From bubbling up to 'Elbows up,' councillors file odd expenses
· Toronto Sun
Whether or not Torontonians like the “Elbows up” slogan, they’re paying for it.
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City Councillor Mike Colle bought a $457.92 sign for his office bearing those words last May, then in late June 2025 he ordered 400 posters with the slogan – and his name – to give to the public. That cost the taxpayer $253.75.
Colle’s sign purchases were made public as part of the regular disclosure of city councillors’ 2025 office expenses . The purchases made by Toronto’s representatives, everything from tote bags to restaurant meals, range from the arguably excessive to the undeniably amusing.
The Toronto Sun asked Colle’s office about his signage expenses, including whether or not his posters have been popular with his constituents, but did not receive a response Thursday, as the veteran Eglinton-Lawrence councillor largely spent the day in Toronto’s council chambers.
Colle’s posters may have something of a partisan edge to them, but they weren’t the only purchase by a councillor in 2025 – right before an election year – that carried a political element.
Josh Matlow charged the taxpayer $500 for the production of a TikTok video , released in September, that advocates for the establishment of a city charter to “stop (Premier) Doug Ford from rewriting our rules whenever he wants.”
That video features former city bureaucrat Gabe Blanc, who has declared he’s running for council in Ward 11 University-Rosedale. In the clip, Matlow and Blanc discuss the charter city concept and even play Frisbee, all while Blanc wears a T-shirt bearing Matlow’s name.
In an emailed statement to the Sun , Matlow said his office “occasionally works with content creators to support our policy work,” such as with his campaign for a city charter.
“We were not aware of his future ambitions at the time,” Matlow added of Blanc.
Meanwhile, another declared candidate, Brad Bradford, bought $368.06 worth of “media training” from a company called Lead Podcasting. While Bradford’s office also did not respond to a request for comment, it’s unlikely such training would hurt his prospects as the presumed front-runner against Mayor Olivia Chow in her campaign for re-election.
Councillor Frances Nunziata spent $44,774 on a management consultant
One of the biggest-ticket items in the councillors’ office expenses was by Frances Nunziata. While the longtime City Council Speaker runs on a tight office budget, she spent $44,774 on a management consultant in 2025.
A spokesman for Nunziata told the Sun that her office – which has one of the lowest head counts among Toronto’s councillors – has been short staffed, and the consultant was brought in to help out.
Bubbles and bunnies
As councillors make a point to reach out to even their youngest constituents, some of their expenses can seem silly in the context of municipal governance.
Take Chris Moise, for example. While he no doubt saved the city money by not hiring a paid entertainer, it’s hard not to chuckle about the $81.40 white Easter Bunny costume he bought from Amazon for events in his ward of Toronto Centre.
Fellow downtowner Ausma Malik had her own whimsical, but far more expensive, buys.
Her office made two purchases, each for hundreds of branded hand fans and one-ounce bubble tubes – plastic containers full of soapy water for blowing bubbles – from retailer 4Imprint last year. Those purchases cost the taxpayer $2,660.59 and $1,544.66.
And it turns out Lily Cheng still loves popcorn – the Canada Popcorn Company, that is. While Cheng’s office bought from that company several times last year, it appears most of that was spent on supplies for making cotton candy. (She did, of course, still buy some popcorn.)
Thanks in part to the purchase of a $300 pink cotton candy machine in late July, Cheng’s office bought $1,866.29 from the company in 2025, records show.
Among all councillors, Scarborough-Agincourt’s Nick Mantas had the highest total spend on constituency services and office expenses in 2025 at $59,954.85, in large part due to the tens of thousands he spent on his e-newsletter.
The smallest spend was by Etobicoke Centre’s Stephen Holyday, at $32.86, with Parkdale-High Park’s Gord Perks a distant second at $12,470.93 among councillors who served a full term in 2025.
ONE IN A MILLION
Call them Toronto’s million-dollar councillors.
Five of Toronto’s ward representatives cost taxpayers more than $1 million in total remuneration and expenses in 2025, according to a recent city document .
Those five – Alejandra Bravo, Ausma Malik, Chris Moise, Amber Morley and Jamaal Myers – are all close allies of Mayor Olivia Chow.
Chow herself set a milestone, passing the $3-million mark for 2025.
The totals include support staff salaries, which made up more than half of every Toronto councillor’s total remuneration and expenses for the year.
Also included are the politicians’ own salaries and benefits. Most of Toronto’s councillors made more than $200,000 last year, counting pay as well as benefits.
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While Chow’s take-home total was little changed, the total of all salary and benefits paid to her plus all of Toronto’s city councillors came to $5.3 million in 2025 – an increase of just over $1 million from 2024.
That leap came thanks to a council vote in March 2025 that saw city councillors award themselves 24% pay hikes .
The grand total of all remuneration and expenses came to $24.3 million, up from $21.4 million in 2024. That’s a difference of $2.93 million, or 13.7%.
Of those who fell short of $1 million, only Josh Matlow was relatively close to that mark at $981,852. The only other two councillors to surpass $900,000 in total remuneration and expenses were Lily Cheng and Parthi Kandavel.
Moise had the largest total at $1,081,639.
Among councillors who served a full term, Stephen Holyday, Michael Thompson and Frances Nunziata cost Torontonians the least for 2025, each coming in between $550,000 and $590,000.