Toronto Votes 2026: Toronto-Danforth councillor candidate Caryma S’ad profile
(EDITOR’S NOTE: Local voters will cast their ballots on Monday, Oct. 26, in Toronto’s municipal election. Along with voting for mayor and school trustee, local voters will also be electing a new councillor for Ward 14 Toronto-Danforth.
There are 18 candidates running for the council seat in Toronto-Danforth. The seat is open as incumbent councillor Paula Fletcher announcd in August that she was stepping down after representing the area for the last 23 years. For this Candidate Profile feature, Beach Metro Community News reached out to the candidates who we could find contact information for and asked them to send their profile and a photo in by a set deadline. We are only printing the profiles of those who responded by the deadline. The 18 candidates registered to run for councillor in Toronto-Danforth in this month’s municipal election are Maqsood Ahmad, Susan Chapelle, Michael Connor, Dennis Corcoran, Robb Dagenais, Peter De Marco, Sara Ehrhardt, George Fawcett, Mary Fragedakis, John Kladitis, Michael Mitchell, Caryma Sa’d, Dianne Saxe, Devyn Stackhouse, Jason Stevens, Christiane Tetreault, Maria Voutsinas and Denise Walcott.)
I’ve spent my career asking questions and demanding answers on behalf of people who need them.
As a lawyer who trained on Bay Street before striking out on my own, I’ve practiced housing, criminal and cannabis law, successfully acting for clients navigating systems that weren’t built with them in mind.
As a journalist, my reporting and commentary on Canada’s protest circuit is relied on by local, national, and international media outlets, featured in several documentaries, and often goes viral.
Both professions have kept me outside the halls of power, either holding it to account or working for the person up against it. Along the way, I’ve developed a reputation as an unexpected thorn in the side of dominant political and media cultures.
I’m not beholden to any political party, activist circle or ideological camp, and I have no outside interests to answer to. I always call balls and strikes. I’m not part of the establishment, and I think that’s precisely what Toronto-Danforth needs right now.
Ward 14 has resilient neighbours, vibrant main streets, and a real sense of community. And yet, we also see open drug use and untreated mental illness on our sidewalks, vacant storefronts, delays in garbage pickup and snow removal, and rising property taxes. The city spends heavily on social crises without tracking whether anything improves.
These problems aren’t unsolvable. They persist because decisions get made without anyone asking what works. I’m not afraid of tough questions, and I’ll raise them at City Hall: What did we spend? What did it achieve? Who is accountable if it didn’t?
As your councillor, I’ll be constituent-centric, responsive, pragmatic, transparent and resolute. I’ll challenge conventional thinking and push for measurable results.
I’d be honoured to earn your vote on Oct. 26.
