Let’s skip the “I promise I’ll fight hard for you” slogans and get right to policy details, shall we?
First, the short version: I believe that human needs are human rights. This means food, water, shelter, healthcare, education, a livable environment, and everything else someone needs to thrive in modern society should be guaranteed to everyone living in so-called Canada. All my policy positions flow from this core idea.
Beyond local issues, I have strong opinions on global issues like war and climate change which still affect Waterloo directly and indirectly – and on which Waterluvians can also have a positive affect!
I’ve organized my platform by topic for easier reading, but all these issues are intersectional!
Food
Interim:
- Supplement established food banks with enough resources (i.e., cash, foodstuffs, and sundries) to entirely meet all Waterluvians’ current needs.
Long-Term:
- Launch at least one city-owned not-for-profit grocery store which is fully union-operated.
- Introduce bylaws which hold corporate grocers accountable locally for using real estate contracts to eliminate small business competition.
- Create programs to incentivize the creation of community food gardens and other food production and distribution cooperatives.
Water
Interim:
- Introduce a bylaw that irrevocably prohibits the privatization of water within the City of Waterloo.
- Introduce a bylaw that requires all local businesses drawing a material amount of water (i.e., greater than 0.5% of total commercial and industrial consumption) locally to publicly report their usage via a city-operated website.
- Introduce a bylaw that requires thorough public consultation before any local business can newly draw a material amount of local water.
Long-Term:
- Publish a service standard for water infrastructure repair and maintenance designed to ensure 99.9% availability and a restore time objective (RTO) of 24 hours for systemic issues.
- Introduce a bylaw that would automatically declare a state of emergency if the water availability standard is not met.
- Introduce a bylaw that would revoke a landlord’s license if one or more of their units does not meet the water availability standard.
Shelter
Interim:
- Introduce a mandatory rent registry and licensing bylaw, which requires landlords to:
- publicly disclose all their global rental holdings,
- publicly disclose all their units’ monthly rent rates, and
- pay an annual landlord registration fee, which scales up based on the total number of units they own globally.
- Introduce a bylaw mandating that 25% of all new-built units must be “affordable for singles”, which specifically means:
- less than 30% of the average gross income for individual residents of the City of Waterloo (i.e. approx. $60,000 in 2026), which is less than $1,500 per month.
- Introduce a bylaw mandating that 50% of all new-built units must be “affordable for families”, which specifically means:
- less than 30% of the average gross household income for residents of the City of Waterloo (i.e. approx. $94,000 in 2026), which is less than $2,350 per month.
Long-Term:
- Create a city-owned municipal housing corporation to build and operate non-market housing, with a goal of operating 10% of the city’s entire housing stock within 20 years.
Environment
Interim:
- Introduce a bylaw mandatory polluter registry and licensing bylaw, which requires businesses to:
- publicly disclose all their local pollution emission rates and
- contribute annually to a local environmental resilience fund for all emissions which exceed provincial, federal, or international standards.
Long-Term:
- Introduce a bylaw that requires all businesses seeking to access local programs to meet or exceed all provincial and federal emissions standards.
Transit
Interim:
- Fully subsidize (free) seniors and students Grand River Transit passes. (Currently $47/month for the ‘Affordable Transit Program’ and $10.41/month for ‘U-Pass’ for Conestoga, Laurier, and Waterloo students.)
Long-Term:
- Fully subsidize (free) Grand River Transit passes for every Waterluvian. (Currently $88/month for Travelwise member company employees and $104/month for everyone else.)
Education
Long-Term:
- Advocate for the city’s post-secondary institutions (i.e., Conestoga College, University of Waterloo, and Wilfrid Laurier University) to fully subsidize (free) tuition for Waterluvians.
Tax
Short-Term:
- Create a new scaling residential property tax scheme, where the first $250,000 of owned residential property is tax-free and the total residential property tax collected in 2027 is exactly 2% higher than in 2026 and then grows inline with the consumer price index (CPI). This necessarily means that homes worth significantly more than the average (approx. $700,000) will experience a significant property tax increase, while homes valued below average may experience a property tax decrease.
Justice
Interim:
- Significantly cut the City of Waterloo’s contribution to the Waterloo Regional Police Service (WRPS) annual budget.
- Introduce a bylaw prohibiting the use of Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR) and facial recognition cameras in the City of Waterloo.
Long-Term:
- Transition from a militarized regional police service to a community security service.
Electoral Reform
Interim:
- Unfortunately, the municipal electoral system is largely out of the City of Waterloo’s control. As such, the best we can do is aggressively advocate for Elections Ontario to replace the First Past the Post electoral system with a ranked choice electoral system.