Bradford says Chow declined every chance to act on public safety. She voted for his own safety motion in March.

She voted for his own safety motion in March

On 26 March 2026, council adopted “Safer Subways: Making Public Safety a Priority and Restoring Confidence to Toronto Transit Commission Riders Across Toronto.”

It was moved by Councillor Brad Bradford. It carried 19-4, then 23-0.

Olivia Chow voted for it both times.

Four months later, on 20 July, Bradford posted: “Every chance Mayor Chow has had to take action on public safety, she’s decided not to. She’s made her peace with the status quo. I haven’t.”

A universal claim dies on one counter-example. This one is contradicted by the mover of the motion.

The rest of the record points the same way

• Transit safety. Chow backed a plan adding 178 front-line staff, announced a broader safety strategy in November 2025, and piloted subway platform barriers in May 2026.
• Police hiring. Under Chow, the board approved and the city funded a multi-year plan running 360 officers a year. The same plan Bradford cites, accurately, six days later.
• Budgets. The 2026 police budget rose about $93.8 million to roughly $1.43 billion, including $20.5 million for 143 net new officers. 2025 added $46.2 million.
• 911 response. Priority 1 fell from 26.7 minutes in October 2023, the month she was sworn in, to 12.6 by March 2025.
• Crisis response. The Toronto Community Crisis Service expanded citywide, then extended to the TTC in October 2025, 23-1. Bradford voted for that too.

You can call any of these inadequate, badly designed or slow. That is an argument about how she acted. The post says she didn’t act.

In May he criticised how she acted, which concedes that she acted

On 28 May, Bradford went on CP24 to attack a Chow safety plan: “It’s the latest example of Mayor Chow forgetting about Scarborough.”

A complaint about the geography of a safety plan is only available to someone who accepts the plan exists.

The letter story checks out, and has its own rating: True

The video behind the caption tells one specific story: that Chow’s four-page letter to Prime Minister Carney contained “not a single sentence about bail reform, bail compliance, auto theft, organized crime, community safety.”

We obtained the letter and read all four pages. He’s right, and that claim is rated True in its own article.

It doesn’t rescue this one. One letter’s omissions are a fact about that letter, a funding request sent during a trade war, on files where bail is federal jurisdiction and Ottawa legislated in June 2026 regardless. They fall a long way short of evidence that she declined every chance to act.

What “every chance” would have needed

Narrower claims survive. “Her letter to the PM skipped public safety” is true. “She hasn’t pushed Ottawa hard enough on bail” is arguable. “Her measures don’t go far enough” is a position, and the one he argues elsewhere.

He made the absolute claim instead, then restated it: “she’s made her peace with the status quo.” The record, including his own motion, says otherwise.

The ruling

At every opportunity, Chow decided not to act on public safety. That is the claim, and it fails wherever you test it. A transit-safety motion Bradford moved and Chow supported. A funded hiring plan. Two budgets. A citywide crisis service he voted to extend. Emergency response times cut by more than half.

False.