Nominations to run in Ontario’s fall municipal elections now closed

TORONTO — Ontarians now have a clearer picture of the choices they’ll face at the ballot box this fall, with nominations for thousands of municipal roles locked down after a final burst of declarations.

Would-be candidates had until 2 p.m. to register for the Oct. 26 vote, though some early birds — including mayoral hopefuls in Toronto and Mississauga, Ont. — began making their pitches in earnest long before Friday’s deadline.

The last few days of the nomination period saw a flurry of high-profile entries, including former Liberal MP Nate Erskine-Smith, who is running to represent the east-end Toronto ward of Beaches—East York. Another former Liberal MP, Shaun Chen, joined the council race in Scarborough North on Friday.

Some came down to the wire. In Windsor, Ont., incumbent Mayor Drew Dilkens’s name was added to the official list of candidates with less than half an hour left on the clock.

Toronto city Coun. Dianne Saxe, meanwhile, was registered to run for re-election in her current ward of University-Rosedale for close to half an hour after the deadline before the city’s roster instead showed her as a candidate in the nearby ward of Toronto-Danforth.

The last-minute switch comes days after Mike Layton, who stepped away from municipal politics four years ago to focus on his family, announced he would seek to reclaim the University-Rosedale seat he held from 2010 to 2022. Layton is the son of late federal NDP leader Jack Layton, and stepson of Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow.

Municipal clerks are expected to finish certifying candidates for the more than 2,800 elected seats on Monday, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario said in a statement. The organization said it will then collate and analyze the data.

“Local democracy thrives when people are willing to put their names on a ballot and work to strengthen the places we call home. This commitment to public service is the foundation of a healthy, resilient, and representative municipal system,” AMO’s executive director, Lindsay Jones, said Friday.

The association as well as some political observers have raised concerns over the number of seats that showed only one candidate or none at all as the deadline grew near.

Zachary Spicer, an associate professor of public policy at York University, said a competitive mayoral race can bump up voter turnout in municipal elections, which is generally lower than at the provincial or federal levels.

On the flip side, he said, a mayoral race with a strong incumbent and no significant challengers seems to have a “reverberating effect” on campaigns for council, with fewer people showing up to cast a ballot.

Spicer said he’ll be keeping an eye on Mississauga, which has seen more competition for mayor in recent years after decades as a stronghold for the late Hazel McCallion, as well as Hamilton, where he said the incumbent mayor, former provincial NDP leader Andrea Horwath, is facing “considerable challenges.”

The race is also likely to be interesting in Guelph, Ont., as three-term mayor Cam Guthrie leaves the city’s top job open to new blood, he said.

In Toronto, where veteran politicians including former federal Conservative minister Chris Alexander and current council member Brad Bradford are among dozens seeking to unseat Chow, a new poll suggests residents want the city to make decisions more quickly and with more openness to new ideas.

An online survey of about 800 adult Torontonians conducted by Ipsos for the Toronto Region Board of Trade found 59 per cent of respondents said the city lacks speed in making decisions, while 57 per cent say it lacks willingness to try new solutions.

Fifty-five per cent said the city isn’t investing enough in infrastructure, according to the poll, which was carried out between July 20 and Aug. 4.

The survey also found respondents listed the cost of living, housing affordability and traffic congestion as their top three economic concerns for the city, with public transit improvements in fourth place.

The polling industry’s professional body, the Canadian Research Insights Council, says online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error because they do not randomly sample the population.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 21, 2026.

Paola Loriggio, The Canadian Press