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Cost of Living, Food & Family Essentials

A standalone candidate question bank — every figure sourced and checkable, every question identical for every candidate. Also part of the full twelve-category bank.

How to use this bank

Cost of Living, Food & Family Essentials

3.1 [CITY→PROVINCE] Infant child care in Ontario cities cost about $22 a day as of a 2025 analysis — twice the federal $10-a-day target — with the province targeting a $12-a-day maximum. The city is the service system manager. What would you do with the city’s own levers to expand access, and what would you press the province for on fees?

3.2 [CITY] Ontario’s agreement with the federal government targets 86,000 net new licensed child care spaces by the end of 2026, and nationally 31% of parents of young children reported a child on a waitlist in 2025. When new spaces are created in Toronto, how should the city decide which neighbourhoods get them first?

3.3 [CITY] The average Toronto household’s water bill is estimated at $1,118 for 2026 after a 3.75% increase. Water rates fund the pipes and plants themselves. How would you weigh affordability today against the cost of keeping that system in good repair — and would you change how the rate is structured?

3.4 [CITY] What role, if any, should city government play in food security — school and community food programs, land for gardens and markets, support for food banks — and how would you pay for whatever you propose?

3.5 [CITY→PROVINCE] [CITY→FEDERAL] Income security sits with the provincial and federal governments, yet its outcomes land on city services. Basic-income advocates report that several Ontario municipal councils have passed resolutions supporting basic income, and the 25th BIEN Congress meets in Toronto in August 2026. What, if anything, should this city government say or do about income-security policy — and where would you draw the line on the city’s role?

3.6 [CITY→PROVINCE] Toronto Hydro is wholly owned by the City, yet the City itself does not set what it charges: that is the Ontario Energy Board, which approved a settled five-year (2025–2029) distribution-rate plan for Toronto Hydro (case EB-2023-0195, settlement proposal approved November 12, 2024). On the OEB’s own settled Decision and Order (Table 1), a typical residential customer’s total bill rises by roughly $1 to $3.50 more per month in each year of the plan (about $3.40/month more in 2025, $1.12/month more in 2026, $2.72/month more in 2027, $3.36/month more in 2028, and $2.85/month more in 2029) — compounding to roughly $13.45 more per month, or about $161 more a year, by 2029 than in 2024. Toronto Hydro also pays the City roughly $60 million a year in shareholder dividends. Should the city weigh in on Toronto Hydro’s rate applications on affordability grounds, and what would you do with — or ask the province to change about — the dividend the City collects out of ratepayers’ own bills?

Universal set — for any candidate, any office

U.1 How will residents know if you succeeded? Name two or three public, checkable measures you are willing to be judged on at the end of the term — and where residents will find them.

U.2 What is one thing you would copy for Toronto from another city — anywhere in the world — and what makes you confident it would work here?

U.3 Name one thing the city currently does or funds that you would stop or shrink — and what you would say, face to face, to the residents who value it.

U.4 When the evidence in front of you and the residents you represent disagree, how do you decide? Give a real example of a position you changed, and why.

U.5 Name one problem residents raise constantly that the office you seek cannot fix directly. What do you tell them honestly — and what would you still do about it?

Sources & receipts

  1. Infant child care in Ontario cities costing about $22/day as of a 2025 analysis, versus the federal $10-a-day target and the province’s $12-a-day maximum target — child-care cost analysis (3.1).
  2. Canada-Ontario child care agreement targeting 86,000 net new licensed spaces by end of 2026; 31% of parents of young children reporting a child on a waitlist in 2025 — national child-care system reporting (3.2).
  3. Average Toronto household water bill estimated at $1,118 for 2026 after a 3.75% increase — City of Toronto water-rate reporting (3.3).
  4. Several Ontario municipal councils passing resolutions supporting basic income; 25th BIEN Congress meeting in Toronto, August 2026 — basic-income advocacy and conference reporting (3.5).
  5. Ontario Energy Board case EB-2023-0195: Toronto Hydro 2025–2029 electricity distribution-rate settlement, approved November 12, 2024; typical residential customer total-bill impact of $3.40/$1.12/$2.72/$3.36/$2.85 more per month for 2025-2029 respectively, compounding to roughly $13.45/month (about $161/year) more by 2029 than in 2024 — Ontario Energy Board Decision and Order, Table 1 (3.6).
  6. Toronto Hydro paying the City roughly $60 million a year in shareholder dividends — Toronto Hydro Corporation financial-results reporting (3.6).

This page went through an independent verification pass before publication (fact-check against primary sources, claim by claim, including a live re-fetch of the newer figures against their original sources). The internal verification record has been removed from this public page; the sourced facts and figures above are unchanged by that removal.