The Council of Canadians Asked Me About Water, Bill 5, Housing, and More. Here Are My Answers.

In 2021 London voted to join more than 120 Blue Communities worldwide. This means we are presently committed to: • Public ownership and operation of water services • Recognition of water and sanitation as human right • Phasing out / banning single-user bottled water in municipal facilities and at municipal events.

Will you commit to protecting London’s status as a Blue Community and opposing any attempt to undermine these three commitments?

I reject “human right” as the term, especially for sanitation, since a right can’t obligate someone else’s labour. But no one should lose water access over genuine inability to pay, and working out arrears instead of cutting people off is the right thing to do.

The bottled water rule doesn’t affect most residents day to day, so I’m okay with it.

My priority is public ownership of water under local control: London’s water stays with London council, and not a province-run corporation.

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The Fighting Delays, Building Faster Act, 2025 (Bill 60) gives the provincial municipal affairs and housing minister the power to create a business corporation to take over water and sewage services from municipalities. Although amendments now require such corporations to remain publicly owned, they are not required to operate on a not-for-profit basis. Affected municipalities would have to transfer all their water and wastewater assets, staff, debt, contracts and infrastructure to the new body. The new corporation would set water rates for municipal residents. This model would result in reduced democratic accountability and transparency as decisions about rates, investments, and operations would be made by a corporate board rather than directly by elected council; control will be transferred to the province; and outsourcing to private firms will be enabled. Legally, the Province can impose the model on municipalities it designates. Politically, at least at this stage, the government is seeking voluntary participants before using its broader statutory powers.

Do you support keeping water & sanitation publicly owned through direct control by municipalities?

Will you oppose the provisions of this legislation that threaten to reduce control of water and sanitation by municipalities?

Bill 60 is aimed at exactly this: giving the province more room to take municipal water and sanitation systems out of local hands. I want that decision staying with London council, not shifted to Toronto or handed to a province-run corporation. If Bill 60 provisions move in that direction, I’ll oppose them. Direct municipal control means the people using the system and paying for it are the ones deciding how it’s run, not a provincial appointee who never has to answer to a London taxpayer.

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Would you vote in favour of an AI Data Center in our municipality?

If yes, what conditions would you impose? If no, why not?

My answer is only yes WITH STRONG CONDITIONS. No blanket yes or no.

I won’t vote for a moratorium, but I won’t rubber-stamp projects either. A data centre can earn approval by bringing its own power generation that adds real capacity to the local grid, using cooling that doesn’t strain our municipal water system, and meeting noise and setback rules that protect Londoners’ homes.

Those are the conditions on which I will base my decision.

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Bill 5 creates Special Economic Zones where the provincial government has the power to exempt designated projects from provincial laws, regulations, and municipal bylaws. This authority could be used to waive environmental protections, health and safety requirements, labour standards, and other safeguards.

Do you support Bill 5?

Bill 5 significantly limits opportunities for First Nations consultation and consent. The legislation allows the Ontario government to bypass critical processes that safeguard species at risk, cultural heritage, and treaty rights particularly in regions like the Ring of Fire. It concentrates decision-making power in the hands of ministers and the Lieutenant Governor without mandating First Nations involvement, threatening sovereignty, land stewardship, and ongoing reconciliation efforts.

Do you support the Ontario First Nations Chiefs’ legal challenge against Bill 5?

Bill 5’s Special Economic Zones Act lets the province override local bylaws to fast-track a designated project. I don’t find the First Nations legal challenge’s theory persuasive as the reason to strike it down. That’s a separate legal question from whether Bill 5 itself is good policy. My objection to Bill 5 is mine: it hands the province a tool to override decisions this city’s own council makes, and I don’t think Toronto should be able to overrule London on what happens in London. That’s the same principle behind keeping water under municipal control. If a project needs an exemption from local rules to happen, the community it affects should be the one deciding that, not a provincial cabinet order.

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What are you prepared to do to address London’s opioid/street drug crisis now that funding for safe consumption sites has evaporated?

The City holds three of eleven Board of Health seats, and as councillor I’d use that to push provincial and health-system dollars toward recovery and treatment, not toward managing continued use.

The City doesn’t deliver clinical treatment; hospitals, CMHA, and the province do.

Public drug use is already illegal and I want it enforced, not tolerated, with real help offered to anyone who wants it.

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Affordable housing is a major concern for London voters. What actions do you think City Council should take to address the affordable housing crisis in London?

Faster approvals, not more subsidy. London’s Plan already requires 25 to 40 percent of new housing be affordable, and the City already waives fees and assigns concierge staff for those units. That’s real interference already. The honest fix is speed: pre-approved designs, like the federal housing catalogue, and faster permits, so supply actually grows.

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The City of London employs Property Standards Officers to inspect rental properties, document conditions, and enforce municipal property standards by-laws. Would you support expanding their role to document evidence of suspected bad-faith evictions or landlord fraud, preserve that evidence, and refer well-documented cases to London Police or the appropriate provincial authorities for investigation?

This exposes a real problem: two levels of government both claiming the same job.

Property Standards Officers enforce municipal by-laws, property condition, permits, the renovation-eviction licence process. Determining “bad-faith eviction” or “landlord fraud” is a legal finding, and that authority already sits with the Landlord and Tenant Board under the Residential Tenancies Act, backed by the province’s own Rental Housing Enforcement Unit and the police for anything criminal.

Layering a City investigation function on top of that doesn’t fix the problem, it just gives London two agencies doing the same job with no clearer answer for tenants. Pick one. Either it stays provincial, where the legal authority already exists, or it moves to the municipal level, and if it moves, the funding moves with it. The Province downloading enforcement onto the City without downloading the money to pay for it is how you end up with an unfunded program and the same complaints a year from now.

Ottawa looked at this exact proposal and rejected it for the same reason. I’d rather push the province to actually enforce the powers it already has than build a duplicate program the City can’t properly fund.

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Is keeping property taxes low a priority for you?

Yes. London has a spending problem, not a revenue problem, and every tax dollar taken is a dollar out of a family’s or small business’s pocket.

I won’t vote for any property tax increase, for any reason during my term.

Growth should pay for growth: new development should cover the roads, water, and sewer capacity it demands, so existing taxpayers aren’t subsidizing someone else’s expansion.

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Would you prioritize any municipal needs over reducing or limiting increases in municipal property taxes?

Yes, for genuine needs. No, for luxuries.

If a real need comes up, I’d rather find it inside the existing budget by cutting lower-priority spending than reach for a tax increase. I won’t vote for a property tax increase, for any reason.

London’s problem is how the money already collected gets spent, not how much more we could collect.

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The Best Defense Conference is an annual Canadian defense industry trade fair held at the city owned RBC Place London.

Do you think hosting a trade fair for arms manufacturers and dealers is consistent with the civic values of our city?

Would you support a request from City Council to the Board of RBC Place to discontinue hosting this event?

London has a real defence manufacturing presence. General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada builds armoured combat vehicles here, employs a significant number of Londoners, and just landed a multi-billion-dollar federal contract for a new armoured vehicle fleet. That’s a legitimate local industry we rely on for protecting our sovereignty.

I wouldn’t support council asking the RBC Place board to cancel the event either, and the reason goes beyond this one case. The moment government starts making subjective values judgments instead of sticking to objective ones based on law, it’s picked up a double-edged sword. That sword doesn’t stay pointed at whoever’s unpopular today. Councils change, majorities change, and a power used to shut down an industry one council doesn’t like gets turned against a different industry, or a different group of people, the next time the politics shift. Once you’ve established that council can ban a lawful business from a public venue because it disapproves, nobody’s safe from that logic being turned on them eventually, including people who cheered it on the first time.

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The rise of the far right, both internationally and, particularly, in Southwestern Ontario, is a concern for many voters. In 2017, in response to a planned rally by groups promoting racist and hateful views, London City Council passed an emergency motion condemning all forms of racism, bigotry, and hate and prohibiting hate groups from holding rallies on city-owned property. In November 2025, a far-right group hung a banner from the Wortley Road overpass with the message “Remigration Now.”

What measures, if any, would you support City Council taking to prevent or respond to similar activities by far-right groups in the future?

Nobody is above the law. And nobody should feel intimidated or targeted in their own city, and I take that seriously. I would go even further. I wouldn’t stop at the far-right; I support full enforcement against anyone, of any ideology no matter where they fall on the political spectrum, committing illegal acts. And, in accordance with the law, if speech is lawful, then it must be permitted. The best disinfectant is daylight.

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The City of London, London Fire Department, and London Police Service are working together to build a new Emergency Services Campus. The campus will support the operational and training needs of first responders, improve regional emergency preparedness and create new spaces for public safety education. A portion of this quarter billion-dollar budget ($200-$270M) will be directed to scenario simulation and indoor and outdoor firing ranges, measures that support more militarized and aggressive policing infrastructure.

Will you commit to demanding transparency about the portion of this Emergency Services Campus budget devoted to policing, as opposed to fire, dispatch, EMS, HAZMAT response?

Will you commit to reducing the budget for the Emergency Services Campus by the amount that would be used for policing?

I’ll commit to demanding real transparency on how the Emergency Services Campus budget breaks down between policing, fire, dispatch, EMS, and HAZMAT. Taxpayers funding a $200 to $270 million project are entitled to see exactly where that money goes, line by line, not a single combined number.

I won’t commit to cutting the policing portion in advance, and that’s regardless of whether it’s even legally possible to carve one department’s share out of a joint capital project after the fact. Firing ranges and scenario simulation are training infrastructure. That’s how officers get and keep the skills to do the job safely, for themselves and for the public they respond to. Wanting transparency on where the money goes and pre-committing to slash a training budget are two different things.

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Downtown London has many vacant commercial and heritage properties. What actions, if any, would you support to encourage these properties to be occupied, restored, or redeveloped in ways that serve the public interest? Please provide specific examples.

Cut the friction. Fast-track permits and support pre-approved designs for adaptive reuse, like turning vacant buildings into housing or retail, so redevelopment is faster and cheaper than sitting empty. Streamline heritage permitting instead of layering on more review.

A vacant building costs its owner money every month; if we make it easier to fix that, most owners will.

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Should the City advocate for additional powers from the Province, such as the authority to impose a vacant commercial property tax?

Yes, I’d support the City advocating for more power from the Province generally, including the authority to levy a vacant commercial property tax if council chose to. That’s a question about which level of government should have the tool available, not whether I’d personally use it.

If it came to an actual vote on imposing that tax, I’d vote against it. I’m loath to create new taxes, period, and a vacant property tax is still a new tax. My approach to vacant buildings is the one I laid out above: cut the friction. Fast-tracked permits and pre-approved designs for adaptive reuse make it cheap and quick to fix up a vacant building, so owners have a real reason to act. That gets the result a tax is aiming for, without adding another bill for a property owner who’s already struggling to fill the space.

Either way, I’d rather London hold the authority to make that call for itself than need permission from Toronto to even consider it.

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