What this council will actually decide.
Here is a plain-language look at the major issue areas the next term will address. These are the files the full platform will speak to in detail.
SARNIA CITY & COUNTY COUNCIL — 2026
The Sarnia you want starts with being heard.
I am not here to guess what this city needs. I am here to listen, connect the dots, and do the work.
WHO IS RUNNING
A leader who listens before he leads.
I grew up in Sarnia and left in my early thirties, the way a lot of people do, chasing opportunities that were not here yet. When I came back I knew Sarnia was capable of more. I arrived with questions. Over the three years since, I have talked to and listened to Sarnians across every neighbourhood and background, then started pouring over budgets, asset management reports, council minutes, and housing data to understand what was actually driving what I was hearing. The connective tissue between all of it became clear. These are not separate problems. They are the same problem. And this council term is the window to do something about it.
BREAKING THE PATTERN
Sarnia does not have a spending problem. It has a growth problem.
Sarnia has been running the same play for decades. Hold the line on taxes. Defer the big decisions. Wait and see. The result is roads that are falling apart, housing that is out of reach, and a tax bill that keeps climbing anyway. Defensive decline is not a plan. Growth is. And growth requires investing in the things that make a city worth living in and worth moving to.
WHAT DRIVES EVERY DECISION
One north star. Five principles.
Equitable Growth
This is the north star. Growth that only works for some of us is not growth. Sarnia needs more people, more housing, more business, and more opportunity at every income level.
Opportunity Driven
When I came back to Sarnia, the thing I kept hearing was that opportunity had not kept pace with the cost of living here. I am running to change that direction.
People First
I make decisions by understanding how they land in people's actual lives, not just on a spreadsheet. The test of a good policy is whether it makes someone's life genuinely better.
Direct Honesty
Plain language, real numbers, no theater. I will tell you what I actually think and report publicly on what is and is not working.
Principled Math
I understand the cost of inaction and stagnation as much as how much things cost up front. The infrastructure deficit, the housing shortage, the foregone federal grants are not free. Someone is paying for them.
Full Platform Coming Mid June 2026
Growth, Housing, and the Tax Base
Sarnia has not grown meaningfully in 40 years, while the cost of maintaining the city’s expanding footprint keeps rising. That gap grows for the same group of taxpayers every budget cycle. Whether the city grows through densification, what kind of housing gets built, how quickly it gets approved, and what the fiscal consequences of continued inaction look like are questions with real dollar amounts attached. Nothing in this city gets easier without a broader tax base to share the load. The city is currently reviewing it’s zoning bylaws, which will have a lasting impact on what gets built, and with how much friction investors and developers will encounter for decades to come. Visit the city’s Draft Comprehensive Zoning Bylaw to learn more.
Infrastructure and the Maintenance Bill
Sarnia manages billions of dollars in public assets, most of them built in the 1950s to 1970s and aging quickly. We are spending less on maintenance than we need to and the gap is compounding. The potholes and flooding you see today are the early signs of a much larger problem. The choice between investing now and paying far more for emergency repairs later is one the next council will have to make directly. Visit the City of Sarnia Corporate Asset Management Plan to learn more about the detailed cost of inaction.
Economic Diversification and Business Attraction
Oil and gas built this region and will continue to be part of it for a long time. The question is what gets built alongside it. Sarnia has assets that other cities spend vast sums of money make up for: world class trades, the Great Lakes waterway, rail, highway access, and an international border crossing minutes from the core. Cities have attracted generational investment with far less. Attracting new industry, making it easier to start and grow a business here, reducing the red tape that sends developers and entrepreneurs elsewhere, and positioning Sarnia for the next generation of energy and manufacturing investment are all squarely within what city and county council can influence. The assets are here. The question is leadership.
Community Safety, Social Services, and Housing Stability
Public safety is about more than policing, and homelessness is about more than shelter beds. These issues share a root: when people do not have stable housing, adequate income, and access to supports, the consequences show up everywhere from emergency rooms to police calls to park encampments. The next council will decide how Sarnia funds its police service, what kind of supportive housing gets built and where, how the county manages its social service mandate, and whether we invest upstream or keep paying full price downstream.
Public Health
Lambton County Council is the Board of Health. That means whoever you elect at the county level is directly accountable for public health decisions, not a separate appointed body. The opioid crisis, food insecurity, the HART Hub, environmental health in Chemical Valley, and the gap between what the province funds and what the community actually needs are all live issues with real budget implications. Proactive investment in community health consistently costs less than reactive emergency care. That tradeoff is a council decision.
Downtown, Waterfront, and Quality of Life
Sarnia has a 3.5 kilometre publicly owned waterfront, an adopted master plan, and a downtown that has been waiting for someone to connect the dots between vision and execution. It also has parks, public events, and a Canada Day celebration that shows what this city is capable of when it commits. What is missing is the private layer of family entertainment and year-round activity that turns good public infrastructure into a place people actually want to spend time. Getting from plans to shovels, and removing the barriers that keep private investment out, is a council conversation.
Indigenous Relations and the Environment
Sarnia’s relationship with Aamjiwnaang and the broader First Nations community has national implications and local economic ones. The UNDRIP framework, the duty to consult, and the health impacts of industrial activity in Chemical Valley are all files that require consistent, good-faith leadership at the council level. These issues connect directly to what kind of industrial partners Sarnia attracts and how drainage and flooding are managed as the climate shifts.
Governance and Representation
How decisions get made matters as much as what gets decided. A mandatory provincial review following this election will determine how Sarnia is represented at the county table for years to come. The relationship between city and county council, how the public is kept informed, whether consultation processes produce real outcomes or just reports, and whether this council shows up differently than the ones before it are all governance questions with consequences across every other file.