Where I stand on cameras, surveillance and privacy
Here is every answer I've given on the record about cameras, surveillance and privacy, word for word, from candidate questionnaires and my replies to residents.
Don't see your question? Search below, or ask me directly and I'll answer it on the record.
Panopti.ca ALPR questionnaire
Do you support or oppose the deployment of fixed ALPR cameras in your municipality? Please explain your reasoning.
London Police Service already operates mobile ALPR on about 50 cruisers, with a completed privacy impact assessment and a stated policy of deleting non-hit data immediately. An officer is behind the wheel deciding where and when to drive, and, most importantly, non-hit data is deleted and not stored in a database. I can live with that system on the condition that the stated policy is actually followed and independently verified, not simply assumed.
A fixed camera network is different. It runs continuously with no officer making a judgment call, and it builds a permanent, searchable record of where every vehicle in the city has been. Waterloo activated exactly this kind of fixed CCTV and ALPR network in June, with more communities expected to follow. I oppose it for London.
My objection is not only that government would hold this data. I do not trust a private company to compile mass surveillance data on citizens either, whether the customer is a government or anyone else. A fixed network built and hosted by a vendor does not solve the problem by moving it outside City Hall. It adds a second party with access to the same compiled record. A permanent, always-on database creates its own risk regardless of who holds it or how careful today's policy looks: it invites expansion, becomes a target for a breach, and creates pressure to widen its use over time.
Panopti.ca ALPR questionnaire
Would you permit ALPR data collected in your municipality to be shared with other police services, federal agencies, or entities outside Canada?
No, not by default, and not through a standing agreement with any vendor or police service. Data collected here should stay with the department that collected it unless a specific request, with its own legal basis, says otherwise.
"The data will only be used for its stated purpose" has already failed in Canada without anyone acting in bad faith. In 2012, British Columbia's privacy commissioner found that Victoria police's ALPR data, run on an RCMP-shared system, was being passed to the RCMP and kept past the point its stated purpose, checking plates against a stolen-vehicle and violation list, was served; the province forced the RCMP to reconfigure the system to delete that data instead. A federal contractor's network was separately breached in 2019, exposing more than a million licence-plate images collected under a different federal program; over ten thousand were confirmed leaked, some more than a decade old, and a 2022 federal privacy finding held the government responsible even though the contractor's own network was the actual point of failure. This survey names Flock Safety as one vendor selling this kind of system, and reporting in the United States has documented tens of thousands of its cameras searched directly by outside agencies, on exactly the kind of shared network this question is asking about.
I will not approve a program, or a vendor contract, that lets data leave the department that collected it except through a specific request tied to an active investigation or a court order. No standing agreement hands data to another police service. No federal agency gets default access. And nothing crosses the border to any entity outside Canada: once it does, it's outside the reach of Canadian courts and Canadian privacy law entirely. That distrust runs both directions. Government should not get to misuse this kind of data, and government should not get to hand a private company permission to compile it either, for its own use or anyone else's.
Panopti.ca ALPR questionnaire
What role should public consultation play before surveillance technology is acquired? Would you commit to a public privacy impact assessment?
Yes. A privacy impact assessment should be public before council votes, not filed away after, and residents should get a real comment period long enough to actually respond, not a notice posted the week of the vote.
London Police Service's existing mobile ALPR program already went through a privacy impact assessment before deployment. That is the right bar. I would apply the same bar publicly, in advance, to anything new: the specific problem the system is meant to solve, what was tried instead, and why this tool and this scale are proportionate to that problem, not just proportionate to what a vendor is selling.
The City having source-available access under contract doesn't mean the public has it. On top of that floor, I would push for the source code to be published outright before any contract is signed, so independent experts and any resident who wants to can review it while a vote can still be changed by what they find. Most vendors will refuse that. Where full public release can't be negotiated, I would still want an independent expert to examine the code and publish their findings before the vote.
I oppose a fixed ALPR system outright. No privacy impact assessment or public process changes that. For the mobile program already in place, renewal carries the same conditions as any new contract: the code-access floor already described, a public privacy impact assessment, and a genuine public comment period, all in advance and all on the record before the vote. Skip any of those steps on a renewal, and I vote no regardless of what the system itself does.
Panopti.ca ALPR questionnaire
What limits, if any, would you require on ALPR data: retention periods, access controls, independent audits, public reporting?
Ontario's own Information and Privacy Commissioner published detailed guidance on police ALPR use in December 2024: delete non-hit data immediately, log every manual search with the officer's name and reason, run periodic independent audits, and publish the retention period, camera locations, and policy publicly. I would hold London to that standard rather than to something weaker.
For non-hit data, the Commissioner's standard is immediate deletion: a scan that doesn't match a stolen vehicle, wanted plate, or similar alert must be purged the moment that's confirmed. Toronto's public policy instead keeps all scans, hits and non-hits alike, for 365 days before purging. That is a real gap between what the province's own privacy watchdog recommends and what a major Ontario police service actually does, and it is exactly why I want an independent audit confirming what London actually retains and deletes, reported publicly on a fixed schedule. The cost of that audit belongs to the vendor selling the system, not to taxpayers.
Panopti.ca ALPR questionnaire
Would you commit to timely, complete responses to freedom-of-information requests about surveillance technology?
Yes, and it needs enforcement given the record. In 2017, London Police Service completed only 56.2% of FOI requests within the province's deadline at the time, well below the 81% municipal average that year. Under the current 45-business-day standard, missing that deadline outright counts as a deemed refusal, appealable to Ontario's Information and Privacy Commissioner. I would hold LPS to that standard publicly.
That commitment covers the technology itself: contracts, the privacy impact assessment, audit results, and deployment policy should all be releasable in full, and a vendor's confidentiality clause should never be the reason a resident can't see what the City is buying, what it costs, or what an audit found. Any contract that requires those basic facts to stay secret is a contract I would vote against before it ever creates an FOI problem.
Panopti.ca ALPR questionnaire
Anything else you would like voters concerned about mass surveillance to know?
I support policing, and I support London's existing mobile ALPR program under strict conditions: a human operating it, immediate deletion of anything that isn't a hit, and an audit trail that's actually checked. I want more officers visible in neighbourhoods too. Fixed, always-on cameras are a different category of tool: infrastructure that watches everyone who passes, all the time, whether or not there's ever a reason to.
The test I apply to any new government power is the same one I'd apply to a tax or a bylaw: does it solve a real, demonstrated problem, is the burden on residents proportionate to what it actually buys them, and would it still hold up in four years once the initial promises get checked against results. Fixed ALPR fails that test because it inverts the normal order: police are supposed to build a reason to look at someone specific, and a network of cameras logs everyone first and looks for a reason afterward.
That same standard applies to private companies, not just government. A vendor holding this data on the City's behalf is the same problem in different hands. A single, justified look at a single plate is a power police can earn, case by case, with a reason on record. An always-on network that watches everyone by default is not that kind of power at all, and no audit or vendor safeguard changes that. This is something I vehemently oppose.
No More Noise Municipal Candidate Promise survey
Do you agree to push the province for automated enforcement?
We are asking municipalities to pass formal council resolutions urging the Province of Ontario to amend the Highway Traffic Act so it can allow for automated noise enforcement pilots in our cities.
No. I'm against fixed cameras surveilling London’s citizens on principle, and a noise camera is another fixed camera reading licence plates, so I will oppose them.
Panopti.ca ALPR questionnaire
Where would you direct the money an ALPR program would cost, if not to ALPRs?
Not every dollar not spent on fixed cameras has to go somewhere else. If a program doesn't clear the bar on its own merits, the money goes back to taxpayers, not into a different program by default.
But where I would send it is neighbourhood patrol, because the crime I care about here, vehicle break-ins, shed and garage theft, things taken off porches, is significantly undercounted. Only about half of break-ins and vehicle-related thefts ever get reported to police, and 57% of people who skip reporting say it's because they don't believe police can recover the property anyway. London's theft-from-vehicle count rose nearly 46% in 2025, and the national clearance rate for motor vehicle theft sits under 10%. That gap means official crime statistics understate this problem by design, so I would not have London rely on police-report maps alone to decide where officers go; resident associations, insurance claims, and non-emergency call volume pick up patterns that never make it into a report, and those should count too.
The research favours visibility over volume: officers deployed to known problem locations cut property crime by roughly a third in controlled studies, while patrol spread thin and randomly across a whole area showed no effect. I would fund that: consistent, visible patrol in the neighbourhoods this combined picture, formal reports and informal ones, actually points to, not a camera network.
Panopti.ca ALPR questionnaire
If ALPR procurement, renewal, or expansion (e.g. contracts with vendors such as Flock Safety, Genetec, or Motorola Solutions) came before council or the police services board, how would you vote?
I would vote against any fixed ALPR network and against any procurement or contract, including with Flock Safety, Genetec, or Motorola Solutions, that expands London toward one. Flock Safety in particular has a documented pattern in the United States: agencies outside a customer's own department gained access to its cross-jurisdictional lookup network despite the company's own policies saying otherwise. A vendor's privacy promises are not a substitute for a hard limit written into the contract, the bylaw, and the system's own code. Any contract has to make the code source-available to the City, either under a non-disclosure agreement or through a forensic audit by a third party of the City's choosing, paid for by the vendor. That floor is non-negotiable: a vendor unwilling to meet it doesn't get the contract.
Renewal of the existing mobile program is a separate question, but it's still a contract. The same code-access floor applies, plus independent proof that the current retention and access rules are actually being followed, not just restated.
Constituent concerns (ward9.online/concerns/)
Will you support lowering the speed limit on Longwoods Road after the December 2024 tragedy?
As you know, I also live on Longwoods Road, just down from the horrific tragedy that occurred on December 16, 2024. It's not something that any of us will forget.
Our goal here is the same: a road where what happened to an innocent child doesn't happen again. But speed limits are not the cause or the solution here, and I want to walk through my reasoning.
**What happened that day.**
The bus was stopped. The red lights were flashing. The stop arm was extended. A courier in a 2023 Honda Pilot drove straight past it. The child had been told, correctly, that those flashing lights and that extended arm meant every driver on the road would stop. London Police investigated for six months. Two people were charged: the courier, for the bypass, and the bus driver, for letting him off the bus without confirming traffic had stopped.
Two separate, independent failures of an absolute rule. Neither one is a speed-limit question.
**Why a lower limit would not have changed this outcome.**
A posted speed limit sets the upper bound for drivers who intend to obey the rules of the road. It is meaningful for the careful driver. It is not meaningful for a driver willing to pass a stopped school bus with its lights flashing. A driver who commits that violation with a posted 80km/h limit will commit it at any posted speed, and probably won't slow down either. The problem with the courier was not his speed. It was that he blew past a stopped bus with its lights flashing. That's not something a lower speed limit can solve.
Lowering the speed limit of the former Highway 2 corridor would not have changed the outcome on December 16, 2024. That is the hard truth.
More broadly, studies on two-lane roads have found that slower lead vehicles, larger speed differentials, platooning, and restricted passing opportunities can increase driver frustration and overtaking intent. That is especially concerning on our stretch of Longwoods, with its many driveways, curves, and side roads, and it is another reason I am cautious about lowering posted limits as a general policy.
**What would actually move the needle.**
The interventions that target what actually went wrong are real, and most of them are within the scope of city council.
- **Stop-arm cameras on London school buses.** Ontario authorized municipalities to use and prosecute with these in 2020. A petition launched by Charles and Rachel Bakker after the Longwoods tragedy gathered over 2,100 signatures and called for measures including red light cameras. The petition was addressed directly to local politicians and London's police chief. The city installed a speed radar sign in response, but has not acted on the camera proposal. This is the kind of targeted deterrent I would push the city to pursue.
- **The school bus stop relocation.** The school bus service already adjusted the route, and students are no longer crossing Longwoods. This is the type of intervention that actually targets the failure mode: address the root and don't rely on the competence and reliability of drivers.
- **Police enforcement of the rules already on the books.** Monitoring stop-arm violations and corridor speeding are operational decisions a councillor does not direct. What a councillor does have influence over is the police operating budget and four of seven Police Service Board appointments. My goal is enforcement of what is already in place.
**Where I stand.**
Lowering speed limits, especially on major roads and arteries, is contrary to my commitment to improving mobility. Frustrated drivers can become dangerous drivers. My focus is on efficient road travel, proper and complete safety measures for our children, and enforcement of the safety laws we already have. (Answered publicly at ward9.online/concerns/#concern-2.)
CCAL (Concerned Citizens Association of London) questionnaire
London has signed onto international frameworks — the Global Covenant of Mayors, UN-aligned "human rights" initiatives, and global NGO agendas — that impose obligations, reporting burdens, and data-sharing commitments on the city without any mandate from local voters. These commitments are made by staff and a handful of councillors, then treated as binding on everyone.
How will you ensure that offshore-funded groups do not exert undue influence over London's budget, the privacy of residents' data, or commitments that conflict with Canadian law — and that they cannot bypass local control through well-organized campaigns such as the highly controversial "Climate Emergency"? And will you support withdrawing from organizations that push agendas contrary to Londoners' expressed wishes?
Londoners decide for London. I will reject outright any attempt by offshore-funded groups, international frameworks, or global NGO campaigns to steer our budget, grab residents' data, or lock the City into commitments that conflict with Canadian law. Labels like a "climate emergency" do not get a free pass on spending or policy. Every dollar and every data share still needs a local case, a cost, and a benefit to Ward 9 residents and all Londoners.
I will also support withdrawing from organizations that push agendas contrary to what Londoners have asked for. If a membership mainly exports decision-making and reporting burdens while importing priorities set somewhere else, it does not belong. Local control is not optional.
Constituent concerns (ward9.online/concerns/)
What would you do about persistent boulevard/weed neglect and unresolved property theft in Ward 9?
You're certainly not the only one to bring these issues up, and I share your concern. The camera case is especially egregious, knowing where the stolen item was but completely dropping it anyway.
A councillor can't explicitly direct the police, but we do have a say in the budget, and council effectively controls four of the seven Police Service Board seats. Board duties under the Community Safety and Policing Act include hiring and firing the chief, running the chief's annual performance review, and approving the operating and capital budget. The board also sets the service's objectives and priorities as part of its strategic plan, and the chief has to run the department within those priorities. I would advocate for strict enforcement. We can't control the courts at the provincial level, but we need to make London as inhospitable for criminals as possible.
The weeds and the boulevards are a different problem with the same shape. The City already budgets for that work, and it isn't getting done. You've called every year and gotten the same promise. That's exactly the kind of documented example I'm building into a public record of City spending priorities, so council has to answer case by case for services taxpayers already pay for and aren't getting. (Answered publicly at ward9.online/concerns/#concern-6.)
CCAL (Concerned Citizens Association of London) questionnaire
London spent $1.3 million on the Housing Collaborative Initiative — software that was never used — with $933,000 going to a single outside consultant. Council went years without meaningful updates while the bills quietly mounted. The London Economic Development Corporation receives $2.3 million annually under a purchase-of-services agreement that is not put to tender. Other organizations receiving millions for homelessness work resist even basic public reporting. Taxpayers should not need a Freedom of Information request — often answered with redactions — to see their own spending.
Will you ensure all contracts, invoices, and spending details are proactively published and accessible to council without an FOI request — and what reporting frequency will you demand from every funded agency?
I'll push for it. Since it takes a council majority, no single councillor can ensure that outcome outright, but I'll vote for it and keep pushing until it happens. Contracts, invoices, and spending details should be published proactively, and not surrendered one redacted page at a time after a Freedom of Information request.
On the multi-city Housing Collaborative Initiative, London paid a consultant roughly $800,000, and residents only learned the details because reporters kept pulling the thread. I'd require every agency receiving City funding to report quarterly with real numbers attached to real deliverables, published where any resident can find it.
Any vendor contract that requires basic facts like cost, scope, or performance to stay confidential is a contract I'd vote against, and any privacy impact assessment should be public before council votes on it.