Toronto mayoral candidate Brad Bradford says he would work with the province to establish a satellite campus of the Ontario Police College in Etobicoke as part of his pledge to hire 1,000 officers by the end of his first term. The announcement comes as election day nears closer with nine days to go before Torontonians head to the polls. When asked about the pledge at a separate engagement, fellow candidate Olivia Chow dismissed the proposal, saying Bradford “probably doesn’t read the budget very much.” “I should not laugh too hard,” Chow said. “He would have known on safety, under my watch, we have hired more than a thousand police officers and mental health crisis workers. That’s how you keep people safe.” “It’s not just about hiring police officers, which we have done, but it’s also about the mental health crisis workers,” she added, saying not everyone in trouble needs an officer to respond with a gun. Bradford meanwhile, says the proposed campus, which would operate out of the existing college, would help address training capacity constraints by offering additional recruit classes beyond the province’s current intake. Speaking to reporters Saturday, Bradford cited the city’s growing population, adding that “our schools grew. our subways got busier, the traffic got worse.” “We’re not putting a man on the moon. We’re putting police officers on the streets,” Bradford said. His announcement also comes a day after Chow pledged the reopening of an east-end Toronto police station by 2030. A closer look at the proposal The proposal would also see a Bradford administration negotiate additional seats for Toronto recruits at the Ontario Police College in Aylmer and introduce measures aimed at retaining experienced officers. Bradford argues Toronto’s existing police hiring plan has not kept pace with the city’s population growth, pointing to figures from his campaign that suggest the city has added roughly half a million residents since 2010 while maintaining approximately the same number of deployed officers. “The cost isn’t in dispute. The question is whether the city can add half a million people, and should pay for the officers that are required to police it. I say yes. I say we have to make that investment,” he told reporters. It should be noted that under Chow’s leadership, improvements to the police service include faster emergency response times, boosted funding and increased hiring. The Toronto Police Service’s five-year hiring plan, approved by the Toronto Police Services Board in December 2024, calls for roughly 502 net new officers by 2029. Bradford’s campaign says the proposal would more than double that target, with the additional officers assigned to frontline duties, including neighbourhood patrols and subway stations. How much would it cost? According to the Bradford campaign, the plan would cost approximately $143 million annually once fully implemented in the fourth year of his term. They say that estimate is based on the Toronto Police Service’s 2026 budget, which allocates $20.5 million toward hiring 143 additional officers, or roughly $143,000 per officer. The campaign says the full annual cost would represent approximately 10 per cent of the police service’s current $1.43-billion budget. Election day is Oct. 26.
