Know the field

In your July interview you supported more townhouses, semi-detached homes and apartments within existing settlement areas to reduce outward expansion. Where would you support that additional density and would you vote for a suitable project when immediate neighbours oppose it? What standards would determine your decision?

First off, the settlement area. Most of the current settlement area was delineated in the United Counties' Official Plan. First, the United Counties decide what our settlement areas are where we can urbanize. And as the population grows, they expand it outward. And there are rules within the Planning Act to do that. So, within those areas, and we have one that's just not too far from where we're sitting right now, near the Embrun Fire Hall, for example, that has 1,800 new residents planned when it's built out, however long that takes the developer to build it out. That should have a higher density than the minimum densities that are allocated to us in the United Counties' Official Plan. That means that we are not pushing into farmland and eating up farmland where we don't have to. So we should be building up a little bit more and not out. Driving around the township, you will notice that the older neighbourhoods, including mine, are almost exclusively single-family residential housing, some of them on very large lots, including mine, but that does not mean that we can't increase the density by adding additional housing in these lots. Now, the provincial government has already encouraged that by stating that, in our zoning byelaws, we have to have it built in that if we have a single family detached a lot, that single family home can actually include 3 residences. That was the government's direction, and it will encourage coach houses, granny suites, and all of that. But also in new builds, we have to be building up. So there's the key. We also have some areas of the villages that are undeveloped and those areas should be developed at a higher density than single-family resident housing. Yes, there is opposition to that. No doubt, but in the long-term health of our community, we have to have higher densities. And I'm not saying every place has to be a skyscraper but we have to have more density in our housing.

During the discussion of older recreation facilities you expressed concern that the township could not afford to continue operating them alongside the new complex. Does that rule out continued municipal operation of any of the four properties, or could a community proposal change your mind? What financial and service evidence would it have to provide?

Ah, yes. The key thing is the 4 existing recreation facilities, that's the outdoor pool, the arena in Russell, the arena in Embrun, and the Camille Piché Community Centre in Embrun. All of the money that the township put in tax money, plus all of the user fees that we've been traditionally having from those. You can look in the budget to see they are, have all been programmed in to the operation and payment of the mortgage of the new recreation complex. So those things have to be considered carefully for future use. Now, I am certainly open to any proposal that would keep those sites in municipal use, and in fact, it's probably what we should have, because of their locations in the center of each of the villages. Even the pool is close to the center of the village of Russell. So any municipal use that would allow citizens to use those properties conveniently should be considered. The determining factor of what we should do it or not is they can't start increasing taxes. Property taxes are pushed high. Whatever we say, we are the second most taxed municipality in the United Counties of Prescott and Russell. So we should not be pushing those taxes higher. If somebody comes up, I have a proposal for this facility and it will not cost the township tax money or remove user fees from the new recreation facility because that's an indirect taxation, then yes, we should do that. Now, we could also have some things where the township develops it for future use. And we've discussed in council things such as affordable housing, healthcare facilities, daycare facilities, and those will all garner user fees that could very likely cover the cost of the actual construction and operation of those facilities. Those types of ideas should be entertained. And those are good for the township, especially because of the location of those current facilities.

Your written submission for September 14 says transit should cost no more than 2% of the budget. Which budget do you mean? What would that ceiling be in dollars? And would it apply to the service's total cost or the net amount paid by municipal taxpayers? What minimum service do you believe that amount should purchase?

Tax for transit is a very difficult question here. We're going to have a discussion on that soon in council. And the big problem with transit first is what type of transit do we want? Transit for the city of Ottawa means how do you commute within the city of Ottawa? Whereas most of the people who commute around here actually commute into the city of Ottawa from the township of Russell. We had that. It didn't go well. So that's something we have to seriously consider. Do we want something internal to the city, to the township, I mean, or do we want commuter? And I'm sort of against commuter because we do have commuter transit right at the moment. It's run by a for-profit company and it seems to be working on a for-profit basis. I don't think we should just go and change that. And those are for commuters that work for the most part in the core of the city of Ottawa. So do we have something else, for example, some sort of on-demand transit system that allows people to commute within the township of Russell? If so, again we come back to taxes that we have to carefully consider what percentage of our municipal budget we should be considering for such a transit system. I looked at the City of Ottawa, for example, and essentially half of OC Transpo's budget comes from municipal taxation. That's a lot. By the way, it runs to, I think it was something like $900 million. Okay. That's a lot of money. Okay. So, that would only drive up property taxes. And the fact is, most of the people commute into Ottawa. So that transit system was not very successful. I'm open to discussion on transit, but again, cost is the determining factor. If it costs a 2% tax increase and that 2%, whatever that is, that money carries on, okay, we're within the realm that I think it would be. But 2% of our municipal taxes runs into, in the order of, half a million a year. Okay? A little less than that, but under the 2026 budget, half a million a year.

You identify yourself as a Stand Our Ground member. On August 31st, you seconded and voted for retaining the existing minor variance notice period while adding online notices. Why did you consider that sufficient and what stronger opportunity for residents to influence planning decisions would you champion in the next term?

Ah, that vote. Yes. It was moved at the time that residents get a personalized notice of any variances around their property. If a property is within 120 metres of your own, you get notice. But currently the notice is 10 days' notice from the time the notice is mailed till the time a public meeting can take place. It was moved that that be increased to 15 days, and I seconded that. That amendment to the bylaw was not passed. So, another amendment that the online notice be given earlier, was up for vote. And I at least did that. That went part way. I still agree with the fact that residences within 120 meters should get more than 10 days' notice. That's 10 days from the time it's mailed. Okay. So if you have holidays like Easter where it's a four-day long weekend or Christmas and Boxing Day in the middle of a week or whatever, that means it could take some time before you get the notice, and you may get, like, literally a day or two's notice to react and be at the meeting. Get yourself informed. So, that concerns me. That's why I seconded the motion to have the longer notice. I think residents should get as much notice as possible of what's going on around them so that they can make an informed decision whether or not to object and bring logical objections. That's what drove that notice. And as for the Stand Our Ground, that notice does not really apply to the Stand Our Ground as in not having the sprawl. I already addressed that, but reducing our urban sprawl. Can I stop urban sprawl? No, as long as the population of this township keeps growing, there will be urban growth outward to some extent. It's how does that push into our valuable farmland that matters. And that's what I'm looking to reduce there. And which is why I was a member of Stand Our Ground even before I was elected in the by-election two years ago.

And the last one, in December, you seconded the motion for four-way stops at Route 100/Hamilton and Route 200/St-Pierre, and for a broader rural intersection safety framework. What has that initiative achieved, and what evidence should determine which dangerous intersection to receive attention next? Name the next improvement you would prioritize and explain why it ranks ahead of other requests.

Okay, yeah, that's a good one. And let's look at things, most specifically why I seconded that motion. That motion was to provide stops along the intersections on Route 200. Route 200 recently has been a very dangerous route. There have been numerous accidents, including fatal ones. So we want to make people stop in all directions, make that little pause before they go through the intersection, and hopefully we will avoid some, in the future, additional problems along Route 200. As for transit in itself or traffic in itself, my biggest concern, other than Route 200, is the village of Russell itself. All of the truck routes east of St￾Guillaume, or sorry, west of St-Guillaume, towards the village of Russell, go through the village of Russell. And we are building—not us, but the school board is building another school in Russell. I am terrified that we are going to have an accident with a child and some truck, or some frustrated car driver because the trucks slow down the traffic. And truck drivers, for the most part, are pretty good. I mean, they do slow down. They know there are children there, and they don't have any choice. So my idea would be to begin with upgrading Route 200, which is north of the village of Russell, to allow trucks to go around the village of Russell as best as possible. We don't have the same problem at Embrun. First, there are fewer schools on the road, Notre-Dame, the main street. Second, both Route 300, which is north of the village, and Route 400 south of the village, are far more convenient for trucks traveling east-west to go around the village. That's my intention, and that is my single biggest worry, that we are going to have a fatal accident with a child and a truck along that road. So upgrade 200. That would be the thing, to get around the village of Russell. Will it stop all trucks? No, because some actually have business in the city of Russell, of course. If you have business, you're going to have to go through. But if you can avoid it, please avoid the village of Russell. Closing prompt — The Rustler: Okay. So I did this with Lisa this morning. And as she was answering the questions, I thought, well, at the end, I should give everybody, you know, a chance just to really, you know, if there's anything you want to say to voters as we go into the election. Charles Armstrong: The big question that is going to hit people is taxes. Our tax bills went out just last week. I don't know. You live in the village of Russell. You got your tax bill last week. Okay, I did. And, you know, there's a tax increase. We had a 3.9% tax increase for this year, 2026. And we're going to see another significant tax increase in 2027. We have lots of pressure on our budget. The recreation complex, of course. I've already spoken to what we do with the existing recreation facilities because of the potential tax burden from those facilities. And the other thing I note is we are having pressure on our firefighting services. And firefighting comes to us in a difficult time. As we keep growing, the demand on our firefighters increases and increases. We are pushing towards one call per day. And some days we get multiple calls. That means, in my mind, that we need some sort of full-time firefighting service. Full-time firefighting services to have one truck, full team, and all of the equipment runs about $4 million a year. That's expensive. Okay. Do we have to have that right now? I'm willing to have a look through all of the statistics and have a good analysis by the fire department that may help us phase this in. But the fact is, we keep growing. We are going to desperately need at least some full-time firefighting service and for probably the foreseeable future, part-time backup—volunteer firefighters. And that's hard. You know, I was on the Association of Municipalities of Ontario website just last week, and there are 119 municipalities of Ontario that have a population of greater than 20,000, out of 444 total. We have a population greater than 20,000. So that's pushing us up into the largest municipalities in Ontario. You may not think it, but it is. And because we're going that far, we're going to need more of a full-time firefighting service. When a call comes in, firefighters have to be able to get to their truck. And if they're already in the fire hall, then they have a good chance of having a quick response. And that's really key for many of our facilities. And I look, I mean, we have another school being built. A fire in a school is something where you want a quick response. Even if it's not to put out the fire, it's to help get the children out. Those are some of the things that worry me in the long term that we'll have to look at and fund that. Because that firefighting response, full-time firefighters, is in fact an operational response. That's going to be funded out of municipal property taxes. Okay? So I said, phase it in: an analysis of what shifts, times of day, times of the week have the most risk. And then ensuring that those shifts have a full-time team, and one of the fire halls. We should start looking at that and then building onto that. But it's quite expensive to have a full-time firefighting service.

So, Dominique Bertrand, you've spent much of your career as a school principal, where you've had responsibility for budgets, staff, facilities, parents and sometimes very difficult decisions. You're also vice chair of the Russell Township Public Library Board, but being one of five members of council is quite different. You don't run the organization, you can't make decisions yourself. What have those experiences taught you that would make you an effective councillor, and can you give me one example of a difficult decision you personally made where the choice you ultimately made was unpopular with some of the people affected?

Thank you so much for having me. Certainly, in my career I've made lots of decisions that were probably unpopular decisions, and without giving specifics, I can think of a decision I had to make regarding programming for students at school. And so the way I approached it is really, I listened to what all the parties had to say, you know, the parents, the educators, the students, and I ultimately had to make a decision about what the programming would look like at the school level. So, some were in agreement, some weren't in agreement, but ultimately, the decision was mine to make. So I did. But with the understanding that, okay, folks, we're going to try this for X number of time, and if it doesn't work out the way we planned it, then let's come back to the drawing table and kind of look at it a different way. So, being on council, I see it in a similar way. The ultimate decision would not be mine in this case. However, we need to come up with compromises and we need to kind of take everyone's ideas and make a final decision. So, I see my role as being a school principal and as a municipal councillor, very similar, and I see lots of transferable skills from one to the other.

You've given The Rustler a fairly specific proposal for centre, Camille de Piche, converted into a municipal daycare to help address the child-care waiting list. Do you mean that Russell Township should actually get into the business of operating a daycare with municipal employees and taxpayers, ultimately, responsible for it? Or are you envisioning the township providing the building to another operator before you would vote to proceed? What would you need to know about the cost, demand, staffing and the effect on existing child care providers?

Well, the township does run quite a few daycares in the area, and before- and after-school programs as well. So that is something that's well established. Yes, I do stand behind the idea that, I mean, municipal daycare would help resolve some of the problems. I am hearing from parents who can't go back to work because they just don't have a daycare spot. So I think this is a need in our community. You know, one of my daughters actually worked when she was a student at one of the daycare centres. So I do see the need, and I did get some information about how it's run and whatnot, and the biggest struggle is staffing, as it is in many different areas, especially with early childhood educators. So staffing is the greater issue. But I think there are things we could put in place to ensure that we can secure some educators once they graduate high school and go into a college program. So, there are some things we could do, but we do run daycares and as far as I believe, they are self-sufficient. So, the money that they get from parents accessing this service is the money that they used to run the program. So I don't believe it's running at a deficit. But that's something I would need to look into more.

You set yourself in an unusually precise housing target, 25 affordable units, approved you're under construction by the end of the next term, potentially using surplus township land and incentives such as development charge policies. What exactly would count as an affordable unit for that target if the township contributes land or gives up revenue to make a project possible, how would you ensure those homes remain affordable rather than eventually becoming an ordinary market-rate housing? And how much municipal subsidy would you be prepared to support to reach a 25-unit target?

Defining the term affordable is certainly something that we look into. I see affordable as being 20 to 25 per cent below average, below market average. It's an optimistic goal. I would hope that in a municipality our size, that we could hit that goal. So to me, what that looks like is township could contribute land and not necessarily just give up land. We could certainly sell land to a developer that would want to work on an agreement to ensure that those units remain at a lower cost. So I'm thinking if a developer can get the land at a lower price, then certainly building the units would not be as costly, and we know that there's some accommodations for development charges already in place for affordable housing. So I think it's something that's achievable, but we'll need to put lots of brains together and put our thinking hats on to see how we can make this affordable. But I think it's something that is doable, and that's something that's important to me, close to my heart, especially in my job as an educator. You know, I see how families are struggling to remain in the area. And I see that rent has become, you know, so expensive. So we have a social obligation to help those families out.

You support municipal trends, particularly for seniors, people with disabilities and low-income residents. Pardon me? But you've also said you would postpone it if the next budget couldn't accommodate everything, and the council should establish a financial limit for launching a service. So let's make that concrete: what level of annual municipal subsidy would you regard as too expensive, and what ridership or cost per passenger result would a transit system have to achieve for you to vote to keep funding it?

I think it's too premature to launch any type of service right now. There's a study that's, you know, that's just being completed. So we obviously need to see what the users are wanting, what residents are wanting. I think we're not ready to launch it yet. I don't think we're nearly close. We'll have to have some type of partnership with maybe other local, you know, municipalities close by that, you know, we could share, perhaps a service, you know, in agreement with the autoware transit system as well. But to me, there's so many unknowns here, and if we want those services to be made available to seniors or low-income families or, you know, to students, then we have to keep the cost minimal. Otherwise, they won't be using the service, right? So, yeah, in my opinion, anything above $5 to $10 per ride would not be a service that residents would be using, if we look at the clientele that would be using the service. So, certainly, it is a need. It is a need in our growing community, but I don't think it's an immediate need. It's something that we need to work on. And I hope maybe by the end of our four-year term, that will have something in place. But again, I think it's too early to say. Yeah.

You've made public engagement a significant part of the campaign, and proposed coffee with councillors that are two weeks, rotating through Russell Emburn in smaller and rural communities. But listening is the easy part of consultation. Suppose a large organized group of residents tells you very clearly, they pose something while the staff report and the evidence convince you that improving is the township's broader interest. As a councillor, which should prevail in more obligation, would you have to those residents after voting against what they ask you to do?

And I think that's the beauty of being in municipal politics, right? There's lots of different ideas coming your way and you kind of have to make the best of everything. So, I always want to be making decisions based on data and evidence. Right? So, I'm seeing it right now with the consultations about the excess infrastructure that we have with both arenas, the pool, and the sound can be piche, right? People are wanting to keep everything, but without taxes, you know, going up. So you have to base decisions on data. It doesn't mean you can't listen. You have to listen, right? Because some good ideas come from listening. But ultimately, at the end of the day, we have to base decisions on data, on evidence, and if, you know, that large group is not happy with the decision made, and it will happen, I'm accountable to that. I need to go back to them and say, this is why the decision was made. This is what I based my vote on because I'm one of five, right? This is what I base my vote on. So it's to be accountable to the voters, to the residents, and say, I have to make a decision, and I know you all want this, but if we look at the bigger picture, it just doesn't work out. So, that's how I would approach this. I know people will not be happy about every decision that's made and I'm okay with that. But I need to be able to explain the why.

Message to voters

Okay. And what's your message to the voters?

Well, you know what? I've lived in this community for many, many years, and I've prepared for this role. I've probably the decision to run for council I made 20 years ago. I knew that when I retired from my job as a principal, I would be running for council. So this is something, I have this, I don't know, constant urge to serve. I want to serve people. And I've proved it over many, many years, how I've served people. I wanna continue to do that. And I know that there will be lots of challenges coming up. But I feel like I'm well equipped, and I have lots of tools in my toolbox to be able to make difficult decisions, follow through, and be held accountable. And so that's what I want voters to know, is that I will work as hard as I can, and I have the time right now, to, you know, to do my research, to listen, to make those tough decisions that will need to be made. I'm ready for that, and I'm excited about it, actually.

In July, you said a consultant’s report changed your understanding of how transit affects housing affordability. Your September submission supports exploring a local, on-call service. What service would you actually be prepared to fund in the next term, and what result would demonstrate that it is making life more affordable rather than simply adding another municipal expense?

Lisa Deacon: So in my decision making process, my first step is to always look at what is the history of this issue, what has been explored, what pilots have been run in terms of a public transit option in Russell Township. Russell Township has never had a local sort of milk run to the grocery store, to church, to medical appointments, universally accessible public transit system.

We've participated in regional transit. That was, I think most people would agree, it showed that a regional system would not work inter village. And that would go all the way to East Hawkesbury from Russell, for example. I don't know many people that make that trip.

So we've been down this road. We've also had the coach buses going into Ottawa back and forth and people bring that up to me all the time. But the need that we're hearing from that housing report, that we're hearing from the seniors committee, that we're hearing from teens, and personally, we are a one-car family.

I would be a transit user myself. We're hearing that affordability for getting around locally is a huge priority. And from that housing consultant, he was talking about how it's not just about housing affordability.

It's about life affordability in our community that enables people who are feeling the crunch of housing affordability to be able to stay here because they're not paying the gas anymore and the purchase of the vehicle, the insurance, the repairs, which, as we all know as vehicle owners, really adds up quickly. So that really opened my eyes when he came because we'd already submitted our report as the Affordable Housing Committee. We'd submitted our report and dissolved the housing committee that was struck in 2022. By the time this report came, it was, oh my gosh, I didn't even link transit to affordability here as closely as we should have, and to the point that housing experts see the two in tandem and consider them to be deeply integrated issues. So your question about what service would I actually be prepared to fund in the next term?

Like I said, we've never done a local on demand sort of public transit option in here for the average resident, the average worker, senior, teen, family. And so what I would be looking at, because we haven't had that here before, looking at other models. And one that I'm particularly interested in looking at as a model is Kenora’s, where they have a similar size population, about a similar size geography.

They are an isolated, a very remote community. But they have some key indicators in common with us here in Russell, and they launched a pilot a year and a half ago or so on, that was on demand, what they call closest corner pickup. And so that's a system that I'm really interested and curious about because it seems to be convenient, designed for small town use and small trips.

And also looking, of course, they've been very helpful in sending me their data. They're measuring in terms of the investment that they've made, and how much of the subsidy ultimately has to come from their municipality to support it long term. I can't answer today what service I would be prepared to fund, but I can tell you that that's a model that I'm really interested in looking at more.

And that I've actually been tracking with them every six months. Where are they at? How much is it costing them?

What are they finding as the usage and the outcomes long term? Because everybody's excited at first, but it's those longer term numbers that we know actually will tell us if it's sustainable.

You supported the November 2025 appeal for stronger rental protections. On December 8, you also moved to implement the proposed 2029 building-permit fee rates in January 2026, rather than phase in the increase. Why was the immediate increase the right choice, and how do you assess its effect on the cost of building homes? What would you change if it is discouraging the housing the township needs?

Lisa Deacon: This I can answer in a few different ways, because there's multiple perspectives and priorities at play here, right? There's the builders, there's the residents and future residents of those new units themselves, those new dwellings.

There's the township and there's the rate payers as well. So permit fees are a user-based system, which right now in our township, the philosophy that we use is that the building permit costs what it costs the township to administer. We are not charging more than what it costs to administer, and we're consistently cycling through and evaluating on a regular schedule how what that cost looks like so that it remains user fee based. We're not subsidizing just average permits. And I believe that that's important for rate payers to know that you're not paying for some developer to have, you know, subsidized permit fee reductions.

That growth is paying for growth, right? That the developer is covering that cost. From the housing affordability side of things, it is across the province now that permits for actual affordable housing, meaning subsidized, rent geared to income, that really deeply affordable housing that is not really present in our community except for specific groups.

Those permit fees, like there are some, there are lots of different reductions that are being applied to those, to really incentivize those types of building that we know are so crucial, missing from Russell Township currently for the average low income resident. And that we actually want to motivate and encourage more building in that area. So, it is a matter of balancing those different perspectives.

And I'll just say, I respond to every single email and phone call. Like I'm very open. I'm very approachable in the community.

I have never personally had a builder come and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is too expensive. This is too much of a jump. This is hindering my ability to build houses or build what you call affordable housing in our community.

I've never heard that perspective. I will be going to a UCPR housing symposium later on in this month, where I hope there's more face to face with developers and I would be open to hearing if that is a perspective and a challenge that they're facing to actually building deeply affordable housing here.

If it is, I'm always a lifelong learner and I'm willing to change my position and reconsider how that decision is made.

As chair of the Teens Advisory Committee, you have overseen work that produced recommendations on after-hours recreation and transit. What is the most important improvement young people can use today because of that work, and which outstanding recommendation would you seek to fund first in the next budget?

Lisa Deacon: This is one of those things where government moves slowly, slower than I would wish. You know, as a consultant, as an entrepreneur, I'm used to working very hard, but getting things done on my own timeline. Collaboration, you know, they say that we go further together, but it may take, but we can go, what is it? We don't go far quickly. We go further together or whatever is the same. So, I believe in that and we see that and this is an example of that, right?

Because it was in 2023 that the teen committee first ran their consultation with teens. Two of the issues were recreation and transportation. And that was the consultation done with over 80 teens locally, where those two recommendations really came out of. We need critical hours after school programming on the recreation side.

And we need public transit options for teens to get around to work, to their jobs, to see, you know, friends and family, to get to the critical hours recreation that we're talking about. So that was in 2023. Here we are in 2026.

What has actually happened? I can name a few things that have happened. So the first is that I worked through the library board to establish more welcoming spaces for teens in our library branches.

The Russell Library Branch, they've reconfigured their space. They've set out games, board game rentals. They have a teen specific space, so where the sort of graphic novels and youth collection is, there's more comfortable seating.

There are games out, there's also some programming that has started to happen in that branch. We have, I worked with a library board again to secure $100,000 towards a capital investment in the Embrun branch that would specifically be for a teen space. So we're talking about comfortable lounge furniture.

We're talking about a specific fish bowl room that will have virtual reality technology, video gaming technology. We're really going to bolster what's available to teens in that space, which will be, I mean, it could have been opened by now, but you know how projects go long term. It is in the tender phase, the fit up for that branch is now in tender phase and we're expecting it to be summer of 2027.

So there are immediate benefits that have happened in the Russell branch; some that are like really phenomenal ones, I would say, that are coming to the Embrun branch. We talked a little bit about the transit and what's happening there. At this point, the administration has almost completed its study of transit.

It did public engagement with the broader public, consulted with the teen committee, consulted with the seniors committee, who were also advocating for it. So that study is about to be completed, and we will be expecting recommendations from the administration to come back soon on what can be done in public transit. And we're going to be looking closely at the financials on that, of course.

And the other piece is that the administration on the critical hour side is going to be piloting this fall a once a week drop in-ish program in Russell every other week, kind of jumping between the two villages, where teens can come. There will be an instructor with a certain specialization. It could be arts, it could be STEM, it could be physical activity like yoga. And our team committee heavily influenced and was engaged in that process.

So that will be launched this fall. The staff is just looking into getting those instructors and finalizing that programming. And the teens actually ran at the latest Meet Me event in Embrun. They were meant to run a dunk tank to raise funds to offset the registration fees for that so that the cost for teens could be as low as possible.

I'm really proud that they took that. Unfortunately, we had terrible rain that day, so the dunk tank was cancelled, but the township staff let us know that they could actually reallocate some funds from other activities that didn't go on because of the rain and they were able to simply transfer that over so that there are funds to keep that fee as low as possible. So those are three different ways that the critical hours programming and the transit has not 100% been mobilized, but there have been some steps and I see it coming around the corner.

Definitely anticipating it.

The August 31 minutes record your successful motions to suspend procedure and provide $2,000 for Autumn in the Country. Why did that request merit immediate action, and what funding process would give other arts and community groups an equally clear opportunity without depending on a councillor bringing forward a last-minute motion?

Lisa Deacon: 100%, I really appreciate this question, because, in policy work, you need to have the rules clearly written and clearly communicated and engaged with everyone who, in this case, could be eligible for the grant. And I've worked for a few years now encouraging administration to more publicly promote the community grants programming.

Just for those who may not know it's usually around $35,000 of in kind, which usually goes towards space, like facility rental, that a group would usually pay for, that the township kicks in as an inkind grant. Or I think it's around $30,000, usually, of cash that we would invest into a local community event that is public that is available to everyone. Just showing our partnership and our collaboration with community groups.

So that grant program exists and has existed for a long time. Such a long time, in fact, that it requires a major update. And so, it's been a few years that we've been talking about the need to update it, focussing on the rec complex and getting that going and programming, I didn't want to push right away for an updated grants policy.

However, that is going to be happening this fall, where they're reviewing the programming, the program, the way it's designed, the eligibility criteria, the way that communication happens between applicants and the staff as well. And so it's come up a few times in the last few months where I've just seen instances where the spirit of the program and what I believe is that, and this is what I ask council on that night, what I believe is the spirit of the grant program is no longer being realized through the policy that's in place right now.

So unfortunately, we're in that really uncomfortable moment where we realize how desperate that policy needs to be updated and reviewed. And we have real-time groups who are entirely volunteer based, have decades of experience delivering on fantastic events that bring out everybody from Russell, people from all around, you know, like a real tourist attraction, which Autumn in the Country, that's become. And they're not seeing the collaboration and the support from township.

And so, I felt it was an immediate need to fix that, to make sure that the spirit of council was reflected in the way that we're supporting Autumn in the Country, but also at the same time really pushing and saying, okay, we need to be taking this lesson and the way that this hasn't quite worked for this community group and ensuring that as that review happens of the policy, that that is baked into the next policy. In this particular case, the group had applied for federal and provincial grants.

And so that was why they were counting, they were putting in extra effort because I know how much effort it takes to apply for a grant. They were putting an extra effort to find grants, whereas they could have just come knocking on our door day one and saying, this is exactly how much we need. And we're not looking for funds from anybody else.

No, this was a group that was putting in effort to bring in funds from the province and the feds. And they were, in the end, it almost felt like they were being penalized by our own process for having tried to seek those grants, and two weeks prior to their event, they still had no idea if the township was actually going to be a partner on that event or not.

You voted on August 31 to retain the existing minor-variance notification period while adding website notices. Staff had examined extending the minimum from 10 days to 15, but warned about processing delays. Why was keeping the shorter period the right balance, and what would you change to ensure affected neighbours have a realistic opportunity to understand a proposal and respond before the decision?

Lisa Deacon: So the way that this was a long discussion that night, actually, the way that the administration had presented, I don't know if the visuals were being questioned by members of council in terms of the application, but I had run those myself at home when I was looking through the actual processing timelines that are currently in place, and as well as our obligations under provincial legislation for planning. And I was satisfied that the way that administration was communicating, if we changed from 10 to 15 days, that would penalize developers quite a bit, especially the smaller developers in terms of the way that the cycle was going through.

I was also being told that the website, one of the sticking points for residents was the counting of weekends, weekend days. And so that staff would be able to publish the information so that residents could go online and find that information over the weekend when the township offices are closed. So I believe in iterative improvement.

And as I said, I believe I said that night at the table, this is a step forward. Let's continue monitoring this issue, finding out if this is working for people, and if it's not, we need to revisit it again.

But I do believe that it was important for us to take a step in terms of the transparency and the accessibility of the information, and to revisit in due time if that continues to present issues for residents.

What would you like to say to the voters?

Message to voters

Lisa Deacon: I want to say, visit my website, Deacon for Russell.ca, where I have a detailed review of my work as a councillor to date. There's no one conversation that I could have with a particular resident or journalist that would cover the work of the last four years.

I've been firing on all cylinders and I am proud of a lot of the accomplishments and the work that I've done. So visit Deacon for Russell.ca if you have specific issues that you want to know in depth, what my track record is. You'll see there my platform as well with its detailed, you know, not just the what, but how do I plan to actually implement these priorities?

And just taking a step back and looking at this process that we're all in the middle of as a community, I just want to really encourage everybody to vote. It is not the most exciting race to have five candidates for four seats at council to not have a mayoral race. I think we only even have one school board trustee race.

But I also feel, because provincially there are numbers released, that there is an upswing in momentum and interest again in democracy and civic participation. I think that that may be coming down from what's happening federally and internationally. And I do think, you know, I've lived in countries that didn't have the right to, where people didn't have the right to vote.

And so I just want to encourage people to vote. I also want to name how special it is that we are in a township where you have at large councillors, and you get to choose not just one voice at the table who represents you. You get to choose the whole team.

So back to talking about sports analogies, it's like your draft. It's not every community that gets to get their first four draft picks at the table. So I encourage people to look at, consider how fortunate we are to have that at large system and to encourage them to look at more than one candidate and consider us as a whole table rather than one individual voice that represents them.

You say roads and basic infrastructure come first, and that you would postpone a lower-priority project before asking taxpayers for more. What specific project would you postpone in the next budget, and what would that choice allow the Township to fund?

Well, I guess before going over maybe a specific project, not having, you know, maybe purview of what every project coming down the pipeline is, not being a council myself, but yes, what I'm trying to say is that the basic infrastructure comes first and, in turn, we need to make sure that our existing infrastructure, our roads, they keep up. Not just filling them over with potholes, that we are getting them done, you know, to the standards that we should have across the township, that our residents need.

You know, I've chatted with a few saying, you know, I've lived on the street for 30 X years. I haven't seen it paved once. You know, it's been filling with potholes and it's not conducive to, you know, kind of everyday life. Kids trying to bike and walk and things like that. It's kind of left safe.

So, again, I couldn't speak to an exact project and push out. I'd like to see a list, but what I would do is maybe prioritize them. You know, I would get a list of future projects and maybe we can shift them into, you know, different categories as must-haves, needs and like-to-have. And that way, prioritize them from there. And that way we can ensure that we are attacking the things that are, you know, necessary, need to be done.

And then by budgeting, going through our budget and seeing what we've done that way, then we can pick our choose, OK, what's comes next on this list? What do we think is a nice-to-have that is more important than the other? And I think tiering is really key in terms of making our decisions.

And I've got the same time, by doing that, we can get this message out to people in the township saying, hey, these are what our priorities we must do. And these are the nice-to-have, and this is how we have maybe ranked them or allocated, and maybe get some feedback from people as well to say, we agree with that, or maybe the township feels that there are other nice-to-haves or needs that should come up first. And that way, we're more transparent. In a sense, we get a full feedback of everybody of what we should be working on.

And then we talk about, you know, what the choices allowed townships to fund. Again, like I said, I think it's a matter of prioritization and what we really need first, and then kind of coming to common ground are what are nice-to-have. We all have, I think, our own ideas, but I think by pooling it, by putting it out to the community a little bit, that really helps, kind of what we've done with the survey, with the recreational facilities.

You favour keeping the Township's existing properties while the new recreation complex adds debt and operating costs. Which property would you work hardest to keep, what use would you pursue, and how much ongoing taxpayer support would you consider reasonable?

I think, in my opinion, of the, I guess, you know, the excess ones, I'd be looking at the Russell Arena first and foremost to keep in. Obviously, I'm living in Russell, so I might be a little bit biased there. But because the new ice surface is out in recreation, complex are technically in Embrun, with a little bit easier access, that would be sort of my opinion as why I would look at the Russell Arena first.

And again, not just because it's Russell, but because of where it's located in Russell too. People can walk to it, they can bike to it. It's very easily accessible by everybody in town. And that way, kids are able to get to a little bit easier without having to make that long-distance trip into Embrun.

I mean, it's nice that we have the path, but, you know, come winter and things like that, it's much harder for families, you know, especially with younger kids, to pack up their cars with all the equipment they need and all the, you know, whatever it is they need to bring with them to head on over to the new recreational complex. So that's one of the main reasons why I would focus on the one in Russell first again, because of the convenience, where it is. And again, how easy it is to get to for residents there without having to, you know, pack up and leave town. And, you know, my big things that I've been talking about is street safety, so if we're able to walk to and from places, bike to and from places, that's less cars on the road as well. So that's another tie-in to some of my thoughts there.

And how much local taxpayers support? That's a great question. And I think what we'd have to do is really look at the operating costs. Can we find ways to bring in outside users? Like, can release it out to other people? Are there other associations? Are there other teams that would be looking to use for it?

You know, if there's other sports things we can put in there, you know, if we put in some basketball mats, if we were able to put in a surface at a low cost to allow, again, basketball or volleyball, other games like that, are there other associations who are out of town who would want to use that space again, and then we can maybe bring some income in that way? So that might be a thought.

And then on the upstairs portion, are there other things that we could do there to lease it out, to rent it out? I know it would maybe need some retrofitting, so I wouldn't want to say just to a daycare. But again, are there other events? So there are other things that are going on in the community, we can rent it out. Again, try and bring in some income to offset some of the carrying costs.

And, I mean, a few other ideas, I mean, I don't know if this is realistic or not, just by the age of the building, but, you know, I thought about this, what other people do is, you know, solar panels on top of some of our buildings here, you know, municipally owned. I know there's an upfront cost to that, but I think we should look at in terms of, would that help with the carrying costs? Would that kind of pay for it as it goes along?

So again, some options in there to, you know, try and keep it, see what our operating costs are, and can we offset that with by leasing it out, renting it out, you know, doing it into a tract, you know, outside users to come there and, again, offset some of that carrying costs.

You support building on underused village lots before expanding onto farmland, with more duplexes, triplexes and homes above shops. What would you change first to make that happen, and how would you ensure the homes are affordable and the infrastructure can support them?

I think, first and foremost, we'd have to look at our zoning. You know, in our residential areas, you know, the R1 through 4, and ensuring that, you know, the zoning allows for that type of building, and that's kind of the first thing we need to do. Or, and I guess it depends on timeline, if we know some lots and we have builders on end who would like to dive into that, can we just look at some exceptions to certain lots that, you know, that we've located, said these would be some great places for some of that type of housing to put that in there.

So I think that's our first step, is ensuring that we're allowed to do it, you know, that we're not breaking our own rules here in town to do that. So that would be, I think, a priority at first, is examining, you know, the way our current zoning is across all their municipalities and identifying areas where we think we could add some of that gentle densification, I'd like to call it. So that way, you know, we're getting the same kind of influx of units as you would an apartment building, but just spread out a little bit more.

And again, making our streets a little bit safer because there's not one area where there's going to be a lot of parking coming in and out. And to ensure that the homes are affordable, and again, the big driver of affordability around housing is just number of units, you know, it's a supply and demand, and generally, the scarcer they are, the more expensive they tend to get. So I think what we'd have to do is really focus on trying to build as many as we can.

And by doing that, again, do we need to be look at underused lots here and can we sell them off potentially, depending on who they're owned by, two developers with conditions in there saying it needs to be built, you know, some type of multi-unit building that would, again, allow for lower pricing? You know, again, smaller than unit, whether it's, you know, apartment size or, you know, like a bungalow size, those tend to be cheaper.

So the more we can encourage that, the more we can encourage some of those smaller units, then that helps with affordability as well. In this way, we're not cutting into a lot of our single-family home supply as well, because that's why a lot of people choose this region as well, because in the grand scheme of things, it is still affordable compared to a lot of places in Canada. I know it's a big reason why I came here.

So you don't want to take that out, but again, the more units we can build, the more options we have out there. I think that helps with our price, you know, the pricing and keeping them affordable as well.

You want to cut unnecessary red tape for businesses and allow more shops and services near homes. Which specific rule or approval process would you change, and how would you protect neighbouring residents' opportunity to be heard?

This kind of ties into my last answer a little bit, and we're speaking about zoning. And I think what we need to look at is if we can add a bit of mixed-use zoning, and I think under our plan, it's under VC. And if we can maybe change some of the residential zoning to throw that in there, with a caveat, think, yes, we want to, you know, be able to make some commercial retail space in there, but have some housing on top of there as well.

And I think what that would do is, again, that's some of that red tape where we can get, again, more income coming in from the town, more tax dollars coming in from the town because we've got a little bit of that retail, a lot about a commercial.

I know that's kind of a sidetrack of some of the questionnaire, but just our permitting process is in general. You know, around signage, how many signs you're allowed to have when you're putting up a business and things like that. How long you're allowed to have that sign? I'm not saying that we shouldn't have some of these rules, but maybe being a little bit more clear to people when they are trying to start a business, maybe giving them a little leeway in a sense that, you know, let's not look to find them right away.

Let's not look to give them, you know, an extra bill when they're trying to get started right away because when someone's trying to start a business, there's a million things on their mind. There's a million things going on, not just around a permitting processes. So, for instance, you know, if you could need a signed permit and it's, you know, going to expire within 30 days, let's do what we can to communicate to the, you know, person or entity trying to start a business that these are rules that we need to go by.

And do we have the capability to follow up on them saying, hey, your permit's going to expire in the next few days? Should you want to continue on and have that up there, you know, please follow up to ensure that you're not, you know, in violation of some of our terms and of agreements here. Or at the same time, if it's a small business trying to start out, you know, maybe we give a little bit of a grace period.

OK, they didn't get back to us within that 30 days or renew within the 30 days. Instead of finding them or, you know, sending them a bill, can we just remind them and say the next time, you know, we would have to move forward and give you a find? Because, again, these are our bylaws, and they're in the rules, but I think that would make us seem a lot more friendly, especially to smaller businesses.

Again, the more we can take off their plate, the more we can help them concentrate on getting up and going. Again, that's more jobs that we're creating here. That's easier for people to make money, spend money within our local economy, helps our tax bases grow. So a lot of these answers kind of tie into one another, but those are, I guess, a few examples of what I've looked at, is let's make it easier now to get our permitting processes. And those are a couple examples.

And again, zoning. I think that's something we really need to look at, because I think that will help in a lot of aspects, again, not just, you know, helping create jobs and creating, you know, spaces for people to work and play, but again, grows our tax base.

You propose a public report card on council's election commitments. What should voters judge your first term on, and how would you show them what you personally did to achieve it? Why are you the right person to take that work on?

Well, I think what we would need to do, you know, should I be lucky enough to get voted into council, is kind of start off with a list of priorities. In a sense, what I was talking about, and answer number one is these are the things that we really want to focus on. And then essentially, I think it's just an easy kind of check mark. Like, were we able to, you know, certain roads that we have that we want to pave? Like, were we able to accomplish that? Or were we able to get contracts signed for this to happen within the next four years and get an idea of actually when it's going to be completed?

So that's just kind of one example, but yes, I think we prioritize what we need to get done, the must-haves, and say, were we able to check off, you know, the top 10 of these must-haves over the last four years? And again, depending on the size of them, that can vary. Maybe there's 20 things we're able to check off because there's a little lower-hanging fruit that were must happen at the same time.

So I think it's almost just a running checklist. Did we accomplish this? And then we can dive into the other things, is, you know, we also want to make sure that we're getting recreational places. You know, fun things for people to do as well, or things that interest them on the day-to-day.

So, are we able to hit those social needs, the activity needs, the kind of gathering spaces needs, the fair? You know, we want to think about the Russell Fair, other things that we have, that we just recently had the Autumn in the Country. So can we ensure that we're getting more opportunities for things like that to happen? Because it's not just about living here. It's about being part of a community, being tied in.

So were we able to provide options for that for people? Did we open up potentially some of our, like, again, our recreational complexes [two words unclear in recording]? Were we able to open that up for people to use that? So I think that's another kind of check mark, is not just the things that we need to get done, but did we, you know, make it community-based? Did we offer things for people to do? Did we open up spaces for people to gather, meet, have fun, you know, and do, you know, exempt fun things together?

And why am I the right person to take on this work? I've had a lot, like I said before, and I guess, you know, chatting with a lot of people, and at the candidates all debate meetings as well, is like, I've had a lot of government experience just in general for the last 20 years, and I've been around small projects. I've been around massive projects, you know, ranged from the tens of thousands of dollars into the billions. And I understand how contracts work, what we should be looking at, how to write them up to ensure we're getting the most that we can out of our contractors as well. Trying to minimize loopholes or things that they would want to avoid doing. I've been involved in a lot of real estate as well prior to that.

So again, just working with people, understanding priorities, what we should be working on first, how to balance them, you know, working with other stakeholders. I know how to, you know, get together and kind of hash through issues and kind of come to a consensus on what we should move forward on. I know I would have strong opinions on things, and I know other councillors would have strong opinions on others. But I know how to work together and say, well, we can't just, you know, sit on what we want to do. We need to maybe weigh what's important, what's not, or not. And I don't want to say what's not, what's not as important, and maybe our eyes, like come to a consensus on what we need to do.

And I think I'm really good at sitting down with people and working through issues, working through how to work together, working through, you know, discussions and deliberations on how we come to an agreement over things. You know, and sometimes it's what's focus on option A, and then we can work on option B. Maybe if I'm more of a going of option B, but then I understand that A, after it's been explained to me, maybe from a different point of view, why that matters more.

So, I'm also, again, I guess, kind of tying onto that, is I'm not just about what I think, very open to what, I want to know what others think. I want to know what's a priority to them, and that's been a big thing going door to door, is, I know what my priorities are, and I think they tie into a lot of others around here, but I also want to know what's important to them, 'cause I want to ensure the things that I'm suggesting, the things that I think important, are important to everybody else as well.

And if they're not, if maybe my train of thought is wrong, then I'm able to pivot and jump onto what's important for everybody around. And that's the thing, I think, with council, is, yes, we need to push ideas. Yes, you need to find, you know, different ways of revenue, you know, ways to run the township, but we need to be open to other ideas and what people of the township is what's important to them and what their priorities are as well. Yeah.

You’ve served on Russell Township council since 2006, and you’re asking voters for another four years. What is one important decision council made during those 20 years that, knowing what you know today, you would make differently — and why?

That’s a very good question. So, you know, thinking back on all the decisions we’ve made over time, we probably haven’t made all the right decisions, but I think, for the most part, we’ve done what the community expects of us. And, you know, we have to make tough decisions at times.

I think one of the decisions actually came just a couple years ago, and that one was a tough decision. Now, I was on the side that didn’t pass. So that was the — or was it? — when we appointed the mayor instead of going to a vote to the public. I think if council had a review on that, they’d probably reconsider that and have gone to the public for an election, for a byelection for that position. I mean, I understand the reasonings behind it and why we would. But, you know, that was one of them.

The other one, I think, you know, I’ll give you a second one. Again, I was on the side that voted against it, but while I fully endorsed the recreation complex, the design was very contentious. And, you know, I’ll have to wait and see how it looks. I mean, it’s a beautiful building. I’ve been inside a few times, and I think it’s going to be fantastic, but I think we probably could have gone with the standard three rinks side by side, kind of like the Benson Centre, where you’ve got all the rinks together and all the change rooms underneath and stuff like that. Might have given us more options down the road. So that was one of the ones that I voted against, recent, but, well, in the last six years.

You’ve advocated for the recreation complex for more than 16 years and have described finally seeing it built as one of the accomplishments you’re proudest of. With the Township now taking on substantial borrowing for the project, what do you say to a resident who supports the complex but believes council has committed too much money to it?

Yeah, so I’ve absolutely advocated for this complex. I think it’s something that we need in our community. You know, the local minor sports associations have been having to purchase ice outside of our municipality for many, many years. So to add an extra rink, I think, was essential. The thing about it is, and unfortunately it doesn’t get out there enough, is that we did it right.

We started planning early, right? We started planning in 2018 with taking some money from our assessed growth every year. We set up a fund of $150,000 a year. And the first year and a half, that money went to pay off the sports stuff. And then since that time, the money has now gone into a fund, a reserve fund for the complex, right? So growth is paying a portion of that.

In 2018, we brought in a 10-year financing plan for the complex. So, again, planning for the future, doing things right, and we spread out a tax increase over 10 years and we said one per cent taxes for each year. And what that did is that smoothed out the increase based on the compounding factor of that 10 years.

That is probably the equivalent of a one-time 18 to 20 per cent tax increase. So had we waited till the end, it would have been an 18 to 20 per cent increase. But because we started it back in 2018 and we smoothed it out, it was important for us to ensure that we’d kept the cost down for the taxpayer.

So I’m very proud of that plan. And in fact, I pushed to have it put into a bylaw, so that the future councils at the time, because of 2018, early in 2018, there was an election 2018, election in 2022. So councils could have come in and nixed the project. We wanted to make sure that we could fund it on our own, which is why we did that plan.

I’m thankful we got $10 million from the province, which is huge. We got the largest amount available to any one municipality out of the $200-million fund that the province had created for things, projects like this.

But the other aspect of it is, we ensured that, you know, we have a pool. We didn’t have an indoor pool. We have a third rink. We never had a third rink. Community centre, well, we have other community centres. We’re building one that we can split up into multiple sections. So it’s a huge growth concept of this complex. And 58 per cent of that project is being paid for by growth, not by the taxpayer.

So that $150,000-a-year fund is still going on. Development charges, pre-construction and post-construction, will be collected. So the equivalent of all that will be 58 per cent.

“So if it’s a $100 million project, call it $60 million being paid for by growth. $10 million paid for by the province, which means the taxpayers own up for about $30 million. Um, and if we look back and see what the cost was originally of one of the projects, was about $28–$30 million is what we had expected.”

So I think we’ve done a phenomenal job in alleviating a tax burden. When you talked about the growing debt and spending, we have a maximum amount that we can spend as a municipality, which is 25 per cent of all revenues. We have a self-imposed limit of 15 per cent. Currently, right now, we are well below that 15 per cent mark.

When we have to borrow the money to fund the complex, which was about a $70-million loan, and you’re going to say, “Well, why are we taking those 70 when it’s only going to cost us 30?” is because we have to upfront the cost of the development charges until the future growth comes in, and then it repays that through the process.

So when we do take out that money, we will basically just go over that 15 per cent self-imposed limit, well below our maximum amount available for spending. And that will set us up nicely for any additional projects that we need down the road. I think we come down after about two years, we come back under our self-imposed, and then if we have any other projects that have to come up, then that’ll bring us back up.

But again, a project like this, I mean, we’re going to be able to — we’ve set it out on a 30-year plan. And again, the minimal tax increase is one per cent per year and was a huge win, I think, for us to spread that a little over time.

You’ve argued for years that increasing commercial and industrial development can broaden the tax base and reduce pressure on residential taxpayers. After 20 years on council, what specifically still needs to change to attract significantly more commercial and industrial assessment to Russell Township?

There definitely could be some improvements from an official plan perspective and land designation perspective. So I think we’ve actually done a really good job in the last 8 to 12 years in attracting business. I mean, as we sit here, we’re sitting in a brand new Tim Hortons in a commercial area that’s just growing. We’ve got the Food Basics right here. We’ve got the Wendy’s, we’ve got Domino’s across the street with an A&W. You got a Mary Brown’s Chicken, you got a brand new Jean Coutu coming in, and more, you know, the banks are coming as well. So a Jeep dealership across the street, they expanded.

So I think we’re doing things right. The commercial businesses are seeing that we’re growing, we’re a growing community. The industrial park is booming. You know, the minute we acquired the land, we had a wait-list. And they’re paying top dollar per acre for that property. So the biggest hurdle that we face is land designation.

We don’t have really any commercial land in Russell, village of Russell. You know, we have a couple of plots of land that do have a commercial component to them that might be available. But in terms of like, you know, 40, 50, 60 acres of land that we could develop from a commercial perspective, it’s just not there at the moment.

But that comes from the county as well, right? The county has an overall United County plan of this many acres or hectares of commercial land, residential land, industrial land, and then they divvied up amongst eight municipalities. So for us to be able to acquire any more or get any more, we have to max ours out. And we then have to either wait for a new official plan to come in so they can redesignate, or we have to go to another municipality and say, “Hey, can we have some designation?”

Chances of them giving us a designation are probably slim to none. They want to keep all their land designations. So that’s one of the hurdles that we would have, especially I get it all the time from Russell, you know, “Why don’t we have anything in Russell from a commercial perspective?” And that’s basically because we have no designated land as commercial.

You’ve said Russell should continue with “planned and reasonable” growth, while the Township faces pressure on roads, water and wastewater infrastructure and residents are concerned about how development changes their communities. Is there a point at which you would say Russell is growing too quickly, and what would tell you that point has been reached?

When we put the water project in to begin with back in ’09, you know, the concept was, “Well, we need to grow X amount of units per year for 30 years to be able to repay the loan.” The reality is, we’ve surpassed that growth factor. We were high, then we dipped. Now we’re back up again. So we’re going to probably pay off that debt a little bit sooner than expected. So do we grow a little bit quicker? Yeah, probably a little bit quicker than we had expected.

I think on top of that, you know, we have to look at our lagoon capacities. We have to look at our wastewater treatment plant, our storm treatment, and ultimately, from a water perspective, ensure that we have enough water. They’re not just our existing residents, but all the future growth. And that’s why, when we built the pipe coming to Ottawa, coming from Ottawa, we made sure it oversized it, so that should we need additional water flow down the road, we could make that adjustment and make the request to Ottawa.

You know, one of the challenges we’ve had is the cost of water from Ottawa. They unfortunately haven’t recognized us as an individual user versus a whole bunch of, you know, residential. You know, in our opinion, we should be getting a preferential rate from them. And that’s been long-term discussions that have been going on for that. So hopefully, at some point, they will recognize that we are their single biggest user of water as a municipality.

So I think, you know, the point that we will need to say, “Wait a minute,” is when we do look back and say, “OK, well, can we handle everything? Do we have the funding to be able to keep up with the roads and the infrastructure and everything else?”

And, you know, one of the big things that we’re doing right now at council is, we’ve looked at our infrastructure, and we’ve seen where we have an infrastructure deficit. Not new, everyone is probably Ontario has an infrastructure deficit. It’s just the way that you can’t keep up. The roads get deteriorated. You know, things, sewers, water, all that stuff.

So what happens is staff has put together a 10-year plan that council endorsed last year to start this coming year on putting, I think, 2.1 per cent of taxes every year for 10 years away, kind of like we did with the rec complex, to try and eat away at that infrastructure deficit. So by the time that 10-year plan is up, we’ve come closer to satisfying that deficit.

And when I say deficit, we’re not in a financial deficit. It’s an infrastructure deficit, because obviously we can’t run a deficit at council. We’re not broke. We have lots of reserves. One of the big things that we did, and that’s huge for us, is the Asset Management Reserve. So we fund all of our capital projects now with our asset management, out of these reserves, because we have had the forethought to put that money away when we do need these projects.

So by having that plan in place, that’s going to tell us whether or not we’re growing too quickly and we can’t keep up, because if that plan starts to go to 15 years to 20 years before we can catch up, then council will really have to sit back and go, “Wait a minute. I think we need to slow things down a bit.”

You know, with the developing group that we have in the community, I think they still only build a certain amount of units per year. I haven’t seen an influx of new builders coming in. If we started to see that, then, yeah, we would absolutely have to sit back and go, “OK, maybe let’s take a hard look at this and say, can we actually build this quick? And can we handle it?”

You’ve repeatedly said you don’t make election promises because an individual councillor cannot guarantee what council will approve. That puts considerable weight on your record instead. What should voters hold Jamie Laurin personally accountable for four years from now if they elect you again?

They should look back at the decisions that I make at the table, the questions that I ask. Did I respond to their inquiry, their queries? Was I personable when they reached out? Was I accessible? Those are all key factors. I mean, I try to ensure that I’m available as much as possible to the residents.

You know, I think I’ve told the story a thousand times, but I still remember, and I can even call the guy that I was standing beside at the time. You know, it’s 7:15 on a Sunday morning and I’m talking to this gentleman, a friend of mine. All our kids are on the ice, and I’m getting tapped on the shoulder every other week. “Hey, are you the councillor?” “Yes.” “Can I ask you a question?” And absolutely. So I’d step away and answer the question, and then I’d come back and then somebody else would come up and answer the question. So I believe that I should still be held to those same standards.

You know, I go to the grocery store and people ask me questions. I don’t have a problem with that. People get surprised when I give them my phone number, post it online on Facebook if I’m responding to something, which I don’t do a lot of. But when I do put it out there and people are like, “That’s your phone number?” I’m like, “Yeah, because this is the taxpayer’s phone.”

So if I’m expected to have this phone on me and they’re paying for it, then absolutely, call me, text me, email me. Feel free to reach out. I may not be able to answer it right away, but I’m going to get back to you. I’m going to call you back. And when you call, I’m the one who answers the phone, right?

So that’s what they should expect from me for the next four years. And if I’m lucky enough to be elected again, and I run again, that’s what I would continue to tell people. I think going back to my first campaign in ’06, I think I said the exact same thing. And as we’re sitting here right now, I’m showing you my pamphlet, and that’s the biggest things: no hidden agendas, no empty promises, because I’m not going to make you a promise of something that I don’t think I can do. I’m going to tell you, if that’s something that you want, I’ll fight for it. But I can’t guarantee the rest of the council is going to go for it, which, again, it took a long time for the rec complex to come through. It took a lot of convincing and a lot of planning, but we’re there. So I’m very proud of that.

What would you like to say to the voters?

Message to voters

I hope that I represented them well over the last 20 years. I hope they found me approachable, that I make good decisions, that I go to the council table, prepared, every meeting, and that I’ve made good decisions in the best interests of the township. That’s what I would continue to promise, I guess, if you will, to do that.