Ward 6 — York Centre

York Centre occupies a broad swath of north-central Toronto, stretching from Bathurst Street west to Keele Street and from Highway 401 north to Steeles. The ward encompasses the Bathurst Manor and Glen Park neighbourhoods in the east, the Filipino-majority Amesbury community along Wilson Avenue, and the massive Downsview lands — a former military airfield whose redevelopment promises to reshape the entire area. With a population of roughly 107,000, the ward has significant Jewish, Italian, and Filipino communities. The Bathurst corridor through the ward is one of Toronto's historic Jewish neighbourhoods, and Filipino residents make up approximately 17 percent of the population — one of the highest concentrations in the city.

Bailão won York Centre convincingly with 41.5 percent (9,411 votes) to Chow's 24.0 percent (5,444), a margin of nearly 4,000 votes — one of her strongest results outside Etobicoke. Saunders placed third at 11.3 percent, and Furey took 6.2 percent. The combined centre-right vote (Bailão plus Saunders plus Furey) reached 59 percent, reflecting the ward's moderate-to-conservative suburban leanings. Bailão dominated election-day voting with more than 9,000 ballots to Chow's roughly 4,600, while Chow's advance-vote lead was modest. Councillor James Pasternak, who had represented the area since 2010, endorsed Bailão.

Municipal Issues

The Downsview redevelopment was the most transformative planning issue in the ward. The 520-acre Downsview planning area — encompassing the former Bombardier aerospace site and adjacent Canada Lands — was being reimagined as a mixed-use community that could eventually accommodate up to 63,000 residential units — effectively a small city within the ward. The scale of the proposal raised concerns about infrastructure capacity, particularly water, sewer, and transit systems that were already strained. Downsview Park, the 290-acre urban park at the site's core, was a valued community amenity, and residents wanted assurance that the parkland would be preserved and enhanced rather than sacrificed to development.

Transit service in York Centre was a persistent sore point. The ward sits between the Yonge and Spadina subway lines but is poorly served by rapid transit internally, leaving residents dependent on slow, overcrowded bus routes along Wilson, Sheppard West, and Dufferin. The TTC's 2023 service reductions compounded the problem. For the ward's large Filipino community — many of whom work in healthcare, food service, and other shift-work industries — reliable public transit was not an amenity but a necessity, and service cuts translated directly into longer commutes and reduced quality of life.