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 effectively 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 completing the provincial LRT upload on terms that are fair to Ottawa taxpayers, preserve OC Transpo's control over local service delivery, accelerate Stage 3, and reinvest the City's savings into transit.

I spent my undergrad commuting from Kanata to uOttawa, so I know what a long west-end transit trip feels like. A transit trip from Kanata to central Ottawa should not routinely take dramatically longer than 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.

Kanata North is already home to Canada's largest technology park, with more than 800 firms. A 2026 economic-impact study commissioned by the Kanata North Business Association 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 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 and strengthens Ottawa's commercial tax base. That matters beyond the Tech Park itself. A larger commercial tax base gives the City more capacity over time to pay for roads, transit, stormwater infrastructure and other services without continually pushing the burden back onto residential property taxpayers. Economic development should be part of Ottawa's fiscal strategy, not treated as a separate file.

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.

Housing affordability is one of the defining challenges facing younger families, but it affects the whole community. High housing costs make it harder for families to put down roots, for employers to attract workers, and for people to stay near the community and support networks they already have.

City Hall cannot control mortgage rates, household incomes or the national economy. It does control zoning, how efficiently it processes development applications, infrastructure planning and many of the rules that determine how quickly new homes can be built.

I believe housing supply matters. More homes are not a magic wand for affordability, but when demand grows faster than supply, making new housing harder and slower to build adds pressure rather than relieving it. A generation that grew up in Kanata should not have to leave because housing supply failed to keep pace with the number of people who want to live here.

People should have choices: apartments near transit, townhouses, family-sized units, appropriate infill in established areas, and new suburban communities where the City can service them efficiently. Suburban growth is not a policy failure simply because some residents prefer to live downtown.

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.

School capacity belongs in that conversation too. School construction is primarily a provincial and school-board responsibility, but the City knows where major growth is being planned years in advance. Ottawa should coordinate early with school boards and the Province so school sites, servicing and capacity are not treated as an afterthought.

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, along with ownership-oriented housing that gives younger households more ways to enter the market.

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.

Families, renters, homeowners, businesses and residents on fixed incomes are already dealing with higher costs. 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.

That ceiling applies to the overall property-tax increase, not every individual levy or service budget. Council can still prioritize services such as transit within that overall envelope.

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.

Cost control is only one side of the equation. Ottawa also needs a stronger long-term revenue base. My preference is to grow the economy and commercial tax base, secure Ottawa's fair share from other levels of government and get more value from existing spending before treating homeowners as the automatic answer whenever the City wants to do more.

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. Beaver Pond, South March Highlands, the Hydro Corridor and neighbourhood parks are not abstract planning categories, they are part of everyday life. Growth should add homes and opportunity while respecting those assets.

I understand why residents around the former Kanata Golf and Country Club lands are angry. People bought homes and made long-term decisions with the expectation that the land would remain open space under a real legal and planning framework. Their frustration deserves to be taken seriously.

I support pursuing a Province-enabled solution, including a land swap, MZO, special legislation or another workable mechanism that could permanently protect the lands without forcing Ottawa taxpayers to purchase them at full development value. Any negotiated transaction should have independent valuation, transparent terms and permanent protection for the lands received by the public.

The legal landscape has changed. The courts have ruled that the contractual protections specific to the golf-course lands are void, and the Ontario Land Tribunal has granted zoning and draft-plan approval. I will use every lawful municipal tool available and enforce drainage, environmental and subdivision conditions rigorously, while being candid about what Council can and cannot legally guarantee.

The July 1 storm also showed why neighbourhood infrastructure matters beyond the golf-course debate. Ward 4 recorded 427 3-1-1 service requests related to flooding and other impacts from the July 1 storm, the fourth-highest ward total in Ottawa. The City is already conducting a comprehensive technical review. I want that review to publish neighbourhood-level findings for Kanata North and produce a prioritized remediation plan where City infrastructure can reduce future risk.

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. Community associations and residents often see local problems before City Hall does, and their input should reach decisions early.