On Nov 27, 2025 I deputed at Toronto and East York Community Council regarding yet another oversized development planned for 6 Dawes Rd. You can watch the deputation here:

Councillor Moise interrupted me twice, first when I called out Mike Harris and Doug Ford for removing rent controls, and again when I called out the influence of developer donations on the premier, councillors and mayoral hopeful Councillor Bradford.

When Moise first interrupted me I thought there was a technical issue, but people watching live told me nothing happened. The second time it was clear he didn’t like me calling out politicians. What other opportunity does a citizen have to speak truth to power in Toronto other than a deputation? I broke no rules, and if my words are considered slanderous that’s for a court to decide, not the chair of the meeting. The first woman to speak said, ““The Toronto and East York Community Council is a sham, a kangaroo court. Why should we spend our precious time deputing for you? Why should we lend any credibility to your puppet show?” and yet she was not stopped.

Doug Ford is provably in the pocket of developers, the Greenbelt Scandal illustrates this well enough if his rabidly pro development-at-any-cost-policies don’t make it clear. Councillor Bradford too, as developers held a $100K fundraiser for his failed mayoral bid. I didn’t know anything about Councillor Moise until this meeting, and when I looked him up, lo and behold, he is also taking massive amounts of donations from developers, over $10K out of $90K. Not to mention improprieties with a developer appointment to a Moss Park Arena board, his behaviour when imposing the unilateral renaming of Dundas Square, and concerns have led to multiple groups opposing him to spring up, one straight up called stopchrismoise.ca (which has a more comprehensive list of his exploits).

What’s worse, Moise’s developer backers are from Fitzrovia, and who is the developer behind 6 Dawes? Fitzrovia! I can now see why he was trying to muzzle my deputation.

There is no argument that can be made that explains why developers who are neither friend nor family nor constituent would donate to a politician unless it’s to get something in return. That is the definition of being in someone’s pocket, and if Moise wants the same level of financial support in the next election he’s going to protect those developer interests.

Below is my full 5 min deputation (due to the huge number of deputations they reduced speaking time to 3 mins), fully sourced. You can find even more information on the reality of housing in my 2022 platform. If you share my understanding of housing policy destroying the livability of our city please like and share.

Hello, my name is Adam Smith, resident of Beaches East York.

Housing policy in Toronto is unhinged from reality, and 6 Dawes is a prime example, however my comments can apply to most recent development applications in the city, like 985 Woodbine Ave.

The condo boom was built on the notion that small-time investors would buy units and rent them out. But costs were too high for affordable rent, and now many would-be landlords are unable to rent and make a profit. The panic to sell off units has created a glut in the condo market with prices falling dramatically.

Because of this failure developers are scrambling to pivot to building rentals. The 6 Dawes development went from a reasonable 17 storey condo to a massive 56 storey rental tower. Developers don’t build to provide housing, they build to make profits for their investors. A rental building takes far longer than a condo to turn a profit, so the only way to satisfy investors and lenders is to build MUCH larger and charge high rents.

At the community consultation the developer admitted it will be unaffordable to 70% of Torontonians. To put it in context, the average income for a Torontonian is $62,000, and market rent for the average 719 Sq ft unit is $2909, which to be affordable at 30% of income requires making $116,000, nearly double the average. With the condo market crashing with plenty of supply and prices coming down, why would the top 30% of incomes spend their money renting when they can own?

The real source of rentals being unaffordable is a lack of rent controls, in particular vacancy decontrol, thank you Mike Harris. And increasing supply only lowers the price of rentals on the market, it does nothing for existing renters who have seen their rents skyrocket due to a lack of rent controls on newer buildings, thank you Doug Ford.

There is still the question of demand, doing the math between vacant units, units mid-construction, and changing population and demographics. We currently have 6914 apartment rentals on the market (according to Realtor.ca), 6952 condos for rent (according to  Realtor.ca  ), 5,475 rentals and 11,000 unsold condos mid-construction, 2161 vacant homes declared by owners and a whopping 17,437 deemed vacant but under appeal, and TCHC has 679 vacant units and 2091 units vacant but in need of repair. Our homeless population is estimated to be 15,400 people, we could house them all and still have room for future demand.

The next 30 years will also see over a hundred thousand units become available as the Boomers move into retirement homes or pass away. There are 8996 beds in private retirement homes (with 1243 units for couples) and 15,184 LTC beds, for a total of 24,180 beds for seniors. Currently there are only 5,364 new beds under construction for a potential future total of 29,544. At last census in 2021 Toronto has 476,990 people 65 and older. Taking a very loose and generous estimate, if every bed in aged care is taken up post-construction, and the remaining seniors are all coupled up, there are 223,723 housing units that will be vacated within roughly the next 30 years. The real question is, when the 447,446 seniors not currently in aged care need that type of housing, why are we focused on market rentals when the real demand is for senior living communities?

There is also the drop in immigration targets combined with our below-replacement-value birth rates, rates that are declining world round since the 70s. Project these numbers and it makes no sense to build more units for a population likely to plateau or even decline in the next decades.

Take investor profits out of the equation, the current economics still cannot create housing that is affordable. Labour and materials are too expensive, and the more builds the more demand will increase their price. Add in the cost of shoring up our inadequate infrastructure, in particular stormwater drainage and sewage, and the externalized cost of the increase in pollution and carbon emissions, not just from the construction of the building, but also the embodied carbon in all its materials (which we currently exclude). And our lack of electricity capacity, not just for new builds, but also increased demand from electric vehicles and electrification of transit, the phasing out of natural gas, and hotter summers with more A/C usage. All with no clear plan for where Toronto’s future electricity is going to come from.

When you include the other new towers planned around Main Square, it assumes Main Station and Danforth Go can handle thousands more people without ever taking into account the picture from the ground. Morning rush hour crowding at Main Station is returning to pre-lockdown levels, and the Relief Line will be no help farther west. Don’t look to Danforth GO to get downtown, which only has frequent service between 7:13-8:43am and 4:03-5:35pm and is really only good for going to and from Union Station.

Considering all the costs, the lack of infrastructure, a more realistic projection of demand, and the mismatch between incomes and rents, take it from an Adam Smith, the economics don’t add up.

With a premier and councillors and mayoral hopefuls openly and unabashedly in the pocket of developers the city’s hands are tied. Resisting developers will trigger ministerial zoning orders to ram development down our throats. When do we stop catering to the destructive and impossible infinite growth economy and start focusing on a sustainable circular economy?

Housing has become an economic crutch for the flagging growth of secular stagnation, and the powers that be see no other way to keep profits flowing than to just double down on overdensity in the hopes people will keep moving to Toronto, despite the cost of living making it increasingly unattractive. Our urban area population centers are already the densest in North America, but it’s still not enough.

The only rationale that explains why 17 storeys is now required to be 56 storeys is that 6 Dawes is not about housing people, it’s about profits for the housing industry. More density only worsens the livability of our city and takes us further from ever creating the kind of system we need to weather the coming storm of climate change. We need to focus on the 3 Rs: repair, renovate, retrofit, and where it is appropriate to build anew, the economics are clear, only a public housing model can ever provide the affordable housing we need.

Thank you for your time.