This article begins a series by Christopher Balkaran on ways to approach and engage with the municipal election campaign.
Growing up in Scarborough, I routinely watched mayoral debates frame transit through the experience of downtown residents. Scarborough community members, it seemed, were adequately served by a network of buses connecting them to a small number of subway stations. The geography of the borough however, told a different story. Scarborough was expanding north and east, while its subway connections remained concentrated along its southern and western edges. Residents relied heavily on buses moving through ordinary traffic as mayoral candidates debated new streetcars and shorter wait times for downtown crowds.
In more recent years, candidates began using phrases Scarborough residents had understood for too long: Scarborough has been forgotten when it comes to transit. Transit proposals began accumulating alongside that language. Priority bus lanes appeared on the same street where I grew up. The Scarborough East Rapid Transit Line, formerly the Eglinton East LRT, remains part of the conversation today, while repeated promises of a subway extension eventually became a project currently under construction. To someone who had grown up watching buses struggle through traffic, these investments felt overdue. They also made the candidates advancing them sound as though they understood Scarborough.
That feeling of being understood matters in politics. To feel forgotten while living in Canada’s largest city was to feel that Scarborough’s frustrations belonged only at dinner tables and in private rooms. We were part of Toronto, but we were also from Scarborough: a distinction that carried both pride and distance from the city’s political centre. When candidates began using the same language publicly, those private frustrations entered mayoral debates, campaign platforms, and nightly news reports. The problem was no longer treated as merely personal or local; it had become part of the city’s public conversation. That is the power of political recognition: a candidate who accurately names an experience can begin to sound credible before the proposed remedy has been examined.
Recognizing a problem and solving it are different political achievements. Recognition can happen in a campaign sentence; solving a problem can extend far beyond a four-year term. A credible plan must connect a long-term vision with immediate steps: what can improve now, what infrastructure must be built over time, and how future growth will affect the services residents rely on.
This is where critical listening begins. Voters do not need to master the how of municipal government. Instead, listening for three things could be most beneficial: does the office have the authority to act? What funding, approvals and partners stand between the announcement and its completion? What will residents experience while they wait?
That last question is especially important for transit. A long-term project may outlive several terms of council, while residents must continue travelling through construction, delays, and changing routes. A candidate should therefore be able to explain both the destination and the journey: what can improve now, what can reasonably be accomplished during the next term, and what will depend on future councils or other governments. These questions actively help voters distinguish between a compelling vision and a credible plan.
What does this kind of listening look like in practice? Consider SmartTrack, the centrepiece of John Tory’s 2014 mayoral campaign. Tory spoke to a frustration many Toronto residents understood: building transit seemed to take far too long. His answer was a 53-kilometre “surface subway” that would largely use existing GO rail corridors. The proposal included 22 stops and was supposed to be delivered within seven years.
Once Tory became mayor, however, the promise entered the machinery of government. City staff began studying its infrastructure requirements, projected ridership, costs, and relationship with the province’s GO expansion program. The original vision was gradually transformed. Council approved six new stations in 2016, and the program was reduced to five in 2021. By the end of 2024, escalating costs led Council to prioritize three stations and defer two others until additional funding could be found.
Critical listening does not require dismissing SmartTrack as a failure. New stations are still being built, and parts of the original proposal were absorbed into other transit plans. But its evolution gives voters important questions to ask before accepting a campaign timetable. Has the proposal undergone technical and financial analysis? Which parts depend on the province or federal government? What assumptions must hold for the promised timeline to remain credible? And if the project changes substantially, what will count as fulfilling the original commitment?
Listening to a candidate name a frustration that had long gone unrecognized matters. But recognition should begin our listening. Once a candidate has our attention, harder questions must follow. Does the proposal address the problem residents actually experience? Does the candidate understand what the office can accomplish? Can the promise survive the costs, partnerships, trade-offs, and time required to turn it into public policy?
Critical listening means remaining open without judgment. A candidate may earn our attention by speaking our language. To earn our confidence, their promise must survive deeper questions.
Christopher Balkaran is a Toronto-based policy professional and host of the Open Minds Podcast, where he explores public policy, civic life, and the questions shaping Canadian society.
