POLICY FOCUS
Community Infrastructure and Family Services
We’re focused on building the services and infrastructure families actually rely on: childcare, housing, public safety, accessibility, and real support for newcomer families settling in Stratford.
Key Proposals
Training Facility in New HQ
Push for a full training facility inside Stratford's new police headquarters. The city is moving forward with a new $36 million police headquarters on Wright Boulevard, replacing the outdated 1963 station on George Street. I've been the only voice on council pushing to build a genuine training facility into that project, not an afterthought carved out of leftover square footage. Done properly, it improves officer retention, ends the need for our officers to travel elsewhere for training, and opens a real revenue opportunity: hosting training for surrounding police services that currently have nowhere closer to go.
Reuse George St. Station
Evaluate the old George Street police station for affordable housing or childcare retrofit before considering any other use. Once the new headquarters is complete, the city plans to sell surplus land including the current station at 17 George Street to help fund the project. Before that property goes anywhere, I want the city to formally evaluate whether it can be retrofitted into affordable housing or additional childcare space, the same CMHC retrofit and renewal financing I've advocated expanding federally is built for exactly this kind of conversion. If a full evaluation genuinely rules that out, my second priority is redevelopment as mixed-use space that brings real grocery and food retail access back to a downtown core that doesn't have it today, paired with housing above or alongside it, rather than defaulting straight to a sale with no public benefit attached.
Three-Part Childcare Plan
Build childcare capacity around three pieces: the YMCA expansion, underused municipal space, and on-demand care. As of the end of 2025, 1,772 children aged zero to five were on the waitlist for licensed child care across Stratford, St. Marys, and Perth County, and Stratford's own full-day, year-round access rate sits at just 15 percent, well behind the province's 37 percent target and behind our own regional average. Even if every space in Stratford's CWELCC growth allocation gets built, the city will still land under 30 percent access. Council has already taken one real step, approving a new home child-care agency this year to license roughly 15 home-based providers, each able to support up to six children. I want to build directly on that momentum: supporting the YMCA's childcare expansion inside the new Grand Trunk shared facility as the anchor piece, reviewing underused municipal buildings for additional licensed capacity beyond that single site, and growing the on-demand, drop-in option, alongside the home-based agency council has already started, for parents who don't need a full five-day spot but need reliable coverage for an appointment, a meeting, or the kind of irregular scheduling a remote and hybrid work environment now creates.
Local Newcomer Support
Build real settlement support for newcomer and immigrant families, delivered locally. I've spent years pushing federally for housing and social service funding to keep pace with asylum and refugee claimant needs, and I've seen firsthand how much of that burden ends up landing on the community a family actually settles in, not the level of government that set immigration policy in the first place. A newcomer family in Stratford needs help navigating schools, housing, and local services long before any federal or provincial program reaches them. I want Stratford to build genuine local settlement support rather than leaving newcomer families to piece it together on their own, and I want to keep pushing federally for the settlement funding that should be following them here.
Accessibility in Practice
Accelerate Stratford's Multi-Year Accessibility Plan so it becomes a lived reality, not a document on file. Council approved a 2023 to 2027 Accessibility Plan, and the city's Accessibility Advisory Committee has real, specific priorities in front of it right now, including accessible pedestrian signals at intersections and building accessibility fully into how new developments get reviewed. Like several other plans on this platform, the direction has already been set. What it needs is a councillor treating full implementation as a real priority rather than a box checked every two years for the province's compliance report.
Build a Better Stratford
Join our movement to prioritize childcare, housing, and accessible community infrastructure today. Together, we can build a city where every family has the support they need to thrive and every resident feels at home and included.