A town our kids can afford to come back to.
Bring down what it costs to live here. Get ready for what's coming.
Councillor At-Large
Why I'm running
Five years ago my wife and I moved here with our five boys. We didn't end up in Kincardine because of Bruce Power. We chose it.
Since then I've coached and played more soccer than I can count, gotten to know this town at the field and the beach and the school pickup line, and watched a lot of families like ours quietly do the math on whether they can afford to stay.
That's what this is about. Not just affordable housing, but affordability, because a house you can afford doesn't help if the groceries, the fees and the taxes that come with living in it don't add up.
My oldest will be making that same calculation in about ten years, and I'd like the answer to be easy for him. In 2046 the County's plan says this town will be about 15,400 people, and my boys will be in their twenties and thirties deciding where to build a life. So will yours.
A town our kids can afford to come back to.
That's what I'm running for. Bring down what it costs to live here, and get ready for the growth Bruce C is going to bring, without losing what makes this town worth choosing.
I'm a self-employed entrepreneur. I've built tech businesses, owned and operated a restaurant, and at the Region of Peel I worked within a team that modernized waste collection across Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon, about a million and a half people.
Between now and October 26 I'll be at doors, at the fairs, and on this page, showing my work. I hope to earn your vote along the way.
Ali Shah · Candidate, Councillor At-Large
The platform
Two halves: what we fix, and what we build.
Every number on this page comes with a source.
Affordable to live here
The cost of an ordinary week, and whether anyone can find a place to live in it.
- Our waste contract expires December 31, six weeks after the new council is sworn in. That's when the price we all pay gets set for years.
- Rental vacancy has been zero per cent since 2016, in the Municipality's own words in a 2024 federal filing. Council doesn't build housing, but it does control the wastewater capacity, the approval timelines and the development charges that decide whether anyone else can.
- More residents and more employers means the same bills split more ways. Broadening the tax base is the only durable way any of this gets cheaper.
- Value for what we pay. Spending ranked in public before it's approved: the pipes before the paint, the needs before the nice-to-haves. Deferred maintenance is the most expensive spending there is, because we end up paying for it twice.
Built once, built right
A 25-year horizon instead of another band-aid.
- The lagoon, engineered properly. Wastewater capacity is the thing that quietly decides whether we're allowed to say yes to housing at all.
- Roads. Our largest asset class at $421 million to replace, and the single biggest lifecycle line we have at $5.6 million a year, inside a $14.4 million tax-supported need the budget currently funds $6.7 million of.
- Serviced employment land on the municipal land around the airport or other lands if the business case points there, with training so our kids can take those jobs without leaving. Not closing the airport, and not housing on its lands: Ontario approved exactly this employment instrument at Lake Simcoe in 2012. And where new neighbourhoods come, complete ones where people can live, work and play, shaped by a municipality-led plan rather than approved one application at a time.
- Tiverton's water. The 2026 capital budget carries $5.4 million to investigate water supply alternatives because the wells are deteriorating. That's the one I'd deal with first, and I'd rather say so than tell people what they want to hear.
- Winter space, while the province pays half. Ontario's $500 million sport and recreation fund opened a new intake in August: up to 50% of a new build for municipalities, applications closing December 22, six weeks after the new council is sworn in. Kincardine should hit that deadline with grant-ready business cases for a Tiverton community centre, after sixteen years of talk, along with an indoor turf facility for soccer, baseball and winter training in Kincardine.
Our fair share
We host the largest operating nuclear station in the world. Our share of it fell from 50% of the levy to 18%.
- Nothing shrank at the plant. The provincial assessment model for generating stations has never been adjusted for inflation, and we absorbed the difference. Getting that share back is how we pay for the town we say we want.
- The 2026 readiness agreement is $2.2 million over four years and it pays for studies. That's a floor. As Bruce C moves toward a construction decision, the next council has to go back to Bruce Power and the Province for a host agreement that matches what hosting actually costs us.
- An accommodation tax, so the visitors who fill this town in July help pay for it, instead of residents carrying it on the levy.
- The $11.2 million gap re-run against 2025 prices before anyone votes on another budget. The full plan update lands in 2027, inside the next term.
Sources for the figures above: Asset Management Plan 2022, Table 12-1 and s.12.3.1 (roads lifecycle, tax-supported target and current funding capacity) · Asset Management Plan Addendum 2025, Table 3-1 and Table 3-2 (replacement costs) · 2026 capital budget (Tiverton water supply alternatives) · Municipality of Kincardine submission to the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada, September 2024 (rental vacancy) · Municipal Tax Equity presentation to Council, December 2024 (levy share) · Ontario Community Sport and Recreation Infrastructure Fund, Stream 2 guidelines: up to 50% for municipalities, applications close December 22, 2026 · Lake Simcoe Regional Airport Economic Employment District, designated by the Minister of Infrastructure, September 24, 2012.
Show the math
Every number here has a source. Check them.
I'd rather hand you the arithmetic than a promise about a number. Every figure here comes with a source, every decision gets explained in plain language, including the ones I get wrong, and the documents behind these numbers go up on this page as they're finished. Then you can judge the spending for yourself.
$11.2M
What we underfund our own infrastructure by, every year. The plan says we need $20.9 million annually and we fund $9.7 million. That gap is what it costs to hand this town over in better shape than we found it.
Kincardine Asset Management Plan 2022, s.12.3.1
34.7%
How much more the same assets cost to replace in 2025 than in 2022. $975 million became $1.31 billion, and wastewater alone rose 76%. The funding plan was never re-run against the new number.
Asset Management Plan Addendum 2025, Table 3-1
50% → 18%
Bruce Power's share of our municipal levy, 2008 to 2024. Nothing shrank at the plant. The provincial assessment model for generating stations has never been adjusted for inflation, and we absorbed the difference.
Municipal Tax Equity presentation to Council, December 2024
$3.50
What a garbage bag tag costs here. Saugeen Shores charges $2.00, Brockton $2.50, Huron-Kinloss $3.00. Arran-Elderslie charges what we do and still gives every household two free bags a week. Our collection contract expires December 31, 2026, six weeks after the new council is sworn in.
Municipal fee by-laws, 2026; Council Highlights, Nov 12, 2025
0%
Rental vacancy here since 2016, in the Municipality's own words in a federal filing. Council doesn't build housing, but it does control the capacity, the timelines and the charges that decide whether anyone else can.
Kincardine submission to the Impact Assessment Agency, Sept 2024
Two
Full-service grocery stores, for 12,268 of us and roughly 14,100 in summer. No discount grocer closer than Port Elgin. Council can't conjure a store, but it does control the development charges and land incentives that decide whether one pencils out.
2021 Census; Municipality of Kincardine community profile
And two that aren't problems.
A list of deficits isn't a plan. These are the numbers worth running toward.
15,400
What Bruce County's official plan says Kincardine will be in 2046. We're 12,268 today. That's not a warning, it's about 3,000 future neighbours, and we get to decide what kind of town they arrive in.
Bruce County Official Plan land needs analysis
18,900
Construction jobs Bruce C would bring to this region if approved. Since 2016 roughly 60 supplier companies have opened across Bruce, Grey and Huron, and most of them didn't open here. The decisions that change that get made in the next four years, or they get made somewhere else.
Bruce C workforce projections; regional supplier growth, 2016-2026
Stay in touch
One note, the day voting opens.
Get a reminder when the ballot goes live, because this election gets decided by a few hundred of us and it's easy to forget.
Your email address stays with this campaign and is used for this one reminder. Nothing else, and you can unsubscribe from any message. Prefer to just email? voteshah.ca@gmail.com
How to vote
It's online this time. Two minutes, from your phone.
- Opens
- Monday, October 19 at 10:00 a.m.
- Closes
- Monday, October 26 at 8:00 p.m.
- How
- Internet or telephone only. There is no paper ballot, no advance poll and no proxy voting.
- What you need
- The PIN from the sealed letter the Municipality mails you, and your date of birth. Both. Don't throw the letter out.
- If you're stuck
- The Municipal Administration Centre, 1475 Concession 5, has staffed voting kiosks weekdays 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and until 8:00 p.m. on October 26. Bring ID.
- Not on the list?
- You can register right up to and including voting day, in person at the Administration Centre.
If someone you love has already left for the winter: there's no proxy and no mail-in ballot, so nobody can vote for them. That's illegal under the Act. But they can vote from anywhere in the world if they have their PIN letter. If their mail isn't forwarded, that letter is sitting in an empty house. One phone call saves a vote.