With council run, Erskine-Smith gets 'back up off the mat'
· Toronto Sun
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A year and a half ago, Nathaniel Erskine-Smith was the federal housing minister, tasked with getting Canadians into homes and keeping them there, across one huge country. Today, as a candidate for city council, he’s thinking up fixes for issues so specific, so granular, they almost qualify as microscopic.
Examples: The city’s programs for replacing lead pipes and upgrading electrical panels are tied up in red tape. The property tax system isn’t just behind the times, it’s almost moving backward in time, with the current setup much worse than MyToronto Pay, which was shelved last year.
“This is not going to make your article,” Erskine-Smith assured the Toronto Sun . His parking situation is unusual, so he needs a street permit, but only periodically. If it were a full-year permit, he could renew it online — but it isn’t, so he has to trek down to city hall in person to do it.
“I think there’s a number of just little process issues.” He interrupts himself to add another to the list: snow removal.
“There are so many little things day to day,” he said, “that if you take a really hands-on approach and you’re relentlessly responsive, I think you can make a huge difference in people’s lives.”
Erskine-Smith is unusually mindful of nitty-gritty issues for someone who, in the year or so before he filed for the Beaches-East York council race, sought to represent Torontonians at two other levels of government.
‘Backup plan’?
In April 2025, Erskine-Smith won what would be his last federal election in a landslide, with 67.7% of the vote, only to be dropped from Mark Carney’s cabinet weeks later. This May, he tried a switch from the federal Liberals to the provincial party, seeking the nomination for the riding of Scarborough Southwest.
His loss was a political bombshell, and while he fought the result, his appeal was dismissed — and his hopes to lead the Ontario Liberals went with it.
One of the perceived top candidates for the Beaches-East York council spot, TV reporter Natalie Johnson, emailed a statement to journalists minutes after news broke last week that Erskine-Smith was entering the municipal race. Her message: Representing the ward is not “ a backup plan .”
Asked if Johnson’s charge is fair, Erskine-Smith said commuting to Parliament was “unsustainable” with young kids at home and a wife pursuing a PhD. “I needed to be close to home,” he said, thus his attempt to “bring renewal” to provincial politics.
There’d be more money if he went back to practising law, but he said the clear message from the ward — and, notably, Mayor Olivia Chow — was that voters would have him if he’d like to continue serving the public.
“I’ll just say also: It’s just life, you know?” he said. “You make plans as best as you can, and sometimes those plans go sideways — and if you’re motivated by public service and you’re motivated by serving the community and if you’re motivated by making the biggest difference you can through politics, then you get back up off the mat and you do your best to make a difference.”
Some people would rather he just go away. It’s not like he doesn’t know.
“It’s not an easy decision sometimes to return to politics,” he said, “because you know there are going to be attacks and you know there’s going to be negativity, and that’s just part and parcel of the job. In the end, I decided to put that cynicism aside.”
‘Look, it’s politics’
That Erskine-Smith would seek a spot at city hall was not a surprise. The controversy in Scarborough Southwest was barely cold in June when the Toronto Star reported he had met with Chow. (He said Chow hasn’t promised him a plum appointment, say as deputy mayor or a top committee post.)
Later that month, he held a farewell bash for his federal political career at Brunswick Bierworks, a brewery in the ward. Johnson, in an apparent indication of how seriously she viewed him as an opponent even then, was in attendance.
Erskine-Smith’s fans packed the place. He thanked many by name for their support — but also aired grievances about his political enemies.
He told the crowd, in reference to the drama in Scarborough Southwest, that politics “can be maddening.” He mentioned the then-simmering conflict over expanding the Billy Bishop airport and tore a strip off of Premier Doug Ford, calling him “deeply incompetent.”
Even Carney caught flak. Before those remarks, the local MPP, Mary-Margaret McMahon, presented Erskine-Smith with a copy of the book Big Nate: In a Class by Himself . She loudly quipped: “Maybe the prime minister should read it.” (McMahon’s office did not respond to requests for comment.)
Here’s the thing: Erskine-Smith’s career path hasn’t really intersected with Ford’s, and in the case of Carney and the powers that be in Scarborough Southwest, those rivals were ostensibly allies.
“I’ve heard it before,” he told the Sun . “In Ottawa, when I was running for the leadership last time, it was: ‘Not a team player’ — but I have a great relationship with Justin Trudeau and with Mark Carney, and with many across my Liberal caucus. You’re a good team player, I think, if you push the team to be the best version of itself, not by being compliant all the time …
“Look, it’s politics. There’s always going to be the drive-by attack, there’s always going to be commentary from the sidelines, but if you talk to people who’ve been part of our teams, if you talk to people who have worked directly with me, no one’s telling me I’m divisive, I don’t think. If anything, I think across Conservative, Liberal and NDP lines, I’ve got great relationships, and that’s an appealing thing about municipal politics, increasingly.
“Already — and it’s just Day 1, but — there are people all across the spectrum who have reached out and encouraged me and been supportive and want to be part of the team. That’s what it’s all about. You put the politics aside, you find common ground and you get things done.”
‘Great’ with Chow — what about Bradford?
Erskine-Smith said his “great relationship with Olivia Chow” stems from his time as housing minister, and he’s excited that her stepson Mike Layton is planning a council return.
He was less eager to discuss the other major mayoral challenger, Brad Bradford, and in emphasizing the need for a “hyper-responsive councillor” in his ward, is perhaps contrasting himself against a man who isn’t trying to win that job again.
Pressed about Bradford, Erskine-Smith praised him as “really hard-working” and said they share an interest in housing policy, but said the soon-to-be-former Beaches-East York councillor has been more aggressive politically and taken “a bit of a turn” to the right in recent years. (Bradford declined to comment.)
It was pointed out to Erskine-Smith that he and Bradford have, at least on the surface, more in common than not. They’re about the same age, both fathers raising young families in the same community. They’re both politically ambitious.
“In politics, you bracket the campaign and you have a drink with someone and hang out with someone and be friendly – and in the neighbourhood, we’ve always been friendly, and at events we’re always friendly. I expect that’ll continue, I hope that’ll continue — but we have a different idea of what we want to see in the end in politics,” he said.
If voters want change at city hall, they’ll have to decide if they believe Erskine-Smith can bring it. While he’s an unfamiliar face around Nathan Phillips Square and is promising new ideas, he’s also a career politician who has positioned himself as a definite ally of an incumbent mayor.
Critics might see a track record of public failures and conflicts. Admirers might see any bruises as signs of fearlessness, a willingness to pick up the fight.
Either way, Erskine-Smith would bring experience to city hall, and he knows Beaches-East York.
“There are other great folks in the race,” he said, “and I’m not going to take anything for granted. I’m just going to work hard and hope to earn people’s trust all over again.”