Mayors should serve on police board or say why they won't: Bradford
· Toronto Sun
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Brad Bradford wants the Toronto Police Service to save a seat for the mayor at its board.
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The councillor for Beaches-East York has added a proposal to city council’s agenda that would push Toronto’s mayor to sit on the police board this fall. Should the mayor decline, he or she would be expected to tell city council in writing why that job has been delegated.
While the TPS refers to its board membership as including three city councillors, the phrasing used in provincial legislation is that one seat belongs to “the head of the municipal council,” or, “if the head chooses not to be or is ineligible to be a member,” an appointed councillor.
Bradford, who polls say is one of the front-runners in Toronto’s mayoral race, no doubt hopes to sit in that chair at the TPS board after October’s election.
“I believe safety is the foundation of any great city. That’s why I brought forward this motion,” Bradford said in a statement to the Toronto Sun .
“At a time when public safety is top of mind for so many people, the mayor should be personally serving on the Toronto Police Service board, not choosing to delegate that responsibility to someone else.”
Incumbent Olivia Chow has not served on the TPS board during her term as mayor. Her predecessor, John Tory, had a seat from 2014 to 2022, and post-amalgamation Toronto mayors David Miller and Mel Lastman also sat on the board.
Chow’s office ignored a request for comment from the Sun .
The motion will be considered at city council’s meeting at the end of July , the last full meeting before the municipal election on Oct. 26.
‘Part of the job’
Bradford’s motion says it’s deliberate that provincial law says the seat is meant for the head of council.
“The first seat on the board is reserved for the mayor because accountability should rest with the person elected to lead our city,” Bradford told the Sun .
“When it comes to keeping our city safe, showing up and taking responsibility isn’t optional, it’s part of the job.”
Bradford’s remarks to the Sun came a day after he made a campaign pledge to hire 1,000 police officers if he becomes mayor. He made that promise at a press conference on Thursday, held across the street from the Toronto Police Service headquarters, where the TPS board was having its July meeting.
Many don’t feel safe
At that board meeting, Chief Myron Demkiw echoed a recent point made recently by a campaigning Bradford: While the numbers may show crime trending down, many Torontonians don’t feel safe.
“The data we use is very important,” Demkiw said. “At the same time, I’ve been very clear that we know it only takes one shooting to undermine the community’s sense of safety, as we saw recently with Salsa on St. Clair.”
Demkiw told the meeting that his officers are doing better work because their ranks have been strengthened. A report prepared for the meeting said that as of Dec. 31, 2025, the force had 5,576 officers – up from 5,396 in the report for 2024.
But Bradford said at Thursday’s press conference that more cops are needed because Toronto Police are still “stretched thin.”
“Toronto is an outlier” among Canada’s major cities in terms of police staffing, he said, “and residents are paying for it.”