Toronto mayoral candidate Brad Bradford says he’ll rename Sankofa Square “Toronto Square” — and clean it up — if he’s elected in October.
Calling Sankofa Square at Yonge and Dundas streets “dirty and unsafe,” he also said he would establish a permanent police substation and expand outreach and mental health supports as part of his makeover vision for the public space unveiled on Monday.
“It’s one of busiest and most prominent intersections in the entire country,” he told reporters on Monday.
“Visitors from around the world step off the subway and this is one of the first things they see here in Toronto.
“It’s dirty, it’s unsafe, there’s open drug use in the middle of the afternoon. Tourists avoid it, parents grab their kids by the hand and move quickly through the space.”
Back in December 2023, Bradford was one of 22 city councillors who voted in favour of renaming the space Sankofa Square — a decision that sparked considerable debate and controversy.
A Liaison Strategies survey from January 2024 showed widespread disapproval from every part of the city towards changing the name to ‘Sankofa Square’, with 71 per cent of total respondents not in favour of the move.
Councillor Chris Moise brought forward the motion to change Yonge-Dundas Square to Sankofa Square, and it was seconded by Mayor Olivia Chow.
Moise and Chow maintained that no taxpayer money was spent on the renaming. Instead, $335,000 dollars came from the Section 37 fund – money collected under the Community Benefits Charge bylaw for developments and redevelopments that are at least five storeys in height and add at least ten residential units..
On Monday Bradford assured the public that his latest proposed name swap also wouldn’t cost taxpayers a dime.
The plan to rename it Toronto Square “would be delivered through a partnership with an iconic Canadian brand, at no cost to the property taxpayer,” a release from his office stated.
It would also “set published cleaning and safety standards for the space,” the release adds, while filling the square with a “year-round calendar of commerce, culture, food, retail and live performance.”
Between events and advertising, Bradford said the square’s screens would carry a rotating tribute to prominent Canadians, including Viola Desmond, who refused to leave a whites-only section of a Nova Scotia cinema in 1946, and now appears on the ten dollar bill, Terry Fox, whose Marathon of Hope made him the country’s most enduring symbol of courage and a lasting inspiration for cancer research, and Tom Longboat, a distance runner from Six Nations who won the 1907 Boston Marathon, to name a few.
Honourees would be chosen by an independent, broadly representative panel rather than by the Mayor’s office, Bradford explained.
The renaming of the square would require a vote of City Council, which Bradford committed to bringing forward and championing.
“The plan carries no cost to the property taxpayer,” the release stresses. “The cleanup, the programming and the renaming would be financed through a partnership with an iconic Canadian brand, supported by the advertisers and businesses that profit from the corner.
“Not one dollar of this lands on your property tax bill,” said Bradford. “The people who profit from that corner can help us restore it. I want a city we can be proud of again. Not someday. Now.”
City of Toronto budget documents showed Sankofa Square is struggling to draw crowds with revenue from several streams, including advertisements, concerts and corporate bookings, all down considerably in 2025.
Last January, the interim general manager of the square said U.S. tariffs and economic uncertainty were among the reasons for dwindling revenue in 2025.
“Advertising, working with our different partners, that was understandably down early in the year as businesses were trying to figure out some of the international situations that were going on. Some of the bigger advertisers were holding off on some of the digital advertising in the square. Some of our corporate branding activations that would normally take place in the square, those were down,” said Marnie Grona.
One advertising executive who spoke with CityNews wasn’t buying that excuse, though, saying the vibe in and around the square was more to blame than issues abroad.
“I think that the square here has more of a place problem than an advertiser problem,” Dennis Matthews from Creative Currency told CityNews last winter.
“Brands and marketers, they care about the context that their ads are being placed in … you’ve had all sorts of protests [here], there’s been homelessness and other problems here that I think have made it, for advertisers, the kind of place that they’re not as excited to be seen at.”
Bradford has vowed to change that, promising to re-establish the square as a hot spot for entertainment and advertising.
With files from Dilshad Burman