When I ran for Regional Council in 2018, I pledged my main priority if elected would be affordable housing. If I have the honour of being re-elected by the good folks of Waterloo on October 24th, I will continue to make affordable housing a priority. During this term of council, I was invited to serve as chair of the Affordable Housing and Homelessness Steering Committee. I have taken on this role with a determination to work with regional staff and community partners to address our housing and homelessness issues.

There is a significant stigma and discrimination directed at individuals and their families who suffer from addictions and mental health challenges rather than recognizing them as an illness that requires the same response from the community and health care professionals as does heart disease or cancer. If we could eliminate this stigma, we would have a better opportunity to increase appropriate financial resources directed at prevention, harm reduction, treatment services, and more people seeking help.

During this past term of council, I have enjoyed my role as a member of the Regions Economic Development Committee. Providing employment opportunities for our citizens needs to be a priority for the Region. There has been a significant shift in the Region where at one time most of our employment was a result of the manufacturing sector. That is no longer the case. We are now part of a global economy that is very competitive.

While we acknowledge that climate change is a world-wide issue, we also recognize it is having a daily impact on the Region of Waterloo and our residents. Changes in weather patterns are becoming more extreme, emissions from vehicular traffic are adding unhealthy toxins into the air we breath, the quantity of plastics being used are becoming unmanageable, and many of these concerns have a significant effect on some of the most vulnerable in our community.

As a Region we have committed significant resources in the past term to create a more equitable and caring community, all of which I have strongly supported. Despite all these new and important initiatives during the past term of council, we cannot ease up and must continue to be bold and creative in our thinking of what it means to belong so that no one is left behind or not included.

Collaboration is a key word in how municipal government works in Waterloo Region with eight separate municipalities. There needs to be a continual line of communications between all municipalities to determine that we are headed in the same direction when decisions are made that impact all municipalities.