Part A: Broad Priorities and Vision What do you consider to be City Council's greatest climate action success over the past term? Kingston has made modest progress on transit as climate infrastructure – the January 2025 service improvements (15-minute Express service, expanded late-night and weekend hours) and the start of fleet electrification (5 of 82 buses now electric) do matter. Better Homes Kingston has also helped residents retrofit homes; the program relies heavily on federal funding rather than new City investment. But this is incremental progress: no signature wins. The bigger story of this term has been what didn't happen: no protection for trees on private property, no mandatory Green Development Standard, and not enough support for visionary leadership; plus construction-related reliability issues that undercut transit ridership gains just as momentum was building. In terms of climate action, where do you think City Council fell short over the past term? Kingston still has no policy protecting mature trees on private property – this spring's clear-cutting of the Mile Square Block happened because nothing legally stopped it. We also don't have a mandatory Green Development Standard, unlike Toronto, Whitby, and Ottawa, so new development isn't required to meet climate performance standards. Kingston's current municipal emissions target is 30% by 2030, well below the 50% science-based benchmark, and Council has repeatedly deferred the decision on when to raise it. Council has also focused mainly on the City's own operations, which are a small share of citywide emissions – a mandatory Green Development Standard would extend accountability to private development too, via site plan/zoning approvals. AI data centres are being evaluated under existing industrial-use zoning – from a different era – with no framework for assessing their energy and water demands. Encampment policy has also leaned on enforcement over improving living conditions. If elected, what would be your top climate action priority in the 2026–2030 term? A tree bylaw for Kingston, paired with a policy preference for building on disturbed and already-developed land before clearing greenfield or mature woodland – Ontario loses 319 acres of farmland a day, and Kingston shouldn't be adding to that. I'd also push for a mandatory Green Development Standard, so new construction meets climate performance requirements, not just voluntary best practices. I'd also push Council to formally commit to raising our 30% target closer to the 50% science-based benchmark, rather than continuing to defer that decision. And I’m also interested in exploring more innovative ideas around waste heat recovery and lake-source cooling, that we could tie to future growth. This is what Sustainability, one of my core campaign priorities, actually looks like in practice. Part B: Key Policy Commitments Climate Targets and Governance Will you vote for the City of Kingston to adopt a corporate greenhouse gas emissions reduction goal of 45% by 2030 to align municipal operations with science-based targets and show leadership to the rest of the Kingston community? SUPPORT. I don’t know how big a stretch the move from 30% to 45% represents, in terms of what gets cut next, but I support making the effort and setting ambitious goals to get municipal operations in line with net zero commitments. Will you vote to mandate climate impact assessments and carbon budgeting for all municipal policy, planning, and procurement decisions? CONDITIONAL. I support climate impact assessments/carbon budgeting as genuine decision-making tools, informed by community voices, when and where it changes outcomes. But not necessarily as an indiscriminate process applied to every routine decision regardless of scale or impact. Protecting Vulnerable Communities from Extreme Heat Will you vote to pass a comprehensive Maximum Temperature Bylaw setting an upper limit of 26 °C for all rental housing, paired with measures to protect tenants from additional costs? CONDITIONAL. I support protecting tenants from extreme heat. Nobody should be stuck in a dangerously hot apartment, but is 26°C attainable, or do we need to get there more incrementally? We also need to invest in tree canopy expansion, since adding shade is one of the fastest, cheapest ways to cool streets and buildings alike. Will you vote to maintain and scale the municipal pilot program supplying free air conditioning units to low-income seniors and vulnerable residents? SUPPORT. Worth investment. FCM's Green Municipal Fund committed $34.2M in August 2026 to municipal climate adaptation, including cooling-specific initiatives elsewhere in Ontario, which is exactly the kind of funding Kingston should pursue to scale this. Will you vote to end encampment displacements and, during extreme heat events, expand 24/7 cooling centres and guarantee continuous clean drinking water distribution at sites like Belle Park? CONDITIONAL. My priorities are dignity and safety, backed by data, not politics. We should expand cooling centres and guarantee water access during extreme heat. Displacing residents doesn't end homelessness, it hides it – the real solution is more exits to housing and better prevention, not just enforcement. Energy-Efficient & Low-Carbon Buildings Will you vote to establish multi-year capital funding to scale the Better Homes Kingston program? SUPPORT. Retrofit programs like this pay for themselves in lower emissions and lower bills – multi-year funding lets residents plan ahead, instead of application uncertainty year to year. Will you vote for Kingston to develop a mandatory Green Development Standard, following the lead of other Ontario municipalities like Toronto, Whitby, and Ottawa? SUPPORT. Kingston is behind on Green Development Standards. New development should be required – not just encouraged – to meet climate performance standards, enforced through site plan and zoning approvals, since building permits alone can't exceed provincial minimums. A real gap in this Council's record. Urban Boundary Expansion & High-Impact Land Uses Will you vote to hold Kingston’s urban boundary where it is and prioritize infill, gentle density, and brownfield development within current urban limits rather than expanding into rural/agricultural lands? SUPPORT. I'm committed to protecting as much rural and agricultural land as possible, prioritizing infill and brownfield first. Ontario is losing 319 acres of farmland a day, and that's not sustainable. But the Province mandates urban boundary expansion to match population growth projections, so a literal freeze may not be achievable. Will you vote to maintain direct City Council oversight of water and wastewater decisions instead of approving a Municipal Services Corporation? CONDITIONAL. Our water/wastewater debt competes with every other capital priority under a shared provincial borrowing cap. An MSC could unlock additional capacity for smarter infrastructure upgrades, but it would remove budget approval from direct Council control. We’d need binding safeguards before considering. When developers appeal to the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT) to force urban boundary expansions on lands excluded from the draft Official Plan, will you vote to instruct City legal staff to defend Council’s and City staff’s planning decisions at the OLT? CONDITIONAL. I support defending Council's planning decisions in principle – but a 2022 investigation found 97% of OLT decisions favoured developers. With odds that lopsided, legal spending needs to be strategic and budgeted, not a blank cheque on every appeal regardless of cost or likelihood of success. Will you vote for a moratorium on resource-intensive data centres? SUPPORT. I support a pause on new AI data centre approvals until we have a planning framework for them, not the borrowed industrial-use rules being applied today. The framework should be proactive: the water/energy demands of data centres could become real opportunities for innovation and sustainable design. Safe Active Transit & Public Transportation Do you support accelerating the construction of protected bike lane networks and improving bike lane winter maintenance? SUPPORT. Safer streets with better connected bike lanes are core to my Liveability priority – informed by my research on child friendly urbanism – streets safe enough for a kid on a bike! Unsafe/unmaintained lanes aren't an option for most riders – and won’t tempt potential bike commuters out of their cars. Will you vote to expand the zero-emission bus fleet? SUPPORT. Kingston has five electric buses out of a fleet of 82 today. I support continuing the shift to electrification, sequenced so it doesn't cost reliability, and paired with aggressive pursuit of provincial and federal funding to offset costs for taxpayers. Will you vote to pilot expanding fare-free transit beyond youth to post-secondary students, seniors, and low-income residents? CONDITIONAL. I'd support piloting expanded access for anyone who demonstrates genuine need, rather than free transit by age bracket. Post-secondary students already have transit bundled into institutional activity fees; the real gap is non-student / low-income residents who fall outside existing programs. Will you support pedestrian-friendly street conversions during high foot-traffic seasons? SUPPORT. I support pedestrianized streets, and I've seen how well they work to expand public amenity space elsewhere – including in our downtown, where I sit on the BIA's Streetscapes & Public Spaces Committee.