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Mayoral incumbent Olivia Chow is promising more free activities for Toronto families while candidate Chris Alexander says he will fast-track more affordable housing.

Chow on Saturday said she would expand the number of museum and attractions passes each month by 1,000 as well as add more children’s programming at the city’s 100 libraries if she is elected mayor.

“Every parent knows the joy of watching their child discover something new, or a story they want to hear again, and a dinosaur they can’t stop talking about,” Chow said in a campaign video .

“Play and curiosity help kids learn, build confidence and discover who they might become. Play is not trivial, play is preparation for life.”

Chow said the cost of an outing for families has gotten expensive just in admission tickets alone.

“A child’s opportunities should not depend on what’s left after the bills are paid,” she said.

Free pass to cultural centres and museums

The Toronto Public Library pass was first introduced in 2007 and allows residents to visit cultural centres and museums across the city, including the Art Gallery of Ontario, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto Zoo, Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada and other attractions.

Chow’s plan would also expand free library programming for kids on weekends to all city branches.

Brad Bradford, Chow’s main competitor according to recent polling, told CP24 he would also support the request for more free access to programming for children if he is elected.

However, Bradford said the announcement shows Chow has no new ideas and is “running a campaign that is defined by the status quo.”

“We haven’t heard a big proposal, we haven’t heard a big idea, we haven’t had a vision for the future of Toronto from Olivia Chow,” he said. “In fact, what she tells you is we’ve reached our full potential and she’s going to deliver more of the same.”

Build more affordable homes

Meanwhile, former Conservative MP Chris Alexander said during a campaign stop in Scarborough that he will ensure at least 3,000 affordable homes and rent-geared-to-income housing starts in 2027 that will increase to 10,000 by 2029.

“My announcement today is about building affordable and rent-geared-to-income homes on the scale Toronto needs,” Alexander told reporters at Thomson Memorial Park.

Under Alexander’s plan, the city would act as a builder by developing public land at 30 to 50 sites to build mid-rise apartments of four to eight storeys with lower-cost construction techniques.

He said funding would come mainly from existing Build Canada Homes and Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation programs, backed by provincial operational funding for supportive units. Project approvals would be fast-tracked, he added.

“Toronto needs to get back to building affordable public housing on the scale we last achieved with co-operative housing in the 1990s,” Alexander said in a campaign statement.

Alexander said, since 2023, only about 6,000 to 7,000 housing units were started, adding Chow missed her own target for city-backed rentals by 10,000 units.

“We need to get away from these phantom homes,” he told reporters. “We need to get away from this misleading arithmetic and put forward plans that really serve Torontonians.”

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Key election dates

Residents head to the polls on Oct. 26 to elect the mayor, their local councillor and school board trustee.

Advance voting begins Tuesday and runs until the following Sunday.