Making Toronto the Economic Engine of Canada’s Response to U.S. Tariffs

TORONTO, August 27, 2026 – Chris Alexander announces an action plan for Toronto, including a targeted package to accelerate investment, protect existing jobs, and streamline City Hall decisions as part of Team Canada's response to tariff pressure.

“Team Canada isn't a slogan. It means we take advantage of what our city is best at, adapt where we can, and move fast with Queen's Park and Ottawa's trust,” said Chris Alexander. “This is what makes an economic engine, not another debate or political confrontation with other levels of government.”

Toronto is Canada's largest city and must adapt to tariff pressure faster than almost anywhere else in the country. Even if a trade deal is reached, the response remains essential. We must ensure Toronto's exporters find new markets and the tech sector keeps growing. The city's job is to accelerate that shift and put real tools behind the businesses doing it.

“This plan backs new firms opening their doors and existing firms holding the line while costs rise,” said Chris Alexander. “It only works if Toronto coordinates with federal and provincial governments, not around them or against them. That's what separates our team from others.”

Toronto needs a mayor with credibility and a track record of landing commitments across government levels, someone who can work effectively with the Prime Minister and the Premier.

Read the plan: chrisalexander.ca/us-tariff-action-plan.

Media contact: (437) 907-1376 | press@chrisalexander.ca | chrisalexander.ca

A message to Torontonians

Why I'm running for mayor and staying in the race

Dear Torontonians,

It’s true. I entered this race for mayor later than most other candidates.

I'm here because I concluded there were not enough good candidates — and that none was speaking for all Torontonians.

I firmly believe Toronto deserves better than more of the same and that I can beat the incumbent.

Most Toronto voters have not made up their minds. They will decide over the next two months. They will also decide on competence.

We've all had enough announcements without delivery. Promises to reduce crime, costs, and congestion are meaningless without action.

Toronto needs hard plans backed by someone who can execute them, with credibility and experience across all levels of government. Toronto must demand its full share from Queen's Park and Ottawa: strengthening our unity is in everyone's interest.

Without that, the city just moves pieces around the board and keeps raising your taxes. We cannot afford three more years of drift without results or accountability.

One candidate is asking me to step down, claiming I'll 'split the vote'. Apart from being an admission of weakness, that's not leadership. It's asking for fewer candidates, less debate and fewer choices. His approach would shrink the vote and perpetuate the status quo.

That’s how we got here. That’s why the city has been standing still.

The truth is that we will only get this city moving again by taking real action. This campaign should be about new ideas to make Toronto stronger and more vibrant than ever before as the economic engine of a united Canada.

Please read our team's detailed plans, compare them with proposals from other candidates, and make the decision you know is best for our city.

This time it truly matters.

Chris

Media contact: (437) 907-1376 | press@chrisalexander.ca | chrisalexander.ca

The Bed for the Crisis and the Home After It

Pass any law you like. Make any pledge you want. It means nothing if there's nowhere to go at the end of it.

TORONTO, August 16, 2026 — By the city's own count, more than 15,000 people in Toronto are homeless, more than double what it was three years ago. According to the city's shelter system flow, 8,957 people had been actively homeless in the last three months. About 1,600 sleep outside. When someone is finally ready for help, or a doctor orders it, too often there is nowhere to send them. No bed tonight. No home after.

Ontario's Big City Mayors called on the province to declare a crisis on homelessness and drug addiction, fund more treatment programs for people who want help, and create a system to force people into treatment when voluntary programs don't work.

“A person in crisis should end up in care, not in a subway car, a hallway or the back of a police car,” said Chris Alexander. “Some people in this city are in crisis again and again, a danger to themselves and to others. For them, care can't be optional. That's a doctor's call and let's be honest, it means nothing if there's no bed at the end of it. A bed is for the worst night of your life. A home is for the rest of it. My job as mayor is both.”

This weekend in Ottawa, Ontario's big city mayors pressed the province again to act. Torontonians have heard this speech before. The count of homeless people in this city has more than doubled in three years, and through every one of those years the people now demanding beds held seats, budgets and votes at City Hall. Some of the loudest voices for treatment spent those years in the council chamber, chairing the committees that decide what gets built. If speeches built beds, Toronto would have a surplus.

“You were in the room. You had the votes. Where are the beds, and where are the homes?” said Alexander. “A hundred beds in a city where fifteen thousand people are homeless isn't a plan. It's a press release. I've spent my career getting three governments to deliver housing, health care and support for tens of thousands of people. That is the scale this crisis demands. A bed is for the worst night of your life. A home is for the rest of it. My job is both.”

The province is not carrying its share either. More than 85,000 Ontarians were homeless last year, and its flagship response funds a few hundred supportive housing units. This has not been fixed because it takes three governments pulling in the same direction: the city, the province and Ottawa. Chris Alexander has done that job. He led the resettlement of tens of thousands of refugees by getting federal programs, provincial services and city agencies working as one team. Housing, health care, support. Delivered.

AS MAYOR, CHRIS WILL START THE HEAVY LIFT ON DAY ONE

• Build supportive homes with the help built in. Mental health care and addiction treatment inside the building, not a phone number and a six-month wait.

• Put a Toronto deal on the table in his first meetings with Queen's Park and Ottawa — treatment beds and supportive homes at the scale of the crisis, with Toronto first in line.

• Amplify what works. London's House of Hope cut emergency visits among its residents by 74 per cent. Toronto's Homes First moved 530 people into permanent homes in a single year. Take the proven models and build them at Toronto scale.

• Show the receipts every three months. Beds opened, homes built, people housed.

Media contact: (437) 907-1376 | press@chrisalexander.ca | chrisalexander.ca

“This Is What Toronto's Mayor Looks Like When She Has No Answers”

Chris Alexander on TTC Fare Giveaway

TORONTO, August 13, 2026 — This is what your Mayor is doing right now. She’s offering free TTC rides. It’s an election year. The timing isn’t subtle.

Here’s what’s actually happening. Every day, honest riders are subsidizing someone who isn’t, and the answer cannot be to make more rides free. Every year, $140 million in fares goes uncollected because the TTC hasn’t had the capacity to stop this fare evasion, and that revenue just goes up in smoke.

That’s not policy. That’s what you do when you have no answers.

“A discount before an election, without fixing the system, is an admission of failure, not a gift,” Chris Alexander said today. “It’s what you do when you have no plan to fix what’s not working. You hope people notice the free ride before they notice the gridlock.”

The math is simple. If there is less revenue, it means you cannot improve service, and it’s not surprising so many of us feel the TTC is less safe and reliable and could be cleaner.

As Mayor, I will have an immediate, substantive plan to stop fare evasion. That means real enforcement on streetcars and buses, where the system bleeds the most, and fixing broken fare gates. Not random blitzes, hoping the problem will just solve itself. That is what the current Mayor has tried. Her enforcement, at huge expense, recovered just 9 percent of the losses.

Once you recover the revenue, use it for people who actually need help with reduced fares, such as seniors and students. People who can’t afford full fare. Not a giveaway before an election. Genuine help for people genuinely in need.

“The TTC doesn’t need more free rides,” Chris said. “It needs to be managed properly. That’s what competent leadership looks like.”

Media contact: (437) 907-1376 | press@chrisalexander.ca | chrisalexander.ca

Chris Alexander Launches Campaign for Mayor of Toronto

Former ambassador and federal cabinet minister pledges serious leadership and clear plans to get Canada’s largest city moving again.

TORONTO, July 28, 2026 — Chris Alexander, a Toronto-born diplomat, former ambassador and former federal cabinet minister, today launched his campaign for Mayor of Toronto.

“I’m running because Toronto has been standing still for three years,” said Alexander. “A city with this much talent, strength and potential should not be under-performing, and it doesn’t have to be.”

Alexander’s campaign is built on a simple promise, a return to the city that works, backed by five priorities:

• Re-start Toronto’s economic engine. Incentivise new investment, help companies grow here and make Toronto the anchor partner for provincial and federal economic strategies.

• Get Torontonians moving faster. Transit that runs faster, on time and safely; an end to chronic project delays; bolder action on gridlock; and a well-designed network of protected, curb-separated bike lanes.

• Put housing in reach. Support for young Torontonians and new Canadians to become owners, more accessible rental housing and faster progress in reducing homelessness.

• Strengthen neighbourhoods. Easier access to services, connected parks and waterfront, infrastructure fixed rather than ignored, and development that follows neighbourhood priorities.

• Be ambitious for Toronto. Aim to be the most liveable, best-governed, most consistently prosperous city in the world.

“Toronto gave me everything,” said Alexander. “This is where I grew up, where my parents have always lived, and where Hedvig and I are raising our three wonderful children. Everything I’ve learned, I want to put at the service of my city.”

Detailed, costed proposals on each of the campaign’s five priorities will be released in the coming weeks. Torontonians can learn more and join the campaign at chrisalexander.ca.

“At our best, we are a city of great achievements. With vision and teamwork, we can get back on that track, and I believe we will,” said Alexander. “This campaign belongs to everyone who wants Toronto working again.”

About Chris Alexander

Chris Alexander was born in Toronto in 1968 and educated at Toronto public schools, McGill University and Oxford University. A foreign service officer for eighteen years, he served six years at Canada’s Embassy in Moscow and six years in Afghanistan, including as Canada’s first resident Ambassador to Afghanistan and as the UN Secretary-General’s Deputy Special Representative there. He was Member of Parliament for Ajax-Pickering from 2011 to 2015 and Minister of Citizenship and Immigration from 2013 to 2015. He is the author of The Long Way Back: Afghanistan’s Quest for Peace. He and his wife Hedvig live in Toronto with their three children.

Media contact: (437) 907-1376 | press@chrisalexander.ca | chrisalexander.ca