About KnowYourVote T.O.

Know Your Vote T.O. brings together information on everyone running for Mayor of Toronto, Toronto City Council, and school trustee across all four Toronto school boards — the TDSB, the TCDSB, Conseil scolaire Viamonde, and Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir.

Every candidate receives the same questions, the same space, and the same format. Placement cannot be purchased, and no candidate is given priority. Know Your Vote T.O. does not endorse any candidate.

It is part of the Toronto Public Library's Celebrate Democracy initiative.

Know Your Vote T.O. is a Toronto Public Library project.

Celebrate Democracy is the Toronto Public Library's initiative on democratic participation beyond the ballot box. It includes this website, reading lists for all ages, and workshops, lectures, and events at branches across the city.

The project is supported by the Toronto Public Library Foundation and the McConnell Foundation.

The Big Issues are the topics this guide is built around — six for Mayor and City Council, four for the school boards. The project team developed them with the Know Your Vote T.O. Advisory Group (KAG).

Each one comes with a plain-language primer written by the project team, explaining what the issue is and who decides what. Every fact links to its source. Primers are available as audio as well as text.

Each one also comes with a question that every candidate for that office is asked — the same question, in the same words, with the same space to answer.

The primers describe the issue. They don't take a position on it, and they don't mention any candidate.

Candidates for Mayor and City Council answer six. School trustee candidates answer four. Every candidate for the same office receives the same questions.

Candidates can answer all, some, or none.

The project team contacted every registered candidate in early September, by email and by letter, and follows up by phone and email through the campaign. Candidates who haven't replied keep getting reminders.

Some answers are still in review. Some candidates have chosen not to take part. New responses are added until October 16, and content can be published up to October 25, the day before election day.

Every registered candidate is listed here, whether or not they take part.

• Awaiting submission — no answer has been published for that question. The label is the same whether a candidate hasn't submitted anything, is mid-review, or submitted something we didn't publish, so nothing about an individual candidate can be read into it.
• No answer submitted — the candidate answered other questions and skipped this one.
• Removed at candidate's request — the candidate asked for a published answer to be taken down.
• This Item was removed after review — content was published and later found not to meet the Content Inclusion Standards.
• Withdrawn, deceased, or disqualified — the candidate is no longer in the race. Their name remains listed and their submitted content is removed.

No. Candidates write and submit their own content. The project team reviews it against the Candidate Outreach and Content Standards, but does not verify the accuracy of any claim a candidate makes, including claims about other candidates.

If you are unsure whether election-related information is accurate, consult reliable sources. TPL's media literacy resources and staff can help.

No. We check submissions against the Candidate Outreach and Content Standards and nothing else. We do not proofread, copy-edit, spell check, or fact-check, and we do not comment on quality. We also check that each campaign link works and belongs to the candidate.

Yes. Each candidate can submit:

1. A response to each Big Issue question — up to 550 characters including spaces, or up to 650 characters for Viamonde and MonAvenir candidates writing in French. Letters and numbers only, in sentence case: no emoji, no formatting, and no links inside an answer.
2. Their own campaign links — a campaign website(s), a campaign email address, and profiles on Facebook, Bluesky, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter/X, LinkedIn, and Instagram. No other links are accepted, and shortened links are not accepted.
3. One close-cropped profile photo — a recent photograph of the candidate alone.

Public campaign links and contact details registered with Toronto Elections are imported onto every profile, so a candidate may have links on their page before they send anything. Candidates can change or remove them

Yes. The rules are set out in Section 2.5 of the Candidate Outreach and Content Standards, which is the authority on what is and isn't published. Section 2.5 reads:

TPL reserves the right to withhold candidate content if it reasonably believes the content:

1. Promotes discrimination or hatred based on any of the following grounds:

• Race or ethnic origin
• Place of origin or citizenship
• Colour or ancestry
• Religion (creed)
• Age
• Language
• Sex or gender identity or expression
• Marital or family status
• Sexual orientation
• Disability
• Political affiliation
• Union or staff association membership
• Receipt of public assistance
• Level of literacy
• Any other similar factor

Content that promotes discrimination or hatred on the grounds listed above is withheld under this standard, whether it is directed at a group or at an individual, and whether or not it is also a personal attack.

2. Contains violent, threatening, abusive, or harassing language

3. Contains personal attacks on other candidates or individuals (see Section 2.6)

4. Is unlawful or exposes TPL to legal liability — including content that is defamatory, that infringes copyright or another person's rights, that breaches a court order or publication ban, or that TPL is otherwise required by law to remove. This ground is applied narrowly. It is not engaged by criticism, by disagreement, or by a claim a reader believes to be wrong. It is engaged only where TPL, acting on legal advice, concludes that continuing to publish is likely to be unlawful.

What these standards do and do not restrict

These standards govern what TPL publishes on this website. They do not otherwise limit what candidates may say.

Permitted political speech:

• Criticizing an incumbent's voting record or public policy decisions
• Naming another candidate, incumbent, or past officeholder and commenting on their public record, platform, or conduct in office
• Stating opposition to specific policies or government actions
• Expressing views on taxation, public services, urban development, etc.
• Discussing one's own qualifications and platform

Not permitted political speech:

• Calling for violence or harm against any group or individual
• Using slurs, hate speech, or dehumanizing language
• Making personal attacks on other candidates

The City Clerk declared that candidate elected without a vote, because they were the only person certified for that office when nominations closed. No election is held for that seat, and they take office on November 15.

Acclaimed candidates are invited on the same terms as everyone else — same questions, same character limits, same review. Their profile carries a label saying they were "Elected by Acclamation".

A group of external advisors, the Know Your Vote T.O. Advisory Group, reviewed the project's policies and practices to help confirm that:

• fair, reasonable steps were taken to contact and remind every candidate about the opportunity to take part;
• the questions candidates were asked, and the other information published on the site, are fair, balanced, and reasonable; and
• the standards for what candidates can and cannot submit are reasonable and clearly explained.

The Advisory Group is made up of seven Torontonians from a range of sectors, communities, and viewpoints. The Advisory Group advises. Decisions about the project, and about what is published, rest with the Toronto Public Library.

This project follows TPL's Use of Library Resources During an Election Period Policy.

The project team developed the Big Issue topics and questions with the Know Your Vote T.O. Advisory Group. Each question is neutrally framed, easy to understand, broad enough for candidates to set out their own priorities, and about something the office actually has power to address.

Tell us on our content concern page. It explains what to include — including your contact information, since we can't act on an anonymous report — and what happens next. The full process is set out in Section 2.8 of the Candidate Outreach and Content Standards.

We'll acknowledge your report and tell you the outcome when the review closes. Content stays up while a review is underway, since no decision has been made yet.

Email info@knowyourvote.to with the primer's name, the passage, and what you think the source says instead. A link to the source you are relying on helps.

Two things worth checking first. Follow the source link on the passage — the figure may be older or narrower than it appears. And public data changes between the day a primer is written and the day you read it, so a number that no longer matches the latest release may still be the figure that was current when we wrote it.

This is a different route from a candidate content concern, on purpose. The primers are written by us, so an error in one is ours to fix. Candidate answers are the candidate's own words, and we do not rule on whether a candidate is right.

This website can be translated into many languages using the Google Translate tool.

The Toronto Public Library assumes no responsibility for the accuracy of translations performed using the Google Translate tool. Google Translate is a third-party automated translator and may make mistakes or have inconsistencies.

This matters most for candidate responses. A candidate's answer in the language they submitted it — English, or French for Viamonde and MonAvenir candidates — is their official response. Where you can, read a response in the language it was written in.

The four school board Big Issue primers also have French versions. Those are not Google Translate output — they were translated separately, and the English primer is the true copy.

Candidates for school trustee with Conseil scolaire Viamonde and Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir — Toronto's French-language school boards — submit in French. Every other candidate, including trustee candidates for the TDSB and TCDSB, submits in English.

This is not a candidate's choice. French usually needs more room than English to say the same thing, so French responses have a longer character limit: 650 characters instead of 550. If candidates for those boards could choose either language, a bilingual candidate could take the longer French limit while writing in the more compact one.

No. The four school board primers have French versions, produced using machine translation and AI tools. This is separate from the Google Translate tool that runs across the rest of the site. The English written primer is the true copy: if the two versions differ, the English governs. Each French primer carries a note saying the same thing at the top of the page.

No. The Big Issue recordings are read by an artificial intelligence voice. No human narrator was used, and every recording says so before it begins.

The written primer is the true copy. It carries the link behind every fact, so you can check any of them and read further. If the audio and the written primer differ, the written primer governs.

The French recordings carry a second note: they were translated by machine before they were read aloud, and the English written primer remains the true copy.

• The Big Issue audio recordings are read by an AI voice. No human narrator was used.
• The French school board primers and recordings were produced using machine translation and AI tools, separately from the site-wide Google Translate tool. The English written primer is the true copy.
• Site-wide translation into other languages is done by Google Translate, a third-party automated translator.
• The descriptions of candidate photos (ALT text) for screen reader users are drafted with an AI tool and approved by a project team member before publication. They follow a fixed template and cover only what a candidate chose to present — hair, head coverings, eyewear, facial hair, clothing. They never describe race, ethnicity or skin tone, gender, age, body, disability, or expression, and we never assign a faith, culture, or community to a candidate from a photograph.
• The text on the site was grammatically checked by AI.

Because you are leaving Know Your Vote T.O. Candidate websites and social media accounts are provided by candidates or drawn from their registration with Toronto Elections. TPL checks only that a link works and belongs to the candidate — not what is on the other side of it, and not after publication.

The site is built to meet the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act standard, WCAG 2.0 Level AA. Every candidate photo carries a description for screen reader users, and every Big Issue primer is available as text and as audio.

If you hit a barrier using this site, email info@knowyourvote.to and tell us what happened.

See our Data Policy for what information we collect from site visitors and how we use it.

For TPL programs and services generally, contact Answerline. For media inquiries: media@tpl.ca. For anything else about Know Your Vote T.O., contact the Project Lead from the Toronto Public Library at knowyourvote@tpl.ca.

Email candidate@knowyourvote.to · Call 647-483-9555. Business hours, voicemail after hours. We reply to email within two business days. If you are waiting on an email from us, check your junk or spam folder before you call.

Changes to your content and approval to publish go through your candidate dashboard, not by phone or email.