Methodology

What gets checked

We check statements of fact that Brad Bradford publishes publicly, in his capacity as a Toronto city councillor or as a candidate for office. That means posts from @BEYbradford and @BradMBradford, and occasionally other public remarks where the claim is quoted precisely enough to check.

A claim is a candidate for a check when it is:

• Checkable. It asserts something about the world that evidence can confirm or refute. Opinions, predictions, and value judgments are not checkable, however irritating they may be.
• Consequential. It bears on a decision facing Toronto residents — a budget, a bylaw, a vote, a public safety question.
• Specific. Vague gestures at a trend can't be rated. Numbers, comparisons, and attributions can.

We do not check private life, family, or anything unrelated to the conduct of public office.

How a check is built

1. Archive first. Before anything else, the post is transcribed verbatim into our records and captured as a screenshot, and where possible a third-party archive link is saved. Posts get deleted; the evidence shouldn't disappear with them.
2. Find the primary source. Wherever a claim touches city business, we go to the underlying document — the staff report, the budget line, the council vote record, the Statistics Canada table — not to coverage of it.
3. Rate against the published scale. The verdict is chosen from the fixed list below, not invented per article.
4. Show the work. Every article ends with a numbered source list. If a claim can't be sourced to something a reader can check themselves, it doesn't run.

The rating scale

True

The claim is accurate and nothing significant is left out.

Mostly True

The claim is accurate but needs clarification or additional detail.

Missing Context

The claim is technically accurate but omits information that changes the impression it leaves.

Misleading

The claim contains an element of truth but is framed so as to create a false impression.

False

The claim is not accurate.

Unsubstantiated

The claim is presented as fact but no evidence supports it, and none could be found either way.

A rating applies to the specific claim quoted at the top of the article — not to the person, and not to everything else he has said on the subject. A politician who says one false thing about transit has said one false thing about transit.

What we get wrong

We will make mistakes. When we do, we fix them in the open: the article is corrected, the correction is logged on the article itself and in the corrections log, and nothing is quietly deleted. Read the full corrections policy for how to flag an error.

Independence

This site is not affiliated with, funded by, or coordinated with any political party, campaign, candidate, or advocacy organization, and it is not connected to Brad Bradford, his office, or the City of Toronto. It takes no advertising and accepts no payment for coverage.

The site has an editorial point of view about the standards public officials should be held to. It does not have one about what the facts turn out to be — a claim that checks out is rated True, and those ratings are published the same as any other.