Ideas and Evidence

Three months of campaigning and I have been licked, slobbered on, jumped on and covered in mud. The dogs are delightful. The municipal accounting is not. Residents should not have to hold a séance with old Council minutes to find the money meant for their parks. Parks are community infrastructure. Fund them, maintain them, and please stop making neighbourhoods solve municipal mysteries.

AI is already changing work, privacy and daily life in Toronto. From data centres and employment lands to family digital literacy, Susan Chapelle asks how Ward 14 can prepare its households, children and public services for what comes next.

Toronto is already living with climate change. Basements are flooding, heat waves are intensifying, and aging sewers, roads and electrical systems are under pressure. We still need to cut emissions, but climate spending must also prepare the city for what is already happening. That means funding stormwater infrastructure, flood protection, shade, cooling, resilient transit and a reliable energy grid, with every dollar measured against the risk it actually reduces.

Tariffs, construction costs, financing and municipal charges can make approved housing financially impossible to build, especially smaller infill, rental and gentle-density projects.

I think about housing and the continuum all the time. Not units, homes.

’ve been walking the ward and talking with residents and small business owners. People keep raising the same practical questions about the rapid expansion of data centres across the GTA, including facilities on Danforth Avenue in Scarborough and proposals nearby.

Over the past several months, I have repeatedly used the Port Lands as an example in discussions about growth, infrastructure, employment, transportation, healthcare, and energy planning. This is not because the Port Lands are the only development project in Ward 14, although it is one of the largest projects in Canadian waterfront development. Rather, they represent one of the clearest examples of a broader challenge facing Toronto.