Buzz Words That You Hear at Election Time

This actually means that the infrastructure needs will be delayed and cuts to services will be needed to deal with rising wages.

We held the tax levy to 0% in 2026, but that is not sustainable. We were only able to do it with several one-time revenues and cost savings.

There was a time when this was very important, as the city was in poor financial shape. We are now well past that with an AA+ rating and sound financial planning.

Prudent debt management has allowed the city to pay down debt by $200 million and reserves have grown from $75 million in 2003 to $547.2 million.

Going forward, our growing city needs very large infrastructure projects, like Cabana to Lauzon and Lauzon to the 401. We have applied for large federal and provincial grants to offset some of the costs, but we will need to raise 100s of millions of dollars. We will need to structure some long-term debt to pay for this, otherwise we will increase taxes substantially and put off other needed infrastructure work. We can no longer wait and repayment can be spread out.

No Councillor magically “creates jobs”. What we can do is make Windsor attractive for investors.

That means providing shovel-ready serviced land, incentives based on numbers of jobs, and strong leadership selling our city and location to the border. We need to get more airport land ready and to start investing in the Lauzon to 401 corridor.

I am very proud of what we have accomplished, bringing large employers like the Next Star battery plant and suppliers like Minth, creating thousands of good paying jobs and spurring economic growth.

We need much more housing as we continue to grow.

I chair the Development Standing Committee, and I can tell you we have made zoning changes that could add thousands of units, but developers are hesitant to build. We just applied for grants by agreeing to substantially lower Development Charges temporarily to lower costs of building. This is something that I would not normally agree to, but the need for housing is critical.

Developers do not want to build affordable housing. They are not charities. We cannot force them.

Any new housing will help supply and lower rent increases. We should consider planning for another Meadowbrook affordable housing project.

We need to apply for government grants, and it will mean more long-term debt. When we sell city-owned land we need to see if it makes sense to offer it to a builder at below market prices if they agree to offer units at affordable rates. I would like to see the houses that we are going to expropriate around Indian Road turned over to Habitat for Humanity for affordable housing.