What to know
- Olivia Chow announced a plan to provide lunches for Toronto students, saying it could ease financial pressures on parents and save families money on groceries.
- Chow said the school lunch program would be phased in and funded through the city, other levels of government and private donors, building on Toronto’s existing school food program.
- Brad Bradford criticized Chow’s plan as an idea without a clear funding or implementation strategy, while saying feeding every child is a worthwhile goal.
- Bradford also unveiled a three-part renters’ plan focused on preventing renovictions, requiring cooled spaces in rental homes and making it easier for non-profit housing providers to build affordable homes, as advance voting begins Tuesday.
Olivia Chow and Brad Bradford are kicking off the week with competing announcements, with Chow pledging to provide lunches in schools and Bradford turning his attention to renters.
At a news conference Monday morning, Chow vowed to provide lunches for kids in school to ease financial and time constraints for parents.
It’s a move that studies show would save families $189 CAD per child per month, or around $1,800 every school year in grocery costs.
“Prices at big grocery stores just keep rising. With a robust school food program, we can give parents some breathing room. We can save families thousands of dollars a year feeding kids in school. And give parents a break on making lunch every day,” Chow said.
She added that this was a plan she initially began working on when her husband was in office decades back.
“In 1990, Jack Layton and I made a plan to feed every kid in Toronto schools. More than ever, school food can save families money and help kids focus on their teacher, not their hunger,” Chow explained. “We need to keep moving forward, not backwards.”
Chow said the provided lunches would be transitioned over time and funded through the city, other levels of government, and private donors, much like the city’s existing school food program.
‘She has to stop doing this,’ Bradford reacts
Bradford weighed in on her promise, calling it an idea without a plan.
“…With respect, it’s not an announcement. It’s an idea without a plan to pay for it, without a plan to organize it, and without a plan to engage the other levels of government on it,” Bradford stated in a news release to Now Toronto.
While Bradford agreed every child needs to be fed, he added that Chow does not deliver on her promises.
“Every kid should be fed. That’s a goal worth having, and I will never argue with it… But this is the pattern with NDP Mayor Chow. She announces. She does not deliver,” he said.
Bradford added that a promise that doesn’t deliver is “not kind.”
“A parent who hears ‘lunch for every kid’ starts planning around it. When the money is not there, that parent is the one who finds out,” he explained. “Until the mayor gets the city’s finances under control, she has to stop doing this.”
Bradford shares his announcement
Bradford shared his announcement an hour later, just after 10 a.m., focusing on housing, and shared a three-part plan aimed at Toronto renters.
The plan is expected to:
- Protect renters from renovictions
- Ensure rental homes have access to a cooled space in hotter months
- Help non-profit housing providers build more affordable homes.
Bradford said this begins with the city being more transparent around its renoviction licensing by-law, by publishing a quarterly dashboard that would show applications, licences, investigations, charges, fines and tenant compensation.
Bradford added that he also wants more staff on board for Toronto building, and wants to expand eviction prevention programs.
When it comes to dealing with extreme heat, Bradford proposed a maximum heat standard that would require at least one cooled living space in each rental home.
It’s a policy he said should be delivered for council approval by June 2027. It would also include a transitionary period that would prioritize older apartment towers and Toronto community housing.
The third part of the plan is expected to simplify rules for non-profit housing developers, as well as expand the city’s revolving pre-development fund and get more affordable housing projects built.
Bradford noted that four in 10 renters spend more than 30 per cent of their income on housing, while 271,000 rental units are in buildings without air conditioning – numbers he said he hopes to whittle down.
His plan will involve working with the province to strengthen penalties around bad-faith renovations and own-use evictions, as well as resource the Landlord and Tenant Board so cases are decided faster.
The announcements come a day before polls open, with advance voting beginning on Tuesday, Oct. 6, and running until Sunday, Oct. 11. Toronto’s municipal election will take place on Oct. 26.
