Climate Action London, a local climate-advocacy group, sent every candidate the same seven-question survey: transit service, affordable housing targets, the City’s Climate Change Reserve Fund, mode share targets for walking, cycling, and transit, building height maximums, a mandatory lobbyist registry, and a proposed moratorium on AI data centres. I’ve already submitted my answers directly to Climate Action London. Here they are for anyone who wants to read them without waiting.
Each question is quoted in full below, exactly as it was asked, followed by my position on the same five-point scale the survey used and my full reasoning. Each one has its own link, so if there’s one you want to share, it’s easy to do.
All seven questions, and my answers
It is a priority to improve London Transit service by having 15 minute service frequency during peak weekday hours (maximum headway) on all main arterial routes while maintaining 10 minute service frequency on Rapid Transit routes. 15 minute service frequency is comparable to service in cities like Halifax and Kitchener-Waterloo. Additionally, London Transit should work to eliminate neighbourhood gaps where residents are not within 400m walking distance of a regularly service bus stop.
Matt’s position: Neither agree nor disagree
Frequent buses are worth having where people actually ride them. A 15-minute peak standard on every arterial, plus a stop within 400 metres of every home, is a citywide expansion that has to be paid for every year in buses, operators, and subsidy.
London Transit is already adding service hours under its 2024-2027 business plan, and Rapid Transit is being built for buses every five or ten minutes. For 2026, LTC trimmed $700,000 from its City funding request because fuel and insurance costs came in lower than budgeted, without touching a single approved service hour. That is the standard I want applied to any new spending too: match the dollars to the real cost, not to a blanket target.
I will support frequency where the riders are there and the tax bill can carry it, corridor by corridor. I will vote no on a blanket citywide standard that skips that test.
It is a high priority that the City of London meet the goal in the London Plan that 25% of new housing, in aggregate, (and 40% for secondary plans) is affordable to low- and moderate-income households. London has been falling short on this goal therefore it should commit to all means available to the City to increase the number of new affordable units including leverage of public lands, financial incentives to developers by reducing fees, expedited approval timelines and concierge service team for affordable developments and use of the Canada Housing catalogue of pre-approved designs. Additionally, the City should prevent private developers from turning affordable rental units into expensive ones.
Matt’s position: Neither agree nor disagree
I support faster, more predictable approvals and reforms, like pre-approved house designs, that cut building costs for every applicant. Both lower the cost of a unit, market or below-market, without a subsidy or a special track for anyone.
New homes are welcome where roads, water, wastewater, drainage, transit, emergency services, and parks can support the added population. Where that capacity is missing, the infrastructure plan has to come first, with a clear funding source. Existing residents should not be left paying the bill or living with worse service. Growth should pay for the infrastructure it requires.
The London Plan already requires 25% of new housing to be affordable for low- and moderate-income households, the City’s incentive program already waives development charges for units locked into a 25-year income-restricted agreement, and Council has since assigned a dedicated staff concierge to walk those specific applications through approvals. That’s already more interference in the market than I would like to see.
Moving forward, I will support cutting fees and speeding up approvals across the board, and let the market dictate what class of housing needs more supply to meet demand. Developers already agree to a 25-year affordability term in exchange for the City’s fee exemption and concierge service. I do not support the City going further and locking those units, or any others, into a permanent rent cap: this drastically lowers incentives to provide rental units, and leads landlords to abandon necessary maintenance once the capped rent stops covering the cost of upkeep.
It is important to restore funding to the Climate Change Reserve Fund to $1m per year, as it was when it was initially created and only use the funds for genuine expenses related to mitigation and adaptation projects designed to increase London’s resilience to the increasing impacts of the Climate Emergency.
Matt’s position: Strongly disagree
London declared a climate emergency on April 23, 2019. Council’s own resolution names the purpose as “naming, framing and deepening our commitment.” I do not support using an emergency label to win budget lines.
Six years on, the City’s own numbers do not support the label. The City’s July 17, 2025 CEAP progress report shows corporate greenhouse gas emissions rose 4 percent year over year, even as Council approved $1 million a year for the Climate Change Reserve Fund for 2023-2027 and then cut planned annual contributions to $192,000. By the end of 2024 the fund held $1.192 million, and only about $225,000 of it had actually reached a project. The other $967,000 sat unallocated, with a backlog of new requests worth $1.21 million to $1.91 million waiting behind it. Money not moving and emissions still rising is not what a real emergency response looks like.
Until someone can articulate the exact criteria that justify declaring a state of emergency, and exactly how the money would be spent to produce a meaningful mitigating effect on the cause of that emergency, I am against spending taxpayer dollars that do nothing more than signal an intention to act. I would oppose putting that million back on the basis of the emergency label alone.
Building height maximums as specified in the London Plan should be strictly adhered to as they represent comprehensive plans for the growth of the city taking into account utility demands, emergency services, mobility plans, and preserving neighbourhood character. Recently, council has been approving many developments that exceed both maximum heights and densities as per the London Plan. Given that place types such as downtown, transit villages and corridors and urban corridors already allow significant building heights to meet housing supply demands and intensification targets, individual exceptions should not be allowed but changes to these height and density maximums should only be addressed through official plan amendments.
Matt’s position: Strongly agree
The London Plan already allows 45 storeys downtown and 35 in Transit Villages. Urban Corridors go to 15. Neighbourhood Connector streets are capped at 4. Height belongs where the pipes, roads, and emergency services are built for it.
Council has been granting site-specific exceptions that blow past those caps. On June 23, 2026, Council approved six storeys and 100 units per hectare for 3924, 4012 and 4050 Colonel Talbot Road in Lambeth, above the Southwest Area Secondary Plan’s own cap of four storeys and 75 units per hectare. I filed a written objection before the vote, citing the specific policies it violated. Council approved the application anyway, and Ward 9’s current councillor voted for it. The pattern repeats: Council approved 16 storeys a year earlier at 6309 Pack Road, against a 9-storey cap. That is the kind of exception I will vote against.
If the citywide height table needs to change, change the table through a proper Official Plan amendment, in public. Do not grant exceptions for specific applicants, especially when it has not been proven that the infrastructure is in place to handle such intensification, and when it is not in character with the surrounding neighbourhoods.
The City of London should implement a mandatory lobbyist registry. It would help promote public trust, prevent conflicts of interest and ensure fair access. Over 15 Ontario municipalities have mandatory lobbyist registries, many of which have low cost solutions. For example Guelph has implemented a solution costing less than $25,000 per year.
Matt’s position: Strongly agree
Residents should be able to see who is paid to influence City Hall. Guelph’s mandatory registry, running since October 2024, was built in-house and is expected to cost $10,000 to $20,000 a year, comfortably under the $25,000 figure cited above. Hamilton has run one since 2015, and Burlington’s own City Clerk administers its registry, both without a large new office. London can copy a working model instead of building one from scratch.
I will support a mandatory lobbyist registry so meetings that shape planning files, contracts, and by-laws are on the public record.
The City of London should implement a 1-2 year moratorium on AI Data Centres. There are many harmful aspects to AI Data Centres such as straining local energy grids, constant industrial level noise, heat island impacts over 2 degrees potential up to 10kms away, high water usage or other potential negative environmental impacts from maintaining closed loop cooling systems. AI Data Centres also provide very few jobs after construction. A moratorium would allow proper higher level government regulation and standards to be created before putting London residents at risk.
Matt’s position: Slightly disagree
A one or two-year freeze treats every proposal the same. Some sites would pull hard on the local grid, run noisy equipment next to homes, and draw heavily on the municipal water system to cool it. Other sites don’t have to. Burlington is currently reviewing a 20-megawatt data centre that is air-cooled (uses no municipal water for cooling) and is going through the same site plan and servicing review as any other large building in the city. That difference is exactly what a blanket freeze ignores.
I will not vote for a moratorium. Hamilton’s council rejected a one-year data centre pause in July, 10 to 6. I will vote for conditions instead. A campus that wants City approval should bring power generation that adds capacity to the local grid instead of only serving itself, use cooling that does not negatively impact the municipal water system, and meet noise and setback rules that protect nearby homes.
Construction employment is real, but temporary, and it runs at roughly four jobs for every one permanent position once the site is operating. The lasting local return is property tax assessment growth and, if the generation condition is enforced, grid capacity the entire city benefits from too. Both depend on the conditions being written into the approval, not assumed after the fact. I will approve a data centre that meets the tests. I will refuse one that does not.
That is every question, in the order they were asked. If you can help me sharpen my positions, please get in touch!