A practical plan for Kanata North.

Stage 3 LRT to Kanata is my highest transportation priority. The planned extension runs from Moodie to Hazeldean, with eight new stations. My goal for the next term is to make the project irreversible: funding secured, delivery responsibilities clear, design and procurement advanced, and construction launched if the timetable allows. Kanata should not finish another council term still wondering whether Stage 3 is a real project or a line on a future map.

I support the Province taking on ownership and major capital responsibility for Ottawa's LRT if the agreement is fair to Ottawa taxpayers, OC Transpo retains local control of day-to-day service, and savings are reinvested in transit. Provincial ownership should accelerate Stage 3, not become another reason to delay it.

Kanata also needs better service before Stage 3 arrives. A transit trip from Kanata to central Ottawa should not routinely take roughly twice as long as the same trip by car. OC Transpo should be judged on reliability, travel time and the number of people it actually moves. Better service creates ridership; repeatedly raising fares while service deteriorates does the opposite.

The March Road corridor also needs the Kanata North Transitway and the road capacity required by northern growth. The City's Transportation Master Plan already identifies widening in the northern growth section and a rapid-transit corridor. I support advancing both, while working with the Province on the Highway 417 interface where municipal road geometry alone cannot solve the bottleneck.

Federal return-to-office policy is not set at City Hall. Ottawa's responsibility is to deal with the transportation consequences competently. That means adding capacity where commuters actually need it, improving express transit, managing signals and construction better, and making both roads and transit more reliable.

Kanata North is already home to Canada's largest technology park, with more than 800 firms. A 2026 economic-impact study estimated $17.9 billion in economic output across Canada, 63,000 jobs and $2.8 billion in international exports connected to the cluster. That is not a side story for our ward. It is one of the most important economic assets in the city.

The next phase should be more ambitious than protecting the status quo. I want Kanata to be nationally synonymous with technology, and internationally competitive for investment in telecommunications, photonics, semiconductors, cybersecurity, defence technology, AI and advanced manufacturing.

Economic development also has a physical dimension. The Tech Park is still too much of a place people drive into for work and leave at 5 p.m. The City's new Kanata North Economic District zoning already creates room for residential, commercial, institutional and employment uses, including significant height in appropriate parts of the district. We should use that flexibility to create a real centre of activity: housing, restaurants, services, entertainment, public spaces and stronger post-secondary connections.

This does not mean dropping towers into established low-rise neighbourhoods. It means concentrating meaningful density where it makes sense, in the Economic District, along major corridors and around current or future rapid transit. Done properly, that creates customers for local businesses, improves the economics of transit, broadens the tax base and gives young adults more reasons to stay in Kanata rather than leave for every job, apartment or night out.

City Hall can also be easier to deal with. Strategically important employment projects should have predictable approvals, clear timelines and one accountable point of contact. Ottawa should compete for investment rather than assuming companies will come here anyway.

Ottawa needs more homes. I support building them. Supply matters, and suburban growth is not a policy failure simply because some residents prefer to live downtown. People should have choices: apartments near transit, townhouses, family-sized units, infill in established areas where it fits, and new suburban communities where the City can service them efficiently.

The mistake is approving growth first and treating infrastructure as a problem for the next council. Kanata North's northern expansion area alone was planned for roughly 3,000 dwellings and about 8,000 residents, with March Road as its transportation spine. When growth is predictable, the infrastructure demand is predictable too.

My default is simple: build the infrastructure when we build the homes. If a road, sewer, stormwater project, park or transit corridor will obviously be needed, plan the next increment early and build efficiently rather than digging the same corridor up twice. Development charges should continue to fund a fair share of growth-related infrastructure, while the City aggressively pursues provincial and federal funding for projects with broader public benefit.

I support faster approvals and published service standards so builders, neighbours and taxpayers know how long decisions should take. Community consultation matters most when it identifies real planning issues: traffic, stormwater, height transitions, parking, schools, emergency services, trees and infrastructure capacity. A legal project should not face an indefinite veto based only on a generalized desire to stop change.

Family housing matters too. Ottawa should encourage apartments and mixed-use projects that include units people can actually raise children in, not only the smallest units the market can produce. I support the City's recent zoning changes that broaden housing options and I would focus the next term on execution, infrastructure and predictable approvals.

Ottawa's 2026 budget includes a $5.2 billion operating budget and $1.9 billion in capital spending. At that scale, small improvements in procurement, project delivery, asset management and program performance matter more than slogans about finding a few thousand dollars in office supplies.

In ordinary budgets, I will oppose property-tax increases above inflation. Inflation is a reasonable ceiling because the City's own wages, materials and services also rise in price, while taxpayers should not be treated as an unlimited source of revenue. I would retain an emergency exception for genuinely extraordinary events such as major infrastructure destruction, but the normal expectation should be clear before budget season begins.

I also will not chase a 0% tax increase if the real result is visibly worse core service. The objective is value: maintain the services residents rely on, invest in infrastructure with a real return, and stop spending where results do not justify cost.

Major purchasing decisions should be evaluated on lifecycle cost: purchase price, maintenance, operating cost, useful life and replacement. A cheaper asset that fails early can be the more expensive choice. Contract amendments and large cost overruns should be easy for the public to find. Major programs should have measurable objectives, and Council should periodically ask whether the results justify continued spending.

I support restraint in administrative growth where technology, process redesign or attrition can deliver the same service with fewer resources. I also support bringing contracted work in-house when the City can demonstrably do it cheaper. The rule should be evidence, not ideology about public versus private delivery.

Kanata's parks, mature trees, pathways, ponds and open spaces are part of the community's value. I support protecting meaningful greenspace and improving the spaces residents actually use, while recognizing that preservation decisions still have real financial and legal constraints.

On the former Kanata Golf and Country Club lands, residents relied on a real legal and planning framework that treated the golf course as part of the community's open-space system. The courts have now ruled that the contractual protections specific to those lands are void, and the Ontario Land Tribunal has granted zoning and draft-plan approval. Pretending City Council can simply undo those decisions would be misleading.

I support the current effort to find a Province-enabled land swap that could preserve the lands without forcing Ottawa taxpayers to purchase them at full development value. Any swap should have independent valuation, transparent terms and permanent protection for the lands received by the public. If the Province can produce a fair deal that protects residents and moves housing to a more appropriate site, I will support it.

Until the ownership question is resolved, the City should rigorously enforce every lawful planning, drainage, environmental and subdivision condition that remains. The July 1 storm also demonstrated why this matters beyond the golf-course debate. Ward 4 recorded 427 flood-related service requests, one of the highest concentrations in Ottawa. I support an independent engineering review of the Kanata North impacts, publication of neighbourhood-level findings, and a prioritized remediation plan where City infrastructure can be improved.

Protecting neighbourhoods also means keeping parks and recreation accessible, maintaining mature trees, fixing roads and sidewalks, completing useful pathway links, and ensuring police and emergency-service capacity keeps pace with growth.