It was a busy day on the campaign trail, with promises on taxes, seniors, renters and stories about moms. Here’s what happened Tuesday.

BAILÃO WOULD DEPLOY VACCINE AMBASSADORS TO HELP SENIORS

Ana Bailão started off the day at city hall, mingling with two former mayors who have thrown their weight behind her campaign.

Later in the day she pivoted to announce details of her “Neighbourhood Program for Healthy Seniors.”

The plan would involve door-to-door health and wellness checks by “health ambassadors” – repurposed vaccine ambassadors – at communities with large numbers of seniors.

It would also deploy mobile health clinics near seniors’ buildings in partnership with Toronto Public Health and Toronto Paramedic Services, to provide health screens on-site for blood sugar, blood pressure, medication, post-op follow up, and mental health.

Bailão estimated the plan would cost $23.5 million and could be scaled up to support more seniors across the city.

BRAD BRADFORD’S NAME EXPLAINED

Candidates had their moms on their minds. Olivia Chow talked about what life was like for her mom as a renter as she unveiled her first policy announcement, a “Secure Affordable Homes” plan for renters.

The plan would spend $100 million a year to stop so-called “renovictions” – a term for when tenants are evicted  by landlords under the pretense of the need for major improvements to the property. It would help purchase, repair and transfer affordable rental apartment buildings to not-for-profit, community, and Indigenous housing providers.

It would also bolster services for renters facing eviction and establish a “renters action committee” which would have a “seat at the table on city decisions.”

“Right now, people are stuck worrying about rent increases, evictions, and poor living conditions” Chow said. “To the renters of Toronto – as your new mayor I will act, I will make life easier for you, I have your back.”

Chow said she is “committed to building hundreds of thousands more units of housing across the city.”

Brad Bradford, meanwhile, interviewed his own mother in a social post which finally cleared the air about how his name came to be.

As it turns out, Bradford was originally his first name, which he shortened to “Brad” when he adopted “Bradford” as his last name. His mother tells the story best.

SAUNDERS SPEAKS OUT AGAINST DECRIMINALZATION

Mark Saunders reiterated Tuesday that “enough is enough” when it comes to safe injections sites. Slamming the decriminalization approach to tackling the opioid crisis, he said he’d call on council to rescind the city’s request to the federal government to decriminalize drugs for personal use.

”It’s like we’re giving up,” he said of the current strategy.

Back in 2021, the Toronto Board of Health directed the Medical Officer of Health to begin a process with Health Canada to decriminalize the possession of controlled drugs and substances for personal use within Toronto.

Council wrote to the federal government in March asking them to decriminalize possession of controlled substances for personal use, similar to the approach Vancouver recently adopted.

The letter said “evidence demonstrates that criminalizing the possession of drugs for personal use leads to discrimination and stigma, and contributes to people hiding their drug use from their physicians, friends, family, colleagues, and community.”

However Saunders said he would move away from supervised injection sites and focus on treatment and recovery instead by creating a “a compassionate plan to make the number of overdose deaths go down, not up.”

To do so, he said, he’d establish a formal working group with service providers and experts to understand how best to lead drug users to treatment and would ask the provincial and federal governments to bolster addiction treatment services.

FUREY WOULD AXE TORONTO’S LAND TRANSFER TAX

In a move sure to grab attention from prospective home buyers, Anthony Furey said Tuesday he would eliminate the municipal land transfer tax for first-time home buyers. He said he’d gradually eliminate the tax, which has been around since 2008, for all home buyers.

However he was short on specifics as to where he’d find the roughly $700 – 900 million the tax tends to bring in each year.