Waterloo — Mayor
3 candidates responded
Dorothy McCabe See responses
It is already sufficiently transparent and accessible
- Moderate, predictable tax increases to maintain service levels
- Actively pursue provincial and federal transfer funding and grants
- Exploring new local revenue tools where permitted by provincial legislation
- Prioritize maintenance and state-of-good-repair over expansion
- Require lifecycle cost analysis before approving any new infrastructure
- Defer or cancel capital projects with low long-term return on investment
Would you like to provide any additional context for your views on budgets?candidate's own words
Budgets are already open and transparent. Municipalities do a lot of work to try to communicate as much as and as effectively as possible about the budgets. But they are complex documents and not easily digestible.
Jamie Hari See responses
It should be more transparent and accessible
- Actively pursue provincial and federal transfer funding and grants
- Change the flat percentage tax rate to a progressive tax
- where the rate is exponentially higher as the value of the property is further from the median property value. In effect
- houses under the median will see a property tax decrease while mansions will see significant tax increases.
- Ensure new development pays a greater share of long-term infrastructure costs
- Re-evaluate development incentives or subsidies that create long-term liabilities
- Increase a suite of new progressive development fees which aggressively de-incentivize unaffordable development (e.g.
- punitive surtaxes on units valued more than 100% above the median value)
- No cuts to services
- except cutting the Waterloo Regional Police Services (WRPS) budget by half.
- Prioritize maintenance and state-of-good-repair over expansion
- Require lifecycle cost analysis before approving any new infrastructure
- Defer or cancel capital projects with low long-term return on investment
- except critical infrastructure projects
Please describe one concrete example of a trade-off you would support (or oppose) when costs rise faster than revenues.candidate's own words
I vehemently oppose setting user fees or creating any new fees that aren't means-tested. It's absolutely unsustainable, not to mention unfair, to ask the most vulnerable to pay any more than they already are.
Would you like to provide any additional context for your views on budgets?candidate's own words
Human needs are human rights - and should be above the budgetary process. We can debate how much to spend on fireworks and flowers, but there's not debate about how many people in our region should have food and shelter.
If you chose "It should be more transparent and accessible", please describe how.candidate's own words
Enshrining free FOIA requests in the constitution would be nice, but in the meantime having an interactive website like OurCommons.ca for City and Regional councils would be great!
Jeyas Balaskanthan See responses
It should be more transparent and accessible
- Actively pursue provincial and federal transfer funding and grants
- Re-evaluate development incentives or subsidies that create long-term liabilities
- Adjust service delivery models to reduce costs without reducing access
- This requires a case by case analysis
If you chose "It should be more transparent and accessible", please describe how.candidate's own words
The budget process is transparent, but requires greater ease of access. We need to make greater use of our communications resources to translate how our budgets work for the general public in language that is easy to understand.
On the ballot but have not responded to survey (2)
- Jerry Jiang
- Shannon Weber
Full candidate list: CBC Waterloo Region election coverage ↗