The platform

Here's what I'd do, and where it came from.

Published October 13, 2026 · Voting opens Monday, October 19

A month ago I said I'd listen first. You answered, in comments, messages, emails and at the all-candidates nights, and this is what came out of it. Every number on this page has a document behind it: the small numbers link to the receipts at the bottom. Where I don't know something, it says so.

A town our kids can afford to come back to.

Two jobs. Bring down what it costs to live here. Get ready for what's coming.

The one-page version. The same platform on a single sheet, receipts on the back. Print it, or hand it to a neighbour.

PDF · two pages, letter size · dated October 13, 2026

Download the PDF

Pillar oneAffordable to live here

The cost of an ordinary week, and whether anyone can find a place to live in it.

The waste collection contract expires December 31, 2026, and what replaces it is a first-year decision for this council. I want every option priced in the open before anyone signs: a bag tag comparison with our neighbours that compares the service, not just the price; a documented medical and diaper exemption on the Waterloo model; a hardship provision for big households; assisted pickup for people who can't get a bag to the curb.1

No free-bags promise. That math just moves the cost onto everyone's tax bill. The 2027 tag is already set at $3.50; the contract decides the cost behind it and the price after that.2

A proper waste audit first. The scale tells us how much; only a bag sort tells us what. Backyard composters at cost. No green bin promise until we know the tonnes.3

Water and sewer: a public rate review at the next rate-setting, tested on real bills. About $1,181 of a small household's 2026 bill is fixed before a litre runs. Whether that split is right is the review's first question, and I won't answer it with a slogan.4

Every fee and tax increase explained in plain language before the vote, not after.5

Grocery choice. The development charge incentive already written into council's 2024 improvement plan: targeted, capped, time-limited, price tag public, and open to any grocer, including the stores already here. Expanding what exists counts as much as attracting something new.6

Pillar twoBuilt once, built right

A 25-year horizon instead of another band-aid.

The lagoon, engineered, on a 25-year horizon. Wastewater capacity is the thing that decides whether we can say yes to housing, to a retirement residence, to any of it. The master plan's recheck comes "sooner if development warrants," so press the sooner.7

Housing: council has already set the target, 160 below-market homes under Project 160. The job now is to make it visible: the four-unit permission done early, and a public dashboard in plain language so you can count.8

Roads: $5.6 million a year is the lifecycle need, our biggest asset class and our biggest gap. Defended in public with the same numbers as everything else.9

Tiverton. The water connection stays the first call, pending the federal grant decision. The community centre gets a resident-led scope, budget-sized, built to grow, costed in public with Tiverton at the table.10

Employment land. The municipality has a purchase agreement for about 21 acres at Gary Street, and the price, the servicing cost and who pays belong in public before the rezoning. Beside it, a costed business case for serviced employment land at the airport, aimed at the Bruce C supply chain, with a training partnership so our kids can get those jobs without leaving. Ontario protected employment land beside the Lake Simcoe airport in 2012; here the path runs through the County plan, which is why the business case comes first.11

Trails and bike paths. Hold the lines already in the forecast, report progress every year against the 2021 cycling plan, and credit the volunteers who carry it.12

The hospital expansion and the new high school: the municipality's approvals will never be the slow step. Transit: Kincardine is on Route 3 of the draft four-county plan. Support it, with the ledger public; the plain-language read of that plan comes before voting opens.13

Pillar threeOur fair share of what we host

We host the largest operating nuclear station in the world, and its share of the bill has fallen by more than half since 2008.

The Bruce nuclear site's share of what this municipality raises in property taxes went from about 50% in 2008 to 18% in 2024. That's the municipality's own December 2024 staff report, not my number. Nothing shrank at the plant; the cause is the Province's assessment model for generating stations, which holds those values nearly static while everyone else's track the market.14

What a councillor can and can't legally do about it, stated honestly. The fix is the Province's. Council's December 2024 motion is the start; a councillor's job is to keep it on every agenda until it moves, and to push AMO to take a position.15

The $2.2 million readiness agreement is a floor, not a ceiling.16

The accommodation tax council started on last year, finished, so the visitors who fill the beaches and the main streets in July help pay for it.17

The $11.2 million a year infrastructure gap, re-run against 2025 prices before anyone votes on another budget. The 2025 addendum priced the same assets 34.7% higher and did not re-run the funding plan.18

No tax freeze. A freeze moves the bill to our kids, with interest. Every increase tied to the asset it fixes, and explained before the vote.19

Everything else

How I'd decide the things not on this page.

Data centres were the test case. I didn't start with yes or no. I started with what would have to be true, wrote it down, and sent it to the Province.20 That's the method, and it's the part I'd actually bring to the table, because every one of these files is going to arrive with two camps already formed.

Every idea I bring to council comes with five things: the result you'd notice, who owns it, what it costs, what we stop doing to pay for it, and what would make me drop it. And on hard decisions the people affected hear first. Tell us before you decide, not after.

Three pillars can't hold everything. The rest, as residents raised it, is on the running list, dated as it came in, with what council actually controls on each one.

How to vote ✓

Monday, October 19 at 10:00 a.m. to Monday, October 26 at 8:00 p.m. Internet or telephone, from home or at the Help Centre. There is no paper ballot, no advance poll and no proxy voting.

Your sealed Voter Information Letter has your PIN. You need the PIN and your date of birth. Don't throw the letter out.

No letter, or stuck? The Municipal Administration Centre, 1475 Concession 5, Kincardine, 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. The full how-to-vote page, including what to do if someone you love has already left for the winter.

The receipts

Every number above, and the document it came from.

Show the math means the source goes next to the claim. These are municipal, County and provincial documents, most of them public on kincardine.ca and the council agenda portal; a few were answered in writing by the Clerk's office during the campaign. Where a document is online, it's linked.

  1. 1Clerk's written answer to the campaign, September 2026: the BASWR collection contract expires December 31, 2026 ($263,100 in 2026 for about 6,450 stops). The exemption model: Region of Waterloo's medical waste exemption program. Assisted pickup and the hardship provision are options to be costed in public, not promises of an outcome.
  2. 2By-law 2026-098, 2027 Rates and Fees, Schedule J (September 23, 2026): bag tags $3.50. 2026 Budget, p. 95: waste operating revenue $1,349,415 against costs $1,586,408, the rest carried by the levy.
  3. 3Staff report ES-2026-08, Blue Box Transition Update (April 8, 2026), pp. 2-3: curbside tonnes, January 1 to March 23, 287.54 in 2025 and 331.54 in 2026. Ontario Regulation 101/94, s. 11(2): backyard composters at cost or less in municipalities of 5,000 or more.
  4. 4By-law 2025-124, Schedules L and M (2026 rates): water, 19 mm fixed charge $45.32 a month plus $1.31 per cubic metre; sewer, one flat residential charge of $636.96 a year. 12 x $45.32 + $636.96 = $1,180.80 before any water is used. The full bill, line by line. The review: all-candidates meeting, September 29, 2026; Bayshore Broadcasting candidate Q&A, October 2026.
  5. 5By-law 2025-124 and By-law 2026-098: residential sewer $636.96 in 2026 and $702.36 in 2027, 10.25% in each year. The plain-language commitment: all-candidates meetings, September 29 and October 8, 2026.
  6. 6Community Improvement Plan, By-law 2024-023 (February 14, 2024): a development charge incentive of up to 50% is written into the plan; it was not an offered intake in 2026. 2026 Budget: the CIP envelope doubled to $120,000.
  7. 72023 Wastewater Annual Report (aerated cell at 72% of sludge capacity, no removal that year); sludge survey of June 27, 2024; 2026 Budget, project 9435 (Cell 1 desludging over three years). 2022 Water and Wastewater Servicing Master Plan: sewage reserve of 924 homes after commitments (the plan, in plain language); Clerk's written answer, September 29, 2026: the update is slated for 2027, "sooner if development warrants."
  8. 8Housing Action Plan 2.0 / Project 160, Council Resolution 09/23/26-03 (September 23, 2026): 160 below-market rental and ownership units, four units as-of-right on serviced lots, a public Housing Action Dashboard.
  9. 9Asset Management Plan 2022: roads lifecycle need $5.6 million a year against $6.7 million of total tax-supported capacity. The roads math, in plain language.
  10. 102027 Budget Report and the Q3 2026 procurement report (September 23 and October 14, 2026 agendas): Tiverton water supply project 9542, 2027 estimate $5,410,000, Building Canada Strong Fund application pending, construction anticipated spring 2027. The community centre commitment as spoken at the Tiverton all-candidates meeting, October 8, 2026; 2026 Budget, project 9732.
  11. 11Staff report CAO-2026-13, Gary Street lands (October 14, 2026 agenda): about 21 developable acres; no price, servicing cost or disposition plan printed. 2027 Budget Report: Highway 9/21 business park servicing debt, $576,117 a year to 2029. Growth Plan Amendment 1 (January 19, 2012) and the Minister of Infrastructure's directive of September 24, 2012: the Lake Simcoe Regional Airport Economic Employment District, employment uses only, major retail and residential not permitted; the Growth Plan does not apply in Bruce County, so the equivalent here runs through the County Official Plan. Bruce County land needs analysis (October 2025); CAO's Q3 2026 report (Employment Area Review Study, fall 2026).
  12. 12Master Cycling Plan (2021); 2026 Budget active transportation lines and the 2027 capital forecast (Broadway multi-use path, $625,000).
  13. 132026 Budget, p. 121: $600,000 in 2026 toward a $2.4 million municipal pledge to the hospital expansion; Ministry of Education, June 2026: the new KDSS funding (the school file, gate by gate). Unified Regional Transit Network Study, draft (Dillon Consulting, September 2026): Route 3, Table 10, p. 59; fare recovery, Table E-2. Grey County report EDTC-CW-12-26 (September 24, 2026): the four county councils decide in the first quarter of 2027.
  14. 14Staff report CAO General-2024-33 (Council, December 11, 2024): "In 2008, the Bruce Nuclear Generating Site contributed approximately 50% of local assessment/rate-based revenue to just 18% in 2024"; the taxes are paid by Ontario Power Generation as the site's owner. Municipal Tax Equity presentation, same meeting: in 2024 the site's rolls paid $5,968,507 in municipally levied taxes ($2,447,077 to Kincardine, $1,398,590 to Bruce County, $2,122,840 in education tax retained by Kincardine), about 12.4% of Kincardine's own-purpose levy; on the municipal levy alone, 18.6% in 2008 to 11.6% in 2024; a further decline of 50% or more at the next reassessment if nothing changes.
  15. 15Council resolution of December 11, 2024 (Motion 12/11/24-02): letters to the Ministers of Energy and Finance asking for the generating-station assessment model to be updated; Bruce County endorsement, January 9, 2025.
  16. 16CAO's Q3 2026 report: the Community Readiness Agreement with Bruce Power, $2.2 million over four years, signed May 2026.
  17. 17Municipality of Kincardine, Municipal Accommodation Tax project page: council direction of September 10, 2025, to bring back the process, a draft by-law and a recommended option for the MAT, and the same for short-term rental licensing on a cost-recovery basis. The November 2025 direction to revise to a two-tier system was about the short-term rental licensing by-law, which council defeated on February 25, 2026 (Council Highlights, February 25, 2026). No MAT by-law has come to council. 2026 Budget, Strategic Initiatives: $35,000 for a tourism strategy in preparation for the MAT and $25,000 of implementation consulting. Updated October 13, 2026: the earlier wording folded the two-tier direction into the MAT; it belonged to the licensing by-law.
  18. 18Asset Management Plan 2022, s. 12.3.1: $20.9 million a year needed, $9.7 million funded, an $11.2 million gap. Asset Management Plan Addendum 2025 (August 2025), s. 3.0 and Table 3-1: replacement costs restated in 2025 dollars, $975.5 million to $1.314 billion (34.7%); the financing strategy not revisited; the full update scheduled for 2027.
  19. 192026 Budget Quick Facts: a 2.88% levy increase, about $74 on the average home. Asset Management Plan 2022, s. 12.5: the plan's own bill-impact path of about 5.3% a year to 2032.
  20. 20Ontario's draft Data Centre Playbook, Environmental Registry notice 026-0853; the campaign's written submission (September 2026) and the supplementary submission on farmland.

The deal. When I get something wrong, I say so in the same place, fix it and date it. If a number on this page is wrong, tell me: hello@voteshah.ca. The fix goes here, dated, and the list below stays public.

Updates: October 13, 2026, published. October 13, 2026, receipt 17 made exact: the two-tier direction of November 2025 was the short-term rental licensing by-law, defeated February 25, 2026; the accommodation tax itself has not come back to council.

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