What I'd actually do

Most platforms are a list of things a candidate is in favour of. Everyone is in favour of affordable housing and low taxes. That tells you nothing about how someone votes when it's hard.

So here's the idea underneath all six of these, and you can hold me to it:

Make what Kingston already has work harder before asking you to pay more.

The city owns over a thousand kilometres of pipe, thousands of hectares of serviced land, and buildings that are half-used. Every decision Council makes either uses that better or adds more of it to maintain. Most of the fights at City Hall — the urban boundary, the water corporation, the housing file, the budget — are the same fight wearing different clothes.

Four standards every position below has to pass:

It's specific. Not "we should do better." What I'd push for, in what order, and how you'd know it happened. It's checkable. The numbers on these pages are the City's own — fee schedules, budgets, recorded votes — and where a figure is an estimate, it says so. It's about the next four years. These are decisions landing on the next Council's desk, you need to decide who will make the best decision at council. It passes the dignity test. Would I be comfortable explaining this policy to the person it's being done to?

  • Affordability and responsible growth

    Kingston charges $14,652 for every new detached house — water, sewer, stormwater. A one-bedroom apartment: $6,709. Same city, less than half the price. Build where the pipes already are.

  • Housing people can actually afford

    There are empty bedrooms across this city, people on waitlists, and people sleeping outside. Building takes a decade. Matching people to homes that already exist can really start now and I have started it.

  • Who answers for your water bill

    In June, Council endorsed moving water and wastewater into a separate corporation whose board — not Council — would approve the budgets. It isn't built yet. I'd have voted no.

  • Safety and what happens after September 30

    The consumption and treatment service on Montreal Street closes September 30. I've worked that block for years. I know what happens next (and it is not pretty) if nobody plans for it.

  • Food and community resilience

    Kingston declared a food emergency in January 2025. I'd already been working on it. Food exists. Need exists. The connection is broken and it's fixable.

  • Heritage and who we are

    Kingston should be able to tell its whole history — the founding and the harm — without hiding it or sanitizing it.