Who answers when your water bill goes up

What Council decided

On June 16th, 2026, Kingston City Council voted 8–4 to endorse creating a Municipal Service Corporation for water and wastewater. Endorse — not finalize. The corporation doesn't exist yet, and that distinction matters more than anything else on this page. I'll come back to it.

Let me be accurate about what that is, because it's been described badly in both directions.

It isn't privatization. The corporation is publicly owned, not-for-profit, and Council reaffirmed that unanimously. Nobody is selling your water to a private company.

What it does change is who's accountable. Council stays the shareholder and appoints the board. But Council would no longer approve the budgets. The board would.

That's the part worth caring about. The rates you pay get set one step further from the people you elect.

Why they did it

The honest case for it: Kingston's debt is heading toward $475 million by the end of this year, roughly 40 per cent of it water and wastewater. Utilities Kingston can't borrow on its own. Moving that debt off the City's books frees up more than $20 million in additional borrowing room without raising taxes.

That's a real problem and it deserves a real answer.

Where I stand

I'd have voted no — not because the problem isn't real, but because the answer treats the symptom.

The debt grows every time we add pipe we'll own forever. Growing outward is why we keep needing more borrowing room. Growing inward is how we stop needing it.

I'd rather fix the cause than build a second place to put the debt. (Here's what that looks like →)

And before Council handed budget approval to an appointed board, residents should have seen what it does to their rates. That work wasn't in front of anyone when the vote happened.

It isn't settled

Here's the part I said I'd come back to. Council endorsed the idea. It hasn't built the thing yet.

The shareholder declaration — the document that actually determines how much control Council keeps, including whether budget approval really leaves the table — comes back around the second quarter of 2027.

That lands on the Council you're electing. If you want someone at that table who was against this from the start and will read the fine print, that's the vote for me.

What I'd bring to it

Budget approval stays with Council, or the shareholder agreement explains publicly why not. Rate impacts published before adoption, not after. Quarterly public reporting in plain language, not a technical annex nobody reads. A hard cap on borrowing without a Council vote.

Constituent service, since we're talking about accountability

Every request I receive gets logged and answered. And the record gets published — how many requests came in, what kinds, how fast they were answered, and what's still open — updated monthly, so you can see whether I'm doing the job.

What doesn't get published: your name, your address, your situation. Casework runs through people's housing, health, families and neighbours, and none of that belongs on a website. Your business stays private. My performance doesn't.

My commitment: you hear back within two business days, every time. Not always the full answer — some problems take weeks, and I'll tell you when they will — but never silence. If I miss the standard, the record will show it, because the record is public.

Most of what a councillor actually does isn't voting. It's whether your call gets returned. I'd rather be measured on that than talk about it.

One more thing about how committees work

Kingston's procedural bylaw lets committees limit how residents speak to them. Some committees use that generously; some don't. I'd push for a consistent standard across all of them, so delegation rights don't depend on which room you're in.

Council endorsed moving our water — and about 40 per cent of the City's debt — into a corporation whose board, not Council, would approve the budgets. I'd have voted no. It isn't built yet, and the Council you elect in October decides.