Work, Business & the Local Economy

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.

Work, Business & the Local Economy

8.1 [CITY] Ontario created the world’s first Business Improvement Area in Toronto’s Bloor West Village in 1970; the province now has more than 270. What is the city’s proper role when a main street struggles — and what would you measure to know whether a main street is healthy?

8.2 [CITY] For a small business owner dealing with the city — licences, permits, fees, inspections — name one specific change you would make in your first year, and how that owner would notice the difference.

8.3 [CITY] What do you see as the right balance of city attention between downtown and neighbourhood main streets — and what does that balance mean concretely in your first budget?

8.4 [CITY] The city is one of the region’s largest purchasers. How, if at all, should the city use its own procurement to support local employment and local business — and what tradeoff with cost or open competition would you accept, or refuse?

8.5 [CITY] Toronto runs 86 Business Improvement Areas, and the city already tracks how much each one raises — in 2026, the largest BIA’s budget is roughly 219 times the smallest one’s, because the levy is based on commercial property value, not need. Separately, no one currently publishes a single, current, citywide count of empty storefronts on Toronto’s main streets. Would you change how BIA funding is distributed, and would you commit the city to publishing a real vacancy count the same way it already tracks BIA finances?

8.6 [CITY→PROVINCE] Ontario places no cap on commercial rent increases — a landlord can double or triple the rent at lease renewal — and commercial lease rates across the Toronto region rose about 18% in a single year while the number of leases actually signed fell over that same stretch. Would you press the province for any form of commercial rent protection, and what would the city do on its own while it waits for an answer?

8.7 [CITY] A new provincial law requires gig-platform companies to pay at least minimum wage for each paid assignment, but not for the time a driver or courier spends logged into the app waiting between jobs. Toronto directly licenses vehicle-for-hire drivers — the training, background checks, and vehicle standards required to drive for a ride-share or delivery platform here. Would you use that licence to require companies to report what share of logged-in time is actually paid at least minimum wage — and what would you do with what you learn?

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. World’s first Business Improvement Area established in Toronto’s Bloor West Village, 1970; more than 270 BIAs now operating across Ontario — municipal economic development reporting (8.1).
2. Toronto operates 86 Business Improvement Areas citywide (2026) — City of Toronto news release, February 20, 2026 (8.5).
3. 2026 BIA operating budgets: largest BIA’s levy (Toronto Downtown West, $4,845,021) approximately 219 times the smallest (Harbord Street, $22,121); levies based on commercial property value, not need — City of Toronto, “Business Improvement Areas (BIAs) — 2026 Operating Budgets — Report 1,” January 21, 2026 (8.5).
4. No current, citywide, precisely sourced count of storefront vacancy exists for Toronto’s main streets — a documented absence, per local-economy research reporting (8.5).
5. Ontario’s Commercial Tenancies Act imposes no cap on commercial rent increases at lease renewal — Commercial Tenancies Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. L.7; legal commentary, Tierney Stauffer LLP (8.6).
6. Toronto-region commercial/retail net lease rates rose from $25.34/sq ft (Q4 2024) to $29.97/sq ft (Q4 2025), about 18%, while transaction volume fell from 134 to 100 sales over the same period — Toronto Regional Real Estate Board, Commercial Report (8.6).
7. Digital Platform Workers’ Rights Act, O. Reg. 344/24: gig-platform operators must pay at least minimum wage per work assignment, with no compensation requirement for logged-in waiting time between assignments; in force July 1, 2025 — Statutes of Ontario; legal commentary, DLA Piper (8.7).
8. City of Toronto licenses vehicle-for-hire drivers directly, covering required training, background/criminal-record screening, and vehicle standards — City of Toronto, “Drivers for Private Transportation Companies” (8.7).

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.