Toronto’s 2026 mayor election was a heated race between incumbent Olivia Chow and challenger Brad Bradford, but they weren’t the only two to run.
For a while there, Torontonians and journalism outlets focused on the top three mayoral candidates: Olivia Chow, Brad Bradford and Chris Alexander who later dropped out of the race.
Other than that, the most I heard about the other candidates were when people were warning voters to not vote for the “wrong Chow,” as in Braeden Chow, the rapper that got over 8,000 votes.
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So, we took note of the other candidates that were hoping to lead Canada’s largest city and noted down some memorable ones. And who knows, they might just run again next race and win.
From journalists and actors to lawyers and community advocates, here are five lesser known candidates worth knowing.
Sarah McVie
McVie is known as an actress for her role on CBC and Netflix’s “Workin’ Moms.” But she took an interest in local politics and community advocacy.
McVie entered the race focusing on resident empowerment, affordable housing and greater municipal accountability. Her proposals included expanding cooperative housing, investing in city infrastructure and more meaningful community consultations.
Odessa Paloma Parker
This mayoral candidate has worked as a fashion and arts editor at The Globe and Mail, and founded Opaloma, a cultural platform that covers art and local creative communities.
Her campaign focused on supporting Toronto’s creative economy and neighbourhoods. She brought an arts and culture perspective to a race that mainly discussed housing and transit.
Parker ended her campaign five days before election day and endorsed Olivia Chow.
Laura Dean
Dean is a lawyer with over a decade of experience at a Toronto firm. She worked in the Ontario government’s Housing Policy Branch as a senior policy advisor and in the Climate Change Secretariat at Cabinet Office.
Her campaign focused on housing affordability, reliable transit and supporting small businesses.
Bahira Abdulsalam
Abdulsalam has a PhD in structural engineering and said she wants to bring a new perspective to City Hall. She believes that Toronto needs an engineer.
Her platform includes free TTC service, housing on publicly owned land, freezing residential property taxes for a year and more.
She also ran in Toronto’s 2023 mayoral by-election.
Lyall Sanders
Sanders says on his campaign website that he’s a Métis educator who helps people worldwide to learn different school subjects like math and science. He says he’s been a bus driver and yoga instructor and that he’svolunteered in Ontario’s prison system.
Sanders previously ran in the 2023 Toronto mayoral by-election. His platform focuses on making housing affordable by building more homes to address homelessness and making the TTC free.
There you have it folks. That was a list of people that ran for Toronto mayor other than Olivia Chow and Brad Bradford. Who knows what other names we’ll see in the next election cycle, and if there will be any familiar ones.
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