Engineer and educator running for Mayor, facing a professional discipline hearing.
Bahira Abdulsalam is on the City of Toronto’s list of certified candidates for Mayor, with a nomination filed on May 14, 2026. Her campaign website says she is a structural engineer with a PhD and that she ran for Mayor in 2023. Her plan includes free TTC service, repair of City infrastructure and open budgets. She faces a Professional Engineers Ontario discipline hearing over social media posts, and no decision was found.
Researched by voche.me · Not a campaign-authored page
Toronto municipal electionBahira Abdulsalam appears on the City of Toronto’s list of certified candidates for Mayor. A certified candidate is one whose nomination the City Clerk has accepted. The list shows the nomination date as May 14, 2026. The campaign website she gave the City calls her Dr. Bahira Abdulsalam, PhD, P.Eng.
Her campaign website says she is an educator and structural engineer, a former professor of construction project management in Ontario colleges, and the founder of the Be The Change Movement. It says she holds a PhD in structural engineering from Université de Sherbrooke. The Local describes her as a certified professional engineer in Ontario. The Local and The Jerusalem Post report that she ran for Mayor in the 2023 by-election, and The Local reports that she ran as an independent in Don Valley West in the 2025 provincial and federal elections. voche.me did not check her degree or her licence with the university or the engineering regulator.
Her campaign website says she is an independent candidate with no party affiliation and that she has ended her involvement with the Liberal Party of Canada. The Local reports that her LinkedIn page says she volunteered for the Ontario Liberal Party beginning in 2020.
Allegation. The Jerusalem Post reported on August 4, 2026 that the Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation (CAEF) started a complaint to the Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO) Discipline Committee about social media posts of hers that it says praised the October 7, 2023 attacks. The Local reports that she says the proceedings stem from her social media posts about Palestine and sex education in public schools. In a statement dated July 14, 2026, quoted by the Jerusalem Post, she said she is before the tribunal because of what she posted in her own name and on her own time, and she challenges the regulator's authority over off-duty political speech. The Jerusalem Post reports that she served a notice of constitutional question on the attorneys general of Canada and Ontario. The Jerusalem Post, citing her own announcement, gives hearing dates through August 13, 2026. No decision was found in the pages opened, and the PEO's own tribunal page did not load, so voche.me has not seen the regulator's record. This is an unresolved allegation.
The Local also reports that on social media she has been critical of LGBTQ+ identities, gender expression and sex education in schools. voche.me did not open those posts.
Summarized from the campaign’s published profile. These are stated positions, not an assessment of results or a complete platform.
Her campaign website says the City manages $215 billion in infrastructure and has an $18 billion repair backlog (the site marks both figures as approximate), and that she would repair what the City owns first. It says she would keep the Gardiner Expressway under City control.
The dollar figures are the campaign's, and voche.me has not checked them against the City's budget.
Her campaign website promises to keep public land public, put homes people can own on it, build more affordable housing and protect tenants.
The Local reports that her website proposes 99-year community land trust leases to build homes people can own.
Her campaign website says her goal is a free, frequent and on-time TTC. Until it is funded, it proposes a fare freeze, lower weekly and monthly caps and the Fair Pass for low-income riders.
It says the TTC should stay publicly owned and governed by the City.
Her campaign website promises honest budgets, open books, independent audits, a live projects dashboard and a full public accounting of World Cup spending.
It says police funding should show results, and that she would take the Mayor's seat on the Toronto Police Service Board herself.
Her campaign website lists action on guns and trafficking, violence interruption and youth outreach, treating the drug crisis as both safety and health, a safer TTC and ending human trafficking.
Bahira Abdulsalam campaign website · Community safety initiativesHer campaign website pledges equal dignity in City services, hiring and decisions for every resident, and endorses a Vote Palestine call and an Arab Canadian Lawyers Association framework on anti-Palestinian racism.
The website says these endorsements are not endorsements of her campaign by those groups.
Evidence reviewed on October 4, 2026: the City of Toronto's list of certified candidates, the home page of her campaign website, The Local's candidate page, an article of The Jerusalem Post dated August 4, 2026, the account of the same hearing published by the complainant, the Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation, and a fundraising page she organized. Her plans, her degrees and her community roles come from her campaign website and are written here as her campaign's statements. The hearing description comes from the Jerusalem Post, the complainant and The Local, with her own statement.
Gaps. The Professional Engineers Ontario tribunal page returned HTTP 403, so the regulator's own record of the hearing, its dates and any decision were not read. The two accounts of the hearing come from the complainant and a news outlet, and the outlet's report ends before the August 10 and 13 hearing days. The posts at the centre of the complaint were not opened. Her X account did not load and her TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts were not opened, so nothing from them is used directly. Her degrees, licence, awards and school board roles were not checked with the issuing bodies. The City's published 2023 results were not opened. The questionnaire has not been sent.
The Local and The Jerusalem Post report that she ran in the June 2023 by-election. voche.me did not open the City's published results.
The Local · Toronto Mayoral Candidates 2026The Local reports that she ran as an independent for both the provincial and federal Don Valley West seats in 2025.
The Local · Toronto Mayoral Candidates 2026Her campaign website says she is a structural engineer, a former college professor, and the founder of the Be The Change Movement, and lists parent advisory roles with the Toronto District School Board. These are the campaign's own statements.
Bahira Abdulsalam campaign website · AboutProposed questions for a future interview. They have not been sent to the candidate, and no answers have been supplied.
No questions and answers have been supplied.
Ask Bahira Abdulsalam directly. We send it to the campaign, and publish the reply here if we get one.
Facts voche.me can state about Bahira Abdulsalam's page itself, answered directly rather than left blank.
No. This page is researched by voche.me from public sources, listed below, and is separate from Bahira Abdulsalam's own campaign.
Not according to this profile. voche.me has not listed a current public office for Bahira Abdulsalam.
This profile lists 6 sourced references, each with the date voche.me checked it, in the Sources section below.
The "Questions & answers" section on this page lists questions voche.me would put to Bahira Abdulsalam in a future interview. They have not been sent yet, so the page says plainly that no answer has been supplied instead of leaving the section blank.
The 2026 Toronto municipal election, including the Mayor race, is decided on October 26, 2026.
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