Making this township work all twelve months

An economy that runs all year

The problem. We are good at attracting visitors and second-home owners. We are not good at attracting the businesses and families that keep a place alive in February. Internet is still patchy on the back concessions, so people can’t work from home here. Power is unreliable, and heavy service hookups are slow and expensive, so a shop or small plant won’t commit. Permits and zoning changes take too long and cost too much, so people give up or build somewhere else.

The Township is updating its Economic Development Strategy for 2026 to 2030. The next Council adopts it. That plan should be judged on one number: how many people can afford to live and work here year-round.

What I’ll push for

• Published service standards for permits and planning applications, with wait times reported to Council every quarter. If we’re slow, residents should be able to see it.
• A simple, low-cost path for garden suites, second units, and workshop buildings on rural lots, including pre-approved plans.
• One staff person whose job is to walk a small business or homeowner through the process, not just hand them a form.
• Pressure on the District, the Province and the providers to close the remaining internet gaps, and get Township road allowances, poles and permits out of the way so fibre gets built. Ontario missed its 2025 target for universal broadband. We should not wait quietly.
• A standing conversation with Hydro One on outage response and on the cost and timeline of three-phase service, instead of an occasional complaint.
• Zoning that lets people work where they live: home-based trades, small workshops, and light industrial where it belongs.

Infrastructure that actually reaches us

The problem. You cannot run a business, work from home, or call for help on a road where the signal drops. Cell coverage across this township is patchy and in places absent, internet is still thin on the back concessions, and power goes out often enough that people plan around it. Ontario missed its 2025 target for universal broadband. Meanwhile the roads, bridges and culverts we already own keep aging, and we tend to fund them after something fails rather than before.

This is not a luxury item. It is the base layer that every other thing in this platform sits on: the economy, the farms, emergency response, and whether a young family can make a life here.

What I’ll push for

• Close the cell gaps, with a map and a deadline. Publish a coverage and dead-zone map for the whole ward, then take it to the carriers, the District and the Province as a formal Township ask, with a named target date rather than an open-ended request.
• Make the Township the easy partner on towers and 5G. Pre-identify suitable sites including Township-owned land, set a clear siting and consultation process, and move applications quickly. Where a tower is sited well, it should not take years.
• Fibre down the back concessions. Get Township road allowances, poles and permits out of the way so builds actually happen, and hold the providers publicly to the schedules they announce.
• Power reliability treated as an economic file. A standing conversation with Hydro One on outage response, and on the cost and timeline of three-phase service, instead of an occasional complaint.
• A published, funded asset plan for roads, bridges and culverts, sized for the storms we are actually getting, with the worst assets named and scheduled rather than quietly deferred.
• Coverage and connectivity written into every development decision, so new building does not outrun the infrastructure that has to serve it.

Food grown here, eaten here

The problem. In 1879, Watt was described as one of the best townships in Muskoka for agriculture. We still have good ground and good farmers. But very little of what our restaurants, resorts and stores sell each summer is grown within an hour of here. That is money leaving the township, and it is farmland going out of production.

Farms are also the cheapest environmental program we have. Land in hay, pasture and bush holds soil, slows runoff, and keeps phosphorus out of the lakes.

What I’ll push for

• Zoning that makes it simple to run a farm stand, farm store, on-farm processing, commercial kitchen or farm events, without a rezoning fight every time.
• A Township buy-local policy for its own facilities and events, and help connecting resorts and restaurants with local growers.
• Stronger support for the Bala and Port Carling markets: better sites, longer seasons, and shoulder-season or indoor winter markets so growers have somewhere to sell in October and May.
• A Muskoka Lakes food map, so residents, cottagers and visitors can find what’s grown here.
• Protection for working farmland and woodlots from being carved into lots. Once it’s gone it doesn’t come back.

Clean water, because it’s everything

The problem. The lakes are why people come and why property here is worth what it is. They are under pressure, and two of the biggest pressures are things a Township council can actually control.

Recent District monitoring found the main basin of Three Mile Lake testing above 20 micrograms per litre of phosphorus, one of only two sites in all of Muskoka at that level. That is the water my family has lived on for over 160 years, and it’s approaching the range where blue-green algae becomes a real risk. Across Muskoka, most monitored sites now show chloride from road salt climbing over the past decade.

I’m not against building. I build for a living. I’m against building in a way that wrecks the thing everyone came for.

What I’ll push for

• Cut road salt without cutting safety. Calibrated spreaders, brine pre-treatment, GPS tracking, trained operators, and a public report each spring on how much salt we laid down. This works, it saves money, and it saves the lakes.
• A fair, funded septic re-inspection program, with grants or low-interest loans so a family isn’t choosing between a new septic bed and a new roof.
• Real support for shoreline renaturalization through programs like The Natural Edge, and enforcement when shorelines get stripped.
• Culverts, ditches and crossings sized for the storms we’re actually getting. After 2019, we shouldn’t need to be told.
• Development judged on what the lake can take, and said plainly at the table, in public, before the vote.

Accountability, visibility, oversight

The problem. Most people cannot say what Council decided last month, what it cost, or why. Decisions get made in language nobody outside the room uses, budgets are approved as totals rather than choices, and residents find out about things once they are done. That is how trust drains out of local government, and it is entirely fixable.

None of this requires new money. It requires a Council willing to say what it is doing, in public, before the vote, and to be measured on it afterwards.

What I’ll push for

• Say the reason out loud, before the vote. Every position I take at the table gets stated plainly, in public, with the reasoning, so residents can judge it rather than guess at it.
• Publish the numbers that matter. Permit and planning wait times, road and infrastructure spending, and how much salt we laid down, reported on a schedule rather than on request.
• A plain-language summary of what Council did, issued after each meeting, in words a person who was not there can follow.
• Open, answered constituent contact. I read and answer my own email. Ward B should be able to reach its Councillor without going through a form and waiting.
• Real oversight of contracts and consultants. What we bought, what it cost, what we got, and whether it was worth it, reviewed in public rather than absorbed into a line item.
• A yearly public report on the commitments on this page, listing what was delivered, what was not, and why. Judge me on it.