Health, Care & a Long Life

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

• Any Torontonian, any candidate, any office. These questions presuppose no position — they ask what a candidate would do, how they would decide, and how residents would check.
• Jurisdiction tags: [CITY] — council, mayor, or city boards control this directly. [CITY→PROVINCE] — the lever sits with the province; the honest city question is what to ask of Queen’s Park, and what the city does if the answer is no.
• Facts are receipts, not traps. Where a question carries a figure, it is a sourced claim, cited below. Candidates are welcome to dispute any figure — the source trail is public.
• Never ranks, scores, or endorses any candidate or party.
• The universal set (end of this document) works for every office on the ballot.

Health, Care & a Long Life

4.1 [CITY] Toronto Public Health recorded 464 confirmed and probable opioid toxicity deaths among Toronto residents in 2024 (a preliminary count) — down 16% from the 2020-2022 average, but still 50% above pre-pandemic levels. What mix of prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and enforcement-adjacent responses would you support with city dollars, and how would you judge in two years whether it is working?

4.2 [CITY→PROVINCE] Ontario’s Auditor General found opioid-related deaths and emergency department visits rose almost 300% from 2014 to 2023, with an average of seven Ontarians dying per day in 2023. Treatment capacity is largely provincial. What specifically would you ask the province for, and what would you do if it doesn’t come?

4.3 [CITY] Toronto directly operates its own long-term care homes. In 2024 Q3, the rate of residents on antipsychotics without a diagnosis in City-run homes was 14.2% versus a 19.4% Ontario average, and falls were 9.9% versus 15.4%. What standard should City-run homes be held to, and which indicators would you publish so families can check?

4.4 [CITY] Per the 2016 census, 6.8% of Canadians 65 and older lived in a nursing home or seniors’ residence — most people age at home, in their neighbourhood. Across the services the city actually runs — recreation, libraries, transit, snow clearing, housing standards — what, if anything, would you change so that aging at home in Toronto works?

4.5 [CITY→PROVINCE] Ontario’s supervised consumption sites medically reversed almost 22,000 overdoses between March 2020 and May 2024, with no recorded deaths on site. The province holds the funding and licensing levers here, and has been shifting resources toward treatment-focused hubs instead of that model. What would you ask the province to preserve, change, or replace in how Toronto responds to the drug-toxicity crisis — and what would the city do on its own if the province’s answer falls short?

4.6 [CITY] Toronto operates 10 long-term care homes directly, and more than 7,500 applications currently sit on the waitlist for a bed in one of them. What would you do about that waitlist in your term — and would you commit the city to publishing a public wait-time target the way it already publishes quality-of-care indicators?

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. Toronto Public Health: 464 confirmed and probable opioid toxicity deaths among Toronto residents in 2024 (preliminary), down 16% from the 2020-2022 average, 50% above pre-pandemic levels — Toronto Public Health surveillance reporting (4.1).
2. Ontario Auditor General: opioid-related deaths and emergency department visits up almost 300% from 2014 to 2023, average of seven Ontarians dying per day in 2023 — Office of the Auditor General of Ontario (4.2).
3. City-run Toronto long-term care homes, 2024 Q3: 14.2% of residents on antipsychotics without a diagnosis versus a 19.4% Ontario average; 9.9% falls rate versus 15.4% Ontario average — City of Toronto long-term care quality-indicator reporting (4.3).
4. 2016 census: 6.8% of Canadians 65 and older lived in a nursing home or seniors’ residence — Statistics Canada, 2016 Census (4.4).
5. Ontario supervised consumption sites: almost 22,000 overdoses medically reversed, no recorded deaths on site, March 2020-May 2024 — Centre on Drug Policy Evaluation, “Supervised Consumption Services in Toronto: Evidence and Recommendations,” November 2024 (4.5).
6. Toronto operates 10 long-term care homes directly; more than 7,500 applications on the waitlist for a City-operated long-term care home as of May 1, 2025 — City of Toronto long-term care service reporting (4.6).

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.