith rarely needs an introduction. At one door, he starts his pitch and the resident cuts him off: “Of course I know who you are.”
The four kids who stop him on the sidewalk are less sure.
“What are you running for?”
City councillor, he explains.
“Oh,” one says. “I thought it was a race and you were actually running.”
Then, by way of credentials: “I placed second in my school’s track and field.”
Before long, they want in. “If you knock on doors with me, we’re more likely to win!” he tells them. They follow him to the neighbour’s house, then the next, and the next.
At one door, one of the kids beats him to the introduction: “He’s running for president!”
The resident laughs and turns to Erskine-Smith, who she recognizes, with a correction. “You’ll be prime minister one day.”
Further along, he stops to chat with another supportive resident. An 11-year-old, jumping up and down, chimes in.
“I’m Team Nate, too!” she says.
Then, after a pause: “I don’t know what this is about, though.”
A message from Uber:
— T-8 days until the House is back.
Signs of life: The sessional bells — it’s been a while, hasn’t it? — will ring out starting at 8:30 a.m. for routine testing and maintenance.
Happening this week:
Mea culpa! Last week, we reported that Nate Erskine-Smith’s defamation dispute with Quito Maggi was heading back to court on Friday. A correction: The hearing is actually scheduled for Wednesday. Maggi is seeking to overturn a ruling in Erskine-Smith’s favour that awarded him $25,000 in damages.
— Fundraising watch: Tomorrow at 6 p.m., Seniors and Accessibility Minister Raymond Cho will host a $100-a-ticket fundraiser in Toronto.
Associate Attorney General Michael Tibollo is hosting a $350-a-ticket “fall social” in Vaughan on Wednesday at 7 p.m.
Save the date: The NDP is turning 65, and Marit Stiles is throwing a party. She’ll host a $500-a-ticket “leader’s levee” at Arcadian Court on November 14, complete with live entertainment, passed canapés and two drinks.
— 🍴 On the lunch menu: Monday: Jerk chicken with rice and coleslaw. Tuesday: Ginger beef with rice and vegetables. Wednesday: Pork schnitzel with spaetzle and vegetable. Thursday: Fish and chips. Friday: Peri Peri chicken with potatoes and vegetables.
— First: Navdeep Bains won’t put his name on the New Leaf Liberals’ pledge for party renewal.
The context: The group’s pledge, which it had asked leadership candidates to sign, called for earlier and more open nominations, more power for local riding associations, greater transparency around party spending and decision-making, plus an overhaul of fundraising and organizing, among other changes. Three candidates have signed on: Stephanie Bowman, Lee Fairclough and Dylan Marando.
The response: “Party renewal isn’t something done to members — it has to be built with them,” Jamie Kippen, Bains’ campaign director, wrote in an email, a copy of which we’ve obtained.
Kippen said the campaign supports the pledge’s principles and commends the work behind it, but has decided against signing any pledges. “As a campaign, we have taken the position to not sign any pledge — while we are supportive of members, commissions and organizations that are all passionate about the future of our party,” he wrote.
The reaction: “We strongly believe the New Leaf Pledge for Renewal should be the basis for rebuilding this party,” the group said in a statement, thanking Bowman, Fairclough and Marando for signing on and “showing their commitment to leading from the front on this issue.”
But one New Leaf didn’t pull any punches. “Nav has been utterly disappointing in a contest completely lacking a standout. It was his to lose the minute Nate [Erskine-Smith] was turfed, and boy has he done everything possible to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory here.”
Then came a follow-up text: “Shit, that response is longer than any of Nav’s policy planks.”
— Pedalling past the facts: “As Premier Doug Ford readied his war on bike lanes, provincial bureaucrats raised facts refuting his core arguments and had to call in extra staff to deal with a blizzard of public feedback, according to internal records obtained by the Star.”
— A dimmer deal: “The Ontario Electricity Rebate will be cut by a third… going from covering 23.5 per cent of electricity bill costs currently, to 15.7 per cent starting Nov. 1.” The Trillium has more.
Meanwhile: “Ontario will import power from the United States this winter, the province’s independent electricity operator has announced, just a few months after Premier Doug Ford threatened to cut exports to the U.S. amid the ongoing trade war.”
— Gambling on silence: “The government agency responsible for online gambling in Ontario secretly shelved a research study intended to track rates of problem gambling in the province… However, records obtained by the Star through freedom of information legislation reveal that iGaming executives were concerned when researchers reported problem gambling rates significantly higher than expected, and quietly decided the research would be kept confidential.”
A message from Uber:
Through Hope Air, with support from Uber, Canadians in need are able to get to their important appointments. Learn more about Uber and Hope Air’s work at uber.com/hopeair.
— Over in Brampton: A decision to let residents vote at multiple polling stations within their ward has some candidates worried about election integrity. The Pointer has more.
— Power to the province? One of Thunder Bay’s would-be mayors is calling on the Ford government to strip the city of strong mayor powers.
— John Michael McGrath says shareholders in Stelco’s parent company have good reason to keep their antennas up.
— On crime, Martin Regg Cohn argues that Olivia Chow and Brad Bradford “are talking past each other — and us, by talking over our heads.”
— Out-of-date property values are distorting municipal taxation — and Premier Ford isn’t doing anything about it, writes Randall Denley. “Due to Ford’s inaction, Ontarians pay property taxes not on the value of their house or condo today, but on what it was worth back in 2016. It’s as if time stopped a decade ago.”
— Ontario’s labour market looks a lot less healthy once you stop averaging it, argues Graeme Gordon.
— Noted: Flags on government buildings are at half-mast in the wake of Saturday’s incident at CFB Wainwright in Alberta. Premier Doug Ford wrote: “As Canadians, let’s come together to support our brave men and women in uniform, who put their lives on the line to protect our freedoms and our country. Ontario stands ready to help the recovery efforts however we can.”
“Canadians stand with you,” the NDP leader said.
— Noted: Former premier Kathleen Wynne endorsed Olivia Chow on Sunday.
— Hired: Amanda Brodhagen is the new chief to Associate Minister of Energy-Intensive Industries Matthew Rae.
— In memoriam: Former NDP MPP Irene Mathyssen has died at 75.
From her obituary: “Those who knew Irene will also remember her extraordinary kindness and warmth. She was always ready with a hug, a smile and a genuine interest in the people around her. It was that generosity of spirit, as much as her many accomplishments, that made Irene so deeply loved by New Democrats and by the communities she served.” More.
Thank you for reading POLICORNER. How are you gearing up for the fall session? I want to hear from you, and I’ll keep you anonymous. That’s all for now, but not for the week. More reporting to come.
Got 5+ on your team? Team subscriptions are available. Got a client with a message to reach the province’s most powerful players? Ask for our ad rates. Reach out.
Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up now.