Elections

Matlow was first elected during the 2010 Toronto municipal election as the councillor for Ward 22 St. Paul's. In an interview with the Toronto Star following the election, he identified fostering a sense of community as a priority for his ward.^[2] He criticized the city's public consultation process, and committed to holding town hall meetings with residents.^[2]

He was re-elected in the 2014 election with the highest vote count (24,347) and highest winning percentage (86.2%) of any councillor candidate across the city.^[10] In 2018, Matlow was re-elected in the newly formed Ward 12 Toronto—St. Paul's, beating fellow councillor Joe Mihevc, who represented Ward 21 St. Paul's before his ward and Matlow's were amalgamated.^[11] He was re-elected in the 2022 election.^[12]

Matlow has been endorsed by the Toronto Star editorial board in the 2010,^[13] 2014,^[14] 2018,^[15] and 2022 elections.^[16]

Political stance

Matlow initially positioned himself as a political centrist during his first term.^[17][18]

In a 2011 interview with BlogTO, he proposed contracting out garbage collection services and allowing unions to compete in the tender, citing frustrations during the 2010 strike. He also supported asking the province to declare transit an essential service, which would prohibit workers from striking. Matlow supported the repeal of a vehicle registration tax, calling for a reevaluation of financing relations with the province. He also expressed his dislike of the land transfer tax, however, did not support a repeal as it would leave a large revenue gap in the city budget.^[19]

Later in his career, Matlow shifted to the left, describing himself as a "pragmatic progressive" in 2023.^[20] He has supported issues such as a judicial inquiry of encampment clearings, reducing the police budget, and increasing property taxes to offset a transit fare increase.^[21]

Scarborough transit extension

In his first term, Matlow supported the light rail transit (LRT) proposal over Mayor Rob Ford's proposal to construct a shorter extension of Line 2 Bloor–Danforth to replace the aging Line 3 Scarborough. He refers to the LRT as the "evidence-based" transit option, arguing that it serves more people within walking distance and would have been fully funded, instead of requiring the city to take on additional expenses for a subway extension.^[22][23] In 2013, city council ultimately decided to proceed with the subway extension.^[24]

In February 2015, Matlow raised a number of administrative inquiries relating to ridership, the cost of cancelling the LRT project, as well as proceeding with a subway extension.^[25] The city manager's response confirmed that city staff did not know how many people will ride the Scarborough subway, where it will go, or how much it will cost.^[26] In 2018, Matlow called for a judicial inquiry to investigate what he described as "dysfunctional" transit planning, citing lack of information and misinformation that was provided to council.^[27]

COVID-19

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Matlow became the first known Canadian politician to go into quarantine on March 9, 2020, after coming into close contact with a person who had tested positive for COVID-19.^[28]

Toronto Police Service funding cut

In 2020, Matlow, along with Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam put forward a motion in Toronto City Council to reduce the Toronto Police Service (TPS) budget by 10 percent ($122 million), reinvest the police budget into community programs, and allow city council to read the line by line police budget they vote on.^[29] The motion was defeated.^[30]

Integrity Commissioner rulings

In 2017, the integrity commissioner ruled that Matlow breached the council code of conduct by making claims on a radio show that a city staff member had misled council in 2016. City Manager Peter Wallace asked Matlow to apologize after hearing the interview, which he subsequently did. Following the commissioner's report, Matlow said he was "clearly wrong in pointing at a specific name", but "firmly stand by the concerns" he raised.^[31]

In 2018, TTC CEO Andy Byford submitted a complaint to the integrity commissioner, who later ruled that ruled that Matlow again breached the code of conduct when he made comments on a radio show questioning the objectivity of staff’s advice.^[32]

In 2023, the integrity commissioner ruled that Matlow breached the code of conduct in two separate instances. In the first complaint, he claimed in a tweet that staff had "lied" to him about the opening date of park bathrooms.^[33][34]

The second complaint was filed by Interim City Manager Tracey Cook, who Matlow claimed made a "decisions to omit facts". The commissioner recommended that council dock 10 days of pay from Matlow due to “an escalation” of his misconduct and his history of breaching the code of conduct.^[33]