Brad Bradford’s October 1, 2026, budget-overhaul proposal would separate Toronto’s operating and capital budgets in practice: balance operating spending every year, stop using current operating revenue to prepay some future capital work, and finance infrastructure over the assets’ useful lives. It is a mayoral campaign proposal, not adopted City policy, and its projected savings and effects on services have not been independently established.
What Bradford’s budget overhaul proposes
Bradford says Toronto should treat the budgets differently because they serve different purposes: the operating budget pays for services that run the city, while the capital budget funds infrastructure. Under his proposal, operating spending would be funded through taxes and fees and balanced annually; capital assets would be financed over their useful lives. The plan would end transfers from operating funds used to prepay some future capital work. Bradford’s campaign describes the intended change as a “real separation” of the two budgets.
The campaign says Toronto’s budget earmarks about $256 million for 2027 and about $369 million for 2028 in transfers toward future capital spending. It also claims more than $1 billion of the capital budget went unspent. These figures and the characterization of the transfers are campaign claims, not independently verified findings in the available reporting. NOW Toronto attributes the transfer figures to the campaign.
Proposed debt constraints
Bradford’s campaign proposes that debt interest stay below four cents per revenue dollar, total debt costs stay below 10 percent of the City’s own-source revenue, and borrowing be used for capital rather than operating expenses. These are campaign targets, not current legal limits or adopted City rules.
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Promises linked to the proposal
The campaign also promises a one-year property-tax freeze, property-tax increases below inflation in later years, a line-by-line spending review, and a $300 annual reduction in water bills through a municipally owned Toronto Water utility. Bradford presents the proposed budget changes as room to pursue these commitments, but the available reporting does not independently cost the full package or establish that the savings and revenue effects would materialize as described.
How the proposal compares with Toronto’s adopted budget
Toronto’s adopted 2026 budget includes an $18.9 billion operating budget and a $63.1 billion 10-year capital budget and plan for 2026–2035. The City also reports a combined residential property-tax and City Building Fund levy increase of 2.2 percent, or $91.53 annually for a home with the cited average current value assessment of $692,140. These are official figures for the adopted 2026 budget, not projections of Bradford’s proposal. The City’s 2026 budget release says the budget addressed revenue softening, emergency-services and transit pressures, inflation, and limited municipal revenue tools; it reports $788 million in efficiencies, reductions, and offsets in the operating budget.
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The $63.1 billion figure describes the City’s adopted 10-year capital plan. It does not, by itself, show how Bradford would change project funding or establish that the plan’s total would fall. His proposal concerns the timing and source of financing, not a separately published replacement capital-plan total.
Paying for infrastructure now or over its useful life
The central choice is between paying from current revenue and borrowing. Neither approach is automatically cheaper overall; the available sources do not quantify the full comparative cost of Bradford’s framework.
| Approach | How it works | Main trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Pay as you go | Use current revenue to fund work, including setting aside money ahead of future projects. | Avoids borrowing interest, but current taxpayers may contribute toward infrastructure that will also benefit future residents. |
| Borrow over an asset’s useful life | Borrow to build infrastructure and repay the debt over time. | Can spread costs across people who benefit over the asset’s life, but adds interest expense and debt exposure. |
University of Toronto municipal-finance expert Enid Slack describes the rationale for long-term borrowing this way: “You borrow the money now to build infrastructure that may last for 20 or 30 years, and you’re paying it off over 20 or 30 years. So you’re matching up those who benefit with those who pay.” Interest is the cost of that timing: borrowing makes a project more expensive over time than paying for it as funds are available, all else equal. The evidence presented does not show which method would cost Toronto less across Bradford’s proposed projects or how his debt targets would affect their delivery. TorontoToday’s coverage reports Slack’s comments and notes that Toronto’s borrowing cap is self-imposed rather than required by provincial legislation.
What opponents and reporting say about the risks
Mayor Olivia Chow’s campaign has called Bradford’s debt proposal “reckless,” arguing that interest payments to lenders could constrain money available for services and asking which services might be affected. That is a political opponent’s criticism, not an established forecast of service cuts. No independent assessment in the available reporting establishes the proposal’s future debt path or its service effects.
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Bradford’s wider platform includes a proposed municipal land transfer tax rebate for principal homes. Keep that pledge distinct from the budget overhaul: TorontoToday reports that the tax cut would remove about $300 million in City revenue, and that Bradford’s financing pitch also relies on increased infrastructure borrowing and a claimed Toronto Water dividend. Those are separate elements of the campaign’s broader plan, not proof that the budget changes themselves produce that revenue.
On the tax incentive, housing economist Peter Norman told TorontoToday that the main obstacle to downsizing is a lack of homes “appropriate for that life stage,” and described the land-transfer tax’s effect on downsizing decisions as “probably marginal.” That observation concerns the related tax proposal, not the merits of the capital-financing framework.
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What remains unanswered
The proposal sets out a financing direction and debt targets, but the reported material does not provide an independent, complete costing that shows how the changes would affect the City’s debt, project schedule, operating services, or the linked tax and water-bill promises. Bradford said, “The operating budget runs the city, the capital budget builds it. Operating has to balance every year, that’s the law and I’m going to follow it.” His campaign’s proposed debt thresholds, however, are not current law.
The practical test for voters is whether the campaign can show a costed plan that makes the financing mechanics transparent: which future capital transfers would stop, which projects would instead be borrowed for, how much interest the City would pay, and how the stated debt limits would be maintained while protecting services. Council approval would be required to put the proposal into effect; it has not been adopted as City policy.
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