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Safety & Emergency Readiness

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

Safety & Emergency Readiness

5.1 [CITY] How would you assess whether policing in Toronto is delivering results for residents — and what information about budgets, response, and outcomes would you want published, at what regularity, so residents can make the same assessment?

5.2 [CITY] Toronto’s Community Crisis Service — the city’s fourth emergency service — has responded to more than 25,000 mental-health crisis calls since 2022, resolving 78% of calls transferred from 911 without police involvement. What future do you see for this service: scale, scope, funding — and how should it be evaluated?

5.3 [CITY] Episodes with zero staffed ambulances available in Toronto (“Code Red”) rose from 29 in 2019 to over 1,200 in 2023, and Toronto Fire’s total response time met its 6:24 standard 77% of the time in 2024. What response-time commitment would you make, what would it cost, and what will you report publicly along the way?

5.4 [CITY→FEDERAL] Institutional testimony to a House of Commons committee reported that 86% of successfully traced crime handguns in Toronto in 2021 were sourced in the United States. What would you press federal partners for at the border and in law, and what violence-prevention work would you fund with the city’s own dollars?

5.5 [CITY] A Toronto youth-violence intervention program evaluated over 2009-2012 cost an average of $13,723 per participant and showed measurable attitude change against a comparison group. What evidence standard should any violence-prevention program meet to keep its city funding — and what happens, under your approach, to programs that can’t show results?

5.6 [CITY] As of April 2025, the city reported over 90% of the 26 Phase-1 actions in SafeTO, its 10-year community safety and well-being plan, complete or in progress. Looking at the plan as it stands: what would you keep, what would you change, and what belongs in the next phase that isn’t there now?

5.7 [CITY] Toronto’s Property Standards Bylaw sets fines of $1,000 for ignoring an enforcement order and $750 for a standard violation, and RentSafeTO — the city’s rental apartment-building inspection program — covers buildings of three or more storeys and ten or more units, but not condos, townhomes, or units inside private homes. Is that scope and those penalty levels doing the job — and what would you change about how the city enforces property standards for the rental housing RentSafeTO doesn’t reach?

5.8 [CITY→PROVINCE] Ontario’s new police watchdog, the Inspectorate of Policing, received 505 complaints and issued zero formal enforcement actions in its first nine months — likely too soon to judge either way, but a live starting data point. What would you want to see from provincial police oversight over this term, and what result would tell you it’s working?

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 Community Crisis Service: more than 25,000 mental-health crisis calls responded to since 2022, 78% of 911-transferred calls resolved without police involvement — City of Toronto Community Crisis Service reporting (5.2).
  2. Toronto “Code Red” episodes (zero staffed ambulances available): 29 in 2019, over 1,200 in 2023; Toronto Fire total response time met its 6:24 standard 77% of the time in 2024 — Toronto Paramedic Services and Toronto Fire Services reporting (5.3).
  3. 86% of successfully traced crime handguns in Toronto in 2021 sourced in the United States — institutional testimony to a House of Commons committee (5.4).
  4. Toronto youth-violence intervention program, evaluated 2009-2012: average cost of $13,723 per participant, measurable attitude change against a comparison group — program evaluation reporting (5.5).
  5. SafeTO 10-year community safety and well-being plan: over 90% of 26 Phase-1 actions complete or in progress as of April 2025 — City of Toronto SafeTO reporting (5.6).
  6. Toronto Property Standards Bylaw fines: $1,000 (order non-compliance), $750 (standard non-compliance); RentSafeTO scope: buildings of three or more storeys and ten or more units, excluding condos, townhomes, and units inside private homes — City of Toronto Municipal Licensing & Standards reporting (5.7).
  7. Ontario Inspectorate of Policing: 505 complaints received, zero formal enforcement actions issued in its first nine months — Inspectorate of Policing reporting (5.8).

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.