Josh in the News

Doug Ford’s recent stream of half-baked announcements doesn’t paint a bold vision for Toronto. It’s Trump-style chaos calculated to distract Ontarians from the premier’s scandals and failures, overwhelm public scrutiny and spend billions of tax dollars without transparency or accountability.

His latest move is a case in point: Ford has decided there will be jets at Billy Bishop airport. Within a month, he’s gone from endorsing the idea to announcing his intention to exclude Toronto from the tripartite agreement that governs the airport, just to get his way.

This is a serious escalation for a proposal that will have far-reaching consequences for our city. Toronto’s waterfront is among the most valuable pieces of land in the country, and it will play a vital role in our economic future and quality of life. Removing Toronto’s voice from the process, eliminating all legal and regulatory oversights and trading public consultation for internal polling might make the process smoother at the start, but it will only delay the inevitable reality check.

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Toronto, ON - Councillor Josh Matlow, Toronto Fire Chief Jim Jessop, the Toronto Professional Firefighters Association will announce $2 million in funding secured to transform a historic former fire hall into a first-of-its-kind burn victim care centre in Ontario. They will be joined by representatives of SickKids and a burn survivor.
 
The building at 641 Eglinton Avenue West, former Fire Station 135 built in 1932, will be leased to Toronto Fire Fighters Charities Inc. to operate a 'Home Away Program,' providing accommodations and support for burn and trauma survivors and their families receiving treatment at SickKids and Sunnybrook Hospital. The $2 million in Section 37 funds will support rehabilitation and heritage conservation work for the building.
 
This program would be first of its kind in Ontario - giving burn victims and their families a place to heal close to the specialized care they need. The building will also feature a historical firefighter museum that pays tribute to both past and current Firefighter heroes.
 
The City and Firefighters Association continue to advocate to the Province and Federal government for additional financial support for the initiative.

Toronto, ON - Councillor Josh Matlow announced today that he will be bringing a motion to the upcoming meeting of Council requesting that the City of Toronto to seek intervenor status in the ongoing court case brought by the Ontario Place Protectors to challenge the constitutionality of the Rebuilding Ontario Place Act, 2023 (ROPA). As this case goes to the Supreme Court, city hall should have their backs.

The stakes are high. This is not just about saving our waterfront, it’s about protecting the rule of law in our city and province. This legislation is a direct threat to our democracy. It strips away our public rights, removes transparency, and shields government decisions from meaningful public accountability.

ROPA immunizes the government from any “remedy in contract, restitution, tort, misfeasance, bad faith, trust or fiduciary obligation, any equitable remedy or any remedy under any statute”. This is part of a larger pattern of the Ford government protecting itself from accountability for the decisions that they make which benefit themselves and their friends against the public interest.

The Act also exempts the government from any responsibilities under the Environmental Assessment Act, which many suspect would reveal catastrophic impacts not only on the natural environment but also on infrastructure and traffic.

For years, Doug Ford has been testing the boundaries of our democracy, including recently announcing that he plans to exempt himself from Freedom of Information laws. This bill, if allowed to stand, will set a dangerous precedent - permitting the Premier to put his own interests ahead of the public good.

Torontonians deserve to be represented in this case. And when residents are willing to show leadership for our city’s interests, they deserve to know that City Hall has their backs.

Toronto – The Toronto Police Service Board met yesterday to consider a drastic proposal by the Chief of Police to eliminate MCIT (Mobile Crisis Intervention Teams) - a program that partners nurses with police officers in responding to high-risk mental health crises.

Councillor Josh Matlow wrote to the Board to support calls to expand the Toronto Community Crisis Service (TCCS) as the default response for non-violent mental health and addictions calls, but warned that eliminating MCIT would result in a dangerous gap in service.

In his letter, the Councillor wrote: “It is strongly preferable that TCCS respond to mental health calls without police intervention. My concern is what happens when that just isn’t possible. In such cases, both a healthcare response without appropriate public safety measures, and a police response without appropriate mental health supports, can result in tragedy.”

The Board received submissions from numerous other organizations across sectors, which echoed these concerns:

• Canadian Federation of Mental Health Nurses: “MCIT fills an important public safety need where a high-risk situation necessitates police attendance but should primarily be treated as a mental health crisis… This gives nurses access to people in situations where they would otherwise be excluded due to safety risks, it 'decriminalizes' mental health crises by reducing the need for police detention, and it saves police substantial time and resources.” 
• Toronto Police Association: “MCIT is designed to address a unique gap in service… everyone - our members and communities alike - are better served when complex matters receive a holistic response, when options are available to meet the unique and dynamic needs of these calls for service. The Service’s approach arbitrarily removes an important tool from the toolbox.”
• CUPE 416: “Toronto’s paramedics are committed to supporting people in crisis but they must be deployed where their clinical skills are most needed, not as substitutes for police authority. This proposal, as it stands, will compromise public safety and the health of our members.”

Toronto - Councillor Matlow is calling on Metrolinx and the TTC to provide transparency into the causes of the transit car collision at Metrolinx’s Mt. Dennis yard on October 16^th 2025, and to be honest about the issues with the Eglinton LRT that have led to constant delays with no timeline for opening in sight. 

Marvin Alfred, President, ATU Local 113, representing over 12,500 transit workers, will be speaking alongside Councillor Matlow at this press conference.

The Mt. Dennis yard collision raises serious and fundamental questions about the safety of cars for workers. While thankfully no workers were involved or injured, when TTC workers will eventually be operating the Eglinton LRT cars, there could be serious safety risks that Metrolinx is not being transparent about. We are demanding answers into the incident, to understand what issues exist, so that workers can know that they will be able to work safely.

Councillor Matlow is also calling for a public inquiry into the Eglinton LRT delays and cost overruns. Metrolinx should be honest about the issues it faces to provide transit riders real information about the line’s status.

TORONTO - The City employs thousands of motivated, skilled, and trained professionals and subject matter experts. The services and advice that these public servants provide on a daily basis helps to ensure that Toronto is consistently ranked as one of the best cities in the world to live in. That is why at the October meeting of Council, Councillor Josh Matlow is introducing MM33.4 - Taking Back Control of Our City Services to Deliver Higher Standards, Lower Costs and Greater Accountability, seconded by Mayor Chow.

Unfortunately, a troubling trend has emerged in recent years. Spending on outside consultants rose markedly over the tenure of the previous administration. From 2014 to 2023 (the most recent year data was made available), the City and its Agencies increased spending on outside consultants from $11.2 million to $57.7 million. This figure does not capture considerable additional expenditures on consultants involved with the delivery of capital projects. 
 
While the City will always require some external expertise, core responsibilities such as playground design, planning studies, and crosswalks should not be contracted out to high-priced firms. Apart from the increased cost of contracting consultants, there are also ancillary benefits of performing more of this work in-house. A City of Toronto employee has flexibility to perform several roles on our residents’ behalf as opposed to an outside consultant hired to do a discrete task. Job satisfaction is also higher when public servants are engaged with the work they trained for instead of managing external partners to perform the same job. Hiring consultants also involves issuing a request for proposal, which can delay the start of a project by months while staff evaluate the contract bids.
 
Councillor Matlow’s motion requests the City Manager and Division Heads to prioritize the use of our public service over procuring outside consultants to more effectively deliver services for Toronto residents.

When Rob Ford became mayor of Toronto in 2010, he promised to stop the gravy train and privatize public services. While Ford was about to bring global notoriety to Toronto for entirely different reasons, the politics of privatization was part of a worldwide trend.

From the 1990s through the 2010s, the prevailing narrative was that government should be “run like a business.” Bureaucracies were assumed to be bloated and inefficient, and privatization was supposed to be the answer to all of society’s ills. By contracting out, government would be smaller, cost less and provide better customer service.

In 1996, Germany privatized its telecom provider; England sold off its buses, railways, and water infrastructure; and in 1999, Melbourne sold off its public transportation assets. Ontario followed suit in the late 1990s under the Harris government with the partial sale of Ontario Hydro and the 99-year lease that handed over operations of Highway 407 to a foreign company.

Read the full opinion piece here

Date: May 21^st, 2025
Time: 9:15am
Location: A Street Reception, Toronto City Hall

Toronto – Councillor Josh Matlow was joined by tenant organization leaders from across the City, including York South-Weston Tenants Union (YSWTU), ACORN, and the Federation of Metro Tenants Associations, to highlight City’s shocking failures to ensure that there are basic rights and protections for tenants from bad landlords, exposed by the Ombudsman Toronto’s new report. 
 
Councillor Matlow announced that he is moving a motion at City Council today requesting that Municipal Licensing and Standards prioritize taking remedial action, to have the City more forcefully enforce property standards violations by ordering repairs to be done and billing the landlord, instead of waiting weeks or even months for bylaw officers to follow up.

Tenants will be speaking to their personal experiences with specific buildings and the conditions they have endured. They will also speak to the systemic issues and the failure of the city to enforce its bylaws and protect tenants.

Confirmed speakers include:

• Lerry Richarson, affected tenant from Ombudsman’s report, York South-Weston Tenant Union
• Ryan Endoh, Chair, Dawes ACORN Tenants’ Association
• Marcia Stone, Weston Chair of ACORN
• Yogesh Khatri, 1440-1442 Lawrence Ave W Tenants’ Association, York South-Weston Tenant Union
• Chiara Padovani, Co-Chair, York South-Weston Tenant Union
• Yaroslava Montenegro, ED, Federation of Metro Tenants Associations