Responsible Growth and Spending

As a candidate for Ward 6, my campaign is centred on together making our community a better place for everyone. My goal is to ensure that our city services are efficient and effective, providing essential services like public safety, street maintenance, preserving green spaces, building local businesses and working on challenging issues like affordable housing.

There’s a lot to do, and that’s why it will be especially important to make wise choices about future city spending. We must adequately support key services and ensure that property owners are not overburdened.

Developing an entertainment district in the downtown core will be a huge issue for the next council. I support its development as a means of rejuvenating our downtown, but only in proportion to our population and needs. I am wary about the rising estimated cost for the proposed district, currently at approximately $1.2 billion.

If the district’s development costs are funded via other levels of government funding in partnership with private industry and not reliant on city taxpayers, then the potential for a win-win result is high.

If, however, the expectation is for taxpayers to cover the costs and associated risks in the development of this significant project, my future support will be limited.