Positions
A position is a paragraph I am willing to defend in public, with sources. Every position lists the documents I read, the resident input I received, and every version it has been through.
- Governance2026-05-18
Strong-mayor veto needs a public protocol
The Mayor issued his first strong-mayor veto on November 17, 2025. Council tried to override and failed. A tool this powerful needs a written, public protocol that says when, why, and with what notice it gets used.
4 sources2 revisions - Infrastructure2026-05-18
Roads and sidewalks are the real deficit
Orillia's June 2025 ten-year capital and reserve forecast projected that, on a do-nothing basis, City reserves could fall to roughly negative $254 million by 2034. Council says its financial strategy reverses that trajectory — but the underlying renewal backlog is real, and a dedicated, levy-funded infrastructure reserve is the most honest way to lock the fix in.
4 sources2 revisions - Public Safety2026-05-18
The OPP bill and the 1.48% levy
A $1.1 million OPP cost increase drove most of Orillia's 2026 tax pressure — a 1.45 percentage point levy impact, with the final approved levy at 1.48%. Without the provincial cap the OPP bill would have driven several additional points of levy impact. The City should say so plainly and lobby alongside its neighbours.
4 sources2 revisions - Governance2026-05-18
Annexation: public principles before the bargaining starts
On May 12, 2026, Council publicly endorsed Option 1 — 196.1 hectares of developable land from Severn and Oro-Medonte. The formal negotiation phase begins now. Before any of that happens behind closed doors, Council should publicly adopt compensation, growth-pays-for-growth, and resident-transition principles.
4 sources2 revisions - Reconciliation2026-05-18
Champlain Monument: after the April 13 vote
On April 13, 2026, Council rejected Mayor McIsaac's $950,000 proposal to restore and re-install the statuary. The Chippewas of Rama First Nation, in a January 7, 2026 statement reaffirmed in writing in April 2026, declined further participation. The right path is to honour Rama's stated position and not relitigate it, leaving the statuary in storage and redirecting the original budget elsewhere.
4 sources2 revisions - Housing2026-05-18
Defend the heights staff drafted in the new Official Plan
The new 'Our Orillia' Official Plan, now moving through adoption, already proposes up to 8-storey building heights in core areas and a 47 units-per-hectare density for Strategic Growth Areas. Council should adopt it without watering down what staff have proposed.
4 sources2 revisions - Climate2026-05-18
Lake Couchiching flooding is a capital problem
The April 2026 Cedar Island Road flooding — on Lake Couchiching, not Lake Simcoe — was not a freak event. Capital project 30257 (Cedar Island Drainage Mitigation) has been on the books and underfunded. A dedicated climate-adaptation reserve is the only way to fund this work reliably.
4 sources2 revisions - Transit2026-05-18
Transit cuts are disinvestment, not savings
Orillia Transit removed roughly two dozen stops as part of a route optimization adopted in summer 2025. The same package added weekend service hours and a seniors' fare product. The cuts and the additions both deserve scrutiny — and the underlying funding model needs a hard look.
4 sources2 revisions - Social Services2026-05-18
Bring back the poverty reduction plan and fund it
On February 23, 2026, Council voted down a motion to endorse the Orillia Poverty Reduction Implementation Plan in principle. I would bring it back, vote to endorse it, and fund it. A plan rejected and a plan funded are not close to the same thing.
4 sources2 revisions - Public Safety2026-05-18
A downtown community safety officer pilot
The Couchiching OPP Detachment Board has already floated the idea of an Extended Services Office downtown. A narrowly scoped community safety officer pilot, evaluated against outcomes for people experiencing distress (not just property-crime statistics), is a more honest version of the same instinct.
4 sources2 revisions - Housing2026-04-22
Defend the four-units-as-of-right reform and build on it
Orillia already permits up to four residential units as-of-right on every serviced lot citywide under its 2025 zoning amendments — one more than the province-wide three-unit baseline. The job now is to defend that reform from rollback and add the next layer: pre-approved ARU designs, parking-minimum changes near downtown, and corridor mid-rise.
4 sources4 revisions - Waterfront2026-04-30
The waterfront is a public asset
Lake Couchiching's shoreline should be expanded as continuous public access, not parcelled for private development. I would publish a long-horizon waterfront access plan and tie every shoreline decision to it.
4 sources3 revisions - Downtown2026-05-02
Downtown vacancy is a policy problem
Mississaga Street's empty storefronts are not the market sorting itself out — they are a predictable outcome of incentive structures Council can change. The Downtown Tomorrow Plan exists; the tools to enforce it do not.
4 sources3 revisions - Bylaws2026-05-07
Short-term rentals: defend the licensing, add the cap, earmark the revenue
Orillia has licensed short-term rentals under Municipal Code Chapter 730 since January 1, 2024. The licensing should not be repealed or weakened. What's missing is a cap on the share of housing stock, and a guarantee that license-fee revenue is ring-fenced for affordable housing.
4 sources3 revisions