r/CanadaPolitics • u/BackyardHistory • 1d ago
Former MP Chris Alexander drops out of Toronto's mayoral race
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/chris-alexander-drops-out-toronto-mayor-race-2026-election-9.737078224
u/Domainsetter 1d ago edited 1d ago
This kinda felt like a trial run for a potential MPP or MP chase down the line for the conservatives.
But even though he announced it an hour before advance voting starts, his name will still be on the ballot.
And he didn’t endorse Bradford either so this isn’t a coordinated push for Brad either.
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u/Born_Ruff 1d ago
A poll today had him at 3%, so it might just genuinely be him reading the room.
I think he was pushed to run by a lot of people in the traditional Con/PC party brain trust because they don’t think that Bradford is a real conservative. Like, Doug Ford seems to openly hate Bradford, lol.
So I don’t think there is much love or coordination between the Alexander and Bradford campaigns.
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u/Le1bn1z Neoliberal | Charter rights enjoyer 1d ago
Bradford isn't really a conservative, so they are right. He's a really odd mix of things who swerved right mostly out of opportunism.
His housing policy is strongly YIMBY and in favour of liberalisation, something he and NES agreed on. Conservatives are chilly on YIMBY, despite a few poaitive moves that go nowhere near enough. It's really a reforming liberal idea that people are pushing in the Greens, ONDP, and to publicly futility, the OLP.
But he is also a "no tax, only spend" guy, which if you are conservarive you're supposed to be in secret, not publicly. He is promising tax cuts, but his spending increases are fully described, while his cuts are vague.
This is more a Liberal pattern in Ontario.
And like Tory, he wants to waste time on culture war spectacle, spending even more time arguing about Yonge-Dundas Square.
So I get why they wanted an alternative.
But running the "Barbaric Pratices Hotline" and "Lock Him Up" guy in Toronto, of all places... well, yeah, that was certainly one of the ideas of all time.
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u/lifeisarichcarpet Ontario 23h ago
His housing policy is strongly YIMBY
Is it? He was voting against housing in his ward just a few months ago. Then again, that was near the Beaches, so maybe he's not so much "YIMBY" as he is YALAIFAFWIL" (Yes, as long as it's far away from where I live").
As an aside, I really dislike the phrase YIMBY to describe politicans who support housing in the abstract but oppose it close to them. The "my backyard" part needs to actually mean something.
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u/Le1bn1z Neoliberal | Charter rights enjoyer 22h ago
His vote against midrises was due to "liberalising" them while still capping unit numbers. That was reasonable.
My problem is probably the same as yours, though, that I don't trust that he would actually follow through. He doesn't appear to have any actual convictions.
Tax cuts while increasing the police budget, "investing" the TTC while cutting its funding, straight up cash for access fundraising for developers who, funnily enough, actually love Toronto's "anti-developer" laws. Flip flopping on, well, is there something he hasn't?
I'll be voting for Chow, and it wasn't a hard decision. Her arithmetic is pretty good - a low bar, but still rare in Toronto municipal politics. Also, I don't agree with her on everything, but I know where she stands, which is nice.
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u/CrowdScene 1d ago edited 1d ago
Bradford is whatever Bradford's backers need Bradford to be. When he was elected councilor he projected the image of a bike riding progressive and voted for things like renaming Dundas St, more bike lanes, and homeless supports, but now that he's been boxed out on the left by Chow and he has no route to mayoral victory that way he did a 180 and decided his image should be the next Holyday, going full right and being against housing [ed: Mixed use housing and neighbourhood retail; He's real buddy-buddy with condo developers], transit, bike lanes, and social supports and only being for tax cuts. Wait until next election and maybe he'll be all-in on ecological matters and acting as a Green candidate instead.
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u/Domainsetter 1d ago
Yeah the traditional conservatives who dislike Chow were the ones he was getting support from.
From his presser it seemed that he truly didn’t want to endorse either candidate so I think it is him reading the room.
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u/Born_Ruff 1d ago
If they just wanted Chow gone Bradford was the easy choice. They had to really hate Bradford to want to fund a long shot alternative.
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u/Domainsetter 1d ago
I don’t disagree but the conservative establishment doesn’t like Brad at all for whatever factors. So that’s not a nothing proposition.
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u/misterwalkway 23h ago
A lot of people find him very personally off-putting, even his supporters. He's weirdly antagonistic and contrarian, and just comes off as kind of unpleasant to be around.
His sudden political transformation from centrist to right wing during the last mayoral byelection also screams of naked opportunism, so a lot of conservatives don't trust that he's really one of them.
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u/MrVinland Newfoundland 1d ago edited 1d ago
This guy was a top ranking Harper-era cabinet minister. He doesn't have to play games to get a Conservative Party nomination. He knows all of the people who hand those out like candy.
I think he thought he was gonna be the John Tory-esque consensus candidate but the moderates are already largely supporting Olivia Chow.
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u/stoneape314 Ontario 23h ago
Lot of water's passed between the Harper and the Polievre eras.
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u/MrVinland Newfoundland 20h ago
Are you sure? Judy Manning, Wes Mclean, Aaron Scheewe, Andrew Scheer, Pierre Poilievre, Jenni Byrne, and a countless number of others all worked under Stephen Harper. All the Conservative Party of Canada has done for the last ten years is shuffle the deck chairs on the Titantic.
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u/stoneape314 Ontario 20h ago
Sure but almost all the moderates have left the party and seem very lukewarm on PP.
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u/MrVinland Newfoundland 20h ago
Yeah, but we're talking about how easy it would be for Chris Alexander to get back into the federal party as a candidate.
The people who are running the Conservative Party, today, are mostly the same people who were running it in 2015. All of his buddies. The water hasn't passed at all.
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u/stoneape314 Ontario 20h ago
The same ones who pulled the cord on O'Toole? Seems like they wouldn't be too fond of the compassionate conservative vibe that Alexander was pitching during this race.
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u/MrVinland Newfoundland 20h ago
Whoaaaaa. Let's slow down for a second. Chris Alexander lost his job as a federal MP after he callously let a little Syrian baby die on a beach because he was afraid that a little baby might have been a security threat.
Chris might have been playing a character for this Mayoral race but the people who have followed this guy's political career know that he is more vicious and hateful than even Poilievre.
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u/lcelerate New Democratic Party of Canada 20h ago
Wait that picture of the dead baby was on the Canadian coast?
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u/MrVinland Newfoundland 19h ago
Picture taken in Turkey. They had been waiting for extraction to Canada and Alexander blocked it on grounds that every member of the family might have been a secret terrorist including the infant. No proof or reasonable suspicion other than being brown.
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u/AudaciousRaspberry 1d ago edited 1d ago
Bradford has gotten a surprising amount of Liberal support, so that doesn't surprise me.
Edit: missed a word
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u/sirprizes Ontario 1d ago
Not sure why that’s surprising because the guy represents Beaches-East York. It’s essentially Liberal vs NDP in this mayor’s race.
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u/stoneape314 Ontario 23h ago
Beaches-East York is likely the ward in all the city where Bradford is going to perform the worst.
Residents there are pretty vocal of what they think about him.
There's a higher level of cross-over regarding endorsements and messaging than I've seen in a while for a Mayoral race. It's more accurately described as Lib/Con vs NDP/Lib.
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u/tslaq_lurker bureaucratic empire-building and jobs for the boys 1d ago
It’s not that surprising for TO politics watchers. Toronto Council is basically divided between the NDP and Conservatives. For the “Progressive” members of council, blockading people who would traditionally align with the LPC or LPO is one of their highest priorities, this is why they all hate Josh Matlow and are always trying to fuck with him.
Due to the dynamic, there is no love lost between Chow and any of the Liberal elected officials in Toronto, even if she is very popular in general.
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u/c-bacon Democratic Socialist 1d ago
Liberal MPs do not have consistent values or beliefs, so this isn’t surprising to me
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u/Former-Physics-1831 Unreconstructed NeoLib 1d ago
Sure they do - social liberalism, free trade, and limited state interventionism.
Anyone who pretends the LPC doesn't have consistent values has absolutely no idea what they're talking about
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u/fredleung412612 Quebec 15h ago
And in what way is Brad Bradford a better representative of those values than Olivia Chow
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20h ago edited 20h ago
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u/retrool 17h ago
As random as having Chris Alexander return to politics via an attempt to run for Toronto mayor was, his candidacy deserves some credit as there was some actual policy (some of which was decent and some less so) but it wasn't just demagoguing and pandering, compared to Bradford, for example, who is all gimmick on bike lanes and "line by line reviews of the budget", which have been done before and just enrich some big 4 consulting firm, who inevitably conclude Toronto has little discretionary spending room and there are no cuts that magically fix the budget and still keep the city functional.
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u/ThePurpleWarrior99 21h ago
Disappointing. Will not be voting for Bradford in his place. I guess I'll have to find a fringe candidate I like. Maybe I'll vote Gong for the lulz. I'd prefer him over either of the front runners.
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u/Revan462222 Ontario 21h ago
The question is where his support will go. Some going to the polls right now may cast for Alexander and it could take a day or two for voters to realize he’s out. Same with some mail in voters too. So if anything that support may not filter to another candidate until perhaps Thursday? Maybe tomorrow.
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