For Candidates

We envision a region where every resident has a meaningful voice in the decisions that shape their community. Public participation cannot be an afterthought, it is the cornerstone of governance. Residents deserve to know what their governments are doing and why; that means council meetings that are open by default, budgets that can be understood, and follow-up reports when spending diverges from expectations.

Democratic governance also means being honest about where power sits. Governance structures that concentrate power in ways that undermine collective deliberation, such as strong mayor powers, are incompatible with truly democratic self-governance. Good regional governance means structures where elected councils deliberate, residents participate, and no single office can override that process without meaningful checks.

To do that, we need to build the habits and structures that make accountability routine, rather than exception. Consistent opportunities for public engagement, advocating for changes to legislative frameworks, and holding elected officials accountable; pushing back when decisions migrate behind closed doors. Democracy does not maintain itself; it takes consistent, ongoing effort from engaged citizens who care.

In addition, land use decisions should be made in collaboration with local Indigenous communities, in alignment with UNDRIP, the TRC, and the Haldimand Tract agreement. The TRC specifically called for actions at the municipal level, and actions at the municipal level directly influence things like access to land and cultural practices. In addition to our obligations as treaty people on the Haldimand tract subject to the agreement made with Six Nations, there are many urban Indigenous communities to whom all levels of government have responsibilities under UNDRIP and the TRC.

Economies thrive with shared wellbeing when they focus on human needs, environmental balance, and fair resource sharing through systemic shifts like: prioritizing public goods, supporting the local economy, and focusing on both sustainability and inclusivity. Municipalities foster local wealth building by changing how they spend public money, manage public land, and support local business structures, and when they use their regulatory powers and purchasing power to anchor economic benefits directly within the community.

Prioritizing equitable spending that ensures basic needs like food, healthcare and homes, community resources like libraries, parks, recreational centers, and services like utilities and transportation are accessible and/or affordable for all make communities inclusive and caring.

Prioritizing investment in the local economy, supporting and contracting local businesses, both directly and through contracts a municipality engages keeps money in the community and helps local businesses grow and prosper.

Prioritizing both climate change mitigation (sustainable buildings and transportation, parks and forests, protecting farmland, circular economy initiatives etc.) and climate adaptation (resilience to heat waves, flooding and other impacts of climate change) provides green/future-ready jobs, prepares communities for future economic stability by protecting assets and resources and makes communities healthy, vibrant and inviting places to call home.

Allowing citizens to have a say in major economic decisions and proactively soliciting input in the budgeting process through citizens assemblies ensures that municipalities are inclusive and democratic in the decisions that directly impact community wellbeing.

Finally, building capacity for community improvements also depends on the long-term financial health of municipalities. Many municipalities, including those in Waterloo Region, face an infrastructure deficit that is exacerbated by urban sprawl, because the tax bases from greenfield development (urban sprawl) do not cover long-term infrastructure costs required to maintain them. Development fees initially charged to developers cover infrastructure needs for a short time but do not cover the lifetime costs of the development either. This creates a growing infrastructural deficit that strains a municipalities ability to maintain infrastructure and spend tax dollars on public supports and community benefits. Municipalities can explore alternative financing arrangements for long term infrastructure maintenance and prioritize higher-density and brownfield (re-development) wherever possible to increase the tax:infrastructure cost ratios.

Safe, secure, accessible housing is a right. It’s not a privilege to be earned, nor an award granted to those who qualify. Waterloo Region’s municipalities, like communities across Canada, are a long way from meeting that standard.

Our Regional government administers community services such as supportive and affordable housing. Our local municipalities shape what gets delivered through the planning system: zoning that permits higher-density housing as of right, complete communities served by multiple modes of transit, a preference for brownfield over greenfield development, requirements that a share of new housing be affordable, and tenant-protection by-laws such as renoviction rules. Municipalities can also support unhoused residents directly, by designating areas for encampments and backing community models like A Better Tent City.

Provincial and federal targets set an aggressive course: the Region is planning for a population of 923,000 by 2051. Each municipality’s official plan describes how it will grow, and Kitchener and Waterloo carry additional performance targets tied to federal Housing Accelerator Fund agreements. Closing the supply gap means building enough missing middle through medium-density housing, providing supportive housing and shelter for low-income, at-risk, and unhoused residents, and protecting renters against renovictions and the other pressures that put their homes at risk.

The Region aims to create or preserve 2,500 affordable homes by 2030, with 60 percent reserved for very-low and low-income households, in line with its Plan to End Chronic Homelessness. That plan sets a goal of functional zero homelessness by 2030 but is not yet funded to reach it. As of June 2026, Waterloo Region had 2,371 people experiencing homelessness and only 356 emergency shelter beds. Over 11,000 people are on the affordable housing waitlist, and the average wait for supportive housing is 13.5 months.

Letting those numbers persist is the expensive option. The costs show up in hospitals, in policing, and in shelter beds bought by the night, and together they exceed what it would cost to build and operate the housing itself. In a region this prosperous, that is a choice we are making rather than a constraint we are under. The 2030 goal will not be met without money behind it, so we should fund it and commit to ending chronic homelessness and clearing the waitlist by 2032, on economic grounds as much as moral ones.

Programs that fund energy-efficiency and electrification retrofits, such as RetrofitWR, lower utility bills and improve home comfort and safety. These supports matter most for the low-income and vulnerable households least able to absorb energy costs on their own.

Buildings account for about 45% of Waterloo Region’s carbon emissions, the bulk of it from natural gas burned for space and water heating and from industrial processes. Meeting the commitments our municipalities have made means buildings must run on non-polluting energy while using far less of it, through efficiency, distributed energy, and related strategies. At the same time, our communities need to grow more resilient to a changing climate, planning for floods, the poor air quality that arrives with wildfire smoke, heat waves, and other severe weather. Lower-emissions, resilient buildings also cut energy bills and keep people safer, which matters most for the households least able to absorb rising costs.

We are not starting from scratch. ClimateActionWR, the non-profit program led by Sustainable Waterloo Region and Reep Green Solutions, partially funded by the Region, has built a roadmap called TransformWR that charts the path to an 80% emissions cut by 2050 from 2010 levels. We have made modest progress but are nowhere near on track to reach that goal. Community Energy Waterloo Region has drafted High-Performance Development Standards, a harmonized set of green building requirements spanning all seven area municipalities and modelled on the green development standards already used elsewhere in Ontario, so that new buildings and deep retrofits are low-emissions and climate resilient.

Provincial legislation has, for now, narrowed what municipalities can require. Bill 23 cut back site plan control, the main tool councils had used to hold new buildings to green standards. Even so, municipalities can make real progress, directly through their own buildings and budgets and indirectly through incentives, partnerships, and planning policy, while advocating for the authority to do more. The goal is to keep moving on every front available rather than waiting for the Province to update the building code or authorize climate action that aligns with a safe future.

Active transportation benefits individuals, the community and the environment. Physical activity improves overall health, reduces stress and supports positive mental health. Walking, cycling and rolling increase social interaction between neighbourhood residents, reduce air pollution and emissions, and decrease traffic congestion. The transition to low-emissions vehicles reduces air and noise pollution.

Transportation accounts for about 47% of the Region’s carbon emissions, largely from fossil-fuelled cars and commercial vehicles. Meeting the carbon reduction commitments our municipalities have made will require shifting transportation to non-polluting energy, reducing the distances people need to travel by personal vehicle, or both.

As municipalities pursue multiple modes of travel and shorter trips, the accessibility, affordability and convenience needs of all members of our communities have to be built into the design from the start.

Completing the next phase of ION, increasing public transit and running more frequent rail service to and from the GTHA will reduce vehicle traffic on urban streets and roads, which in turn makes room for designated trails and pathways for active transportation. Those pathways need to be wide enough for wheelchairs and cycles and separated from motorized traffic, so they are safe for all ages and abilities. Increasing the density of missing middle and affordable mixed residential housing along transportation corridors, with businesses, shops, services and schools within reach of people walking, cycling and rolling, is an important complementary goal.

Complete communities, in urban neighbourhoods and rural settlements alike, let residents meet most of their daily needs within a distance that does not require a car. Walkable neighbourhoods also build community and encourage the use of shared public facilities and resources.

Waterloo Region is one of the largest communities in Canada to rely on groundwater, drawing roughly three-quarters of its drinking water from wells and the rest from the Grand River. That makes our aquifers, and the Waterloo Moraine that recharges them, the foundation of everything else. Elmira’s water crisis history (details in the Resources) is a cautionary tale of the importance of responsible stewardship of our environment – wetlands, creeks and rivers – and protection of our ground water recharge areas.

In December 2025 the Region identified a water capacity constraint in its largest service area serious enough that it would not support new development approvals in high-growth areas until staff figured out next steps. Residents have seen no change at the tap, but the capacity concerns could limit housing and industrial development in the years ahead.

There are no cheap fixes. The long-contemplated backstop, a pipeline to pull water from Lake Erie roughly 100 kilometres away, carries an estimated billion-dollar price tag and has repeatedly been deferred. Bringing new wells and infrastructure online takes years. In the meantime, every litre we conserve and every drop we return to the ground buys time and eases the pressure on a finite supply.

This situation demands urgent conservation and serious protection of our recharge areas. That means treating rainwater where it falls and capturing it for gardens and non-potable uses; designing new construction to harvest rainwater and reuse greywater for toilets, laundry, and irrigation; making walkways, driveways, and roads permeable wherever possible; and removing unnecessary pavement in favour of native plantings, pollinator gardens, and food-bearing trees. It also means defending the moraine from new large-scale water takings, including aggregate operations that would draw millions of litres a day from the recharge zone we depend on.

Waterloo Region’s cities are among the most innovative and prosperous in Ontario, and they are wrapped around an exceptionally fertile farm belt. Good soil, a gentle climate, accessible fresh water, and innovative farmers make this one of the most productive agricultural areas in Canada. Much of the land here is Class 1, the highest-quality soil, capable of growing almost anything, and when farmland is protected it becomes a perpetual resource that can produce food indefinitely.

Prime farmland is scarce and non-renewable. Less than five percent of Ontario’s land base qualifies as prime agricultural land, and only about half a percent of Canada’s entire land mass is Class 1, with Ontario holding the most Class 1 soil of any province. Protecting that land also protects the aquifers beneath it, since the recharge areas that feed our wells lie largely on the rural side of the line.

In 2009 the Region established the Countryside Line to hold growth within the urban areas and shield farmland, wetlands, and water recharge areas from development. Growth and the infrastructure that supports intensification, including the ION light rail, sit on the urban side, while agriculture, farm businesses, and environmentally sensitive lands sit on the rural side. It remains one of the strongest farmland and groundwater protections in Canada, but it holds only as long as councils defend it.

Fostering a vibrant urban food landscape that supports sustenance, local ecological systems, culture, health and well-being is also important to our efforts to address climate change, biodiversity loss, soil health and water system health.

Across the Region, we need to focus on transitions to sustainable practices like agroecology, regenerative agriculture and localized food production and distribution. We need to improve ease of access to healthy food, address food insecurity and support local livelihoods. Municipal zoning and planning can support local grocers in every neighbourhood. Complete communities ensure that folks don’t need access to a vehicle to access local, fresh and healthy foods.

Protecting biodiversity is required to maintain and sustain a liveable environment. As development and agriculture expand across the landscape, the habitat that insects, birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, and aquatic life depend on shrinks and fragments. The web of life is finely balanced. Without insects, many birds cannot survive, and without pollinators, crops fail. Wild species need connected habitat and intact ecosystems to thrive, and protecting that connectivity is how we keep the system functioning and give species at risk a chance to recover.

Waterloo Region holds a remarkable natural inheritance, from the Grand River and its tributaries to the wetlands, woodlands, and recharge areas of the moraine. Protecting and connecting these features matters more than ever, because the provincial tools that once safeguarded them have been weakened. Ontario has curtailed the powers of conservation authorities and downloaded much of the responsibility for reviewing natural heritage and stormwater onto municipalities, and it has repealed the Endangered Species Act and replaced it with the weaker Species Conservation Act, stripping provincial protection from many species. That makes local action the last line of defence.

Two priorities stand out. First, link our natural landscapes into continuous corridors so wildlife can move and populations can persist, including by pressing for the Greenbelt protection the province studied for the Waterloo Moraine but never delivered. Second, protect and restore the riparian zones and wetlands that keep the Grand River watershed healthy, work made more urgent now that conservation authorities can no longer require it as they once could. Beyond that, municipalities can lead by naturalizing the land they manage and building biodiversity into everyday decisions.

A successful and harmonious community is one where everyone belongs as a matter of fairness, and also of safety and shared wellbeing. Addressing systemic racism and hate takes concrete, sustained action rather than good intentions alone. The need here is acute. According to Statistics Canada, Waterloo Region had the highest per-capita rate of police-reported hate crimes in Canada.

The harm is not evenly distributed. Local police data show hate-motivated crime here is most often race-motivated, with South Asian, Arab and West Asian and Black communities, and 2SLGBTQ+ communities commonly targeted.

Building a welcoming community means naming and reporting hate, and it also means ensuring the diversity of our population is reflected in who works in, leads, and shapes our public institutions. Ensuring gender and racial equality in staff hiring, and enforcing robust pay equity policies supports progress towards representation that reflects the diversity of our communities, particularly in leadership positions, which are more likely to lack diversity.

This is shared work. Municipalities cannot solve it alone, but they set the tone through the policies they adopt, the people they hire and appoint, the data they collect, and the partners they fund. The strongest response pairs visible anti-hate commitment with the slower structural work of representation, equitable hiring, and accountability, so that welcome is built into how our institutions operate.

Additional Resources

Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) – policy updates

C40 Cities – powering global climate action through the collective strength of cities

Climate Caucus – A National Resource for Transformative Climate Policy. A trusted Network for Local Elected Leaders

UN-habitat – World Cities Report 2024 – Cities and Climate Action

World Health Organization: The WHO Age-Friendly Cities Framework