2026 London Election

[CanadianTalk]

I figured I’d make this thread now, since the next municipal election is about a year away, and recent news articles have actually started mentioning it, especially those covering budget-related issues.

Josh Morgan has said he intends to run for re-election. If Morgan is successful, then it will be the first time in 20 years that a London mayor is re-elected. The last London mayor to be re-elected was Anne Marie DeCicco-Best.

It’ll be interesting to see if any other well-known politicians decide to run for mayor. I think name recognition plays a big role in these elections, and I can’t think of anyone who’s even expressed interest in running yet.

What do we think the issues of the next election will be?

[jammer139]

The typical issues most municipalities deal with - property taxes, police, fire, ems, water&sewer&hydro&waste, transportation, development&planning, parks&rec.

I would not be surprised to see annexation of Arva bubble up in the next term and further discussions around regional planning around the city limits. Build up not out strategy is good but surrounding bedroom communities are oblivious to it in their own pursuit of growth.

The MH, addiction and homeless issues surface in the municipalities but they are not empowered to deal with them. The Provincial and Federal government must change the legislation and policies in order to address those problems.

Future waste management planning and wastewater planning needs to make progress next term.

[GreatTallNorth2]

It is hard to believe how poorly our city is run and I am not sure there is any improvement possible without either a regional government or board of control. I am just in Calgary right now and both the highway system and light rail are unbelievably good. I cannot see London getting any better with our current system. No one with any vision whatsoever. Josh Morgan is a one trick pony and focuses on housing only.

[haljackey]

Originally Posted by GreatTallNorth2

Josh Morgan is a one trick pony and focuses on housing only.

Well that's certainly the most pressing issue, or at least among the top 3.

Would any councilor rise up to challenge him? Perhaps a MP/MPP? Could we see a previous name like Jesse Helmer or Mohamed Mo Salih come back? I dunno.

Still too early to know what the major campaign issues will be- but we obviously need to keep up with our infrastructure. Any hint of BRT expansion should be downplayed by supporters however as most people are pretty sick and tired of all the construction delays it's caused us over the past few years. Have those discussions become more serious post-election.

[Djeffery]

I'm pretty sure Shawn Lewis will be angling for that job, but not until 2030. Him and Morgan are pretty tight right now, no way would he challenge Josh next year. I can see some others on council being future candidates as well, but not in this cycle. People like McAlister, Ferreira, Franke and Peloza. Interestingly, if I said a certain councilor was the top vote getter in 2022, 2nd in 2018 and 4th in 2014 (in the year they were elected) amongst all ward candidates, you would have to think that person would at least be talked about for wider city popularity. And yet my former councilor, Anna Hopkins just floats along in Byron, not opposing any of the type of development near others that she so vehemently fought against beside her own house, and basically being invisible during non-election years. And frankly, whenever I watch council, she always seems unprepared.

For recently departed councilors, if Mo Salih hadn't left London, I would say he would be pretty ready to make that run, he might have done so in 2022, he has a ton of grass routes support, but I doubt he would return here or even be successful now after leaving. Stephen Turner also left town but I always thought he was one of the smartest councilors London ever had. Similar to Morgan actually, smart but rather bland.

Certainly don't see any of the current or recent crop of federal and provincial members leaving those offices to run for this one. Lyndsey Matheson will likely try to reclaim her federal seat and I don't think she gained enough popularity out of her brief stint in office to seriously contend for Mayor anyway.

I'm having trouble coming up with a community member to jump into the fray and make a serious run. People like Paul Cheng and Paul Paolatto, who really, not a lot of people were familiar with and they actually made the races interesting. Murray Faulkner was always one of those so-called "dream candidates" that people wanted to see run, but it'll be 16 years since he retired as Police Chief and he has to be in his 70's now, not sure if he would want to go after this now if he didn't any of the last several cycles.

Along the lines of the comment above about BRT if one of those profile community people did jump into this, all they have to do is put signs along Oxford, Highbury, Dundas and Wellington next year saying "This traffic jam brought to you by Josh Morgan, coming soon to the rest of London" lol. Yeah the last thing any candidate next year needs to do is hitch their wagon to BRT, all current candidates are probably going to want to hide from that mess. Never mind just the traffic mess, the cost over runs too. This thing is blowing well past the budget that they had for the original full plan that included the north and west. No one is going to be wanting to hear about more of this. Maybe by 2030 they will have some actual useful data to show on it.

[GreatTallNorth2]

Originally Posted by Djeffery

Along the lines of the comment above about BRT if one of those profile community people did jump into this, all they have to do is put signs along Oxford, Highbury, Dundas and Wellington next year saying "This traffic jam brought to you by Josh Morgan, coming soon to the rest of London" lol. Yeah the last thing any candidate next year needs to do is hitch their wagon to BRT, all current candidates are probably going to want to hide from that mess.

And this is exactly why we need a form of regional government or Board of Control. Or the ontario government needs to step in to build better transit and roads in London. Building things does take a lot of money and causes disruption. Its not great, but the alternative is what we have got right now.

[Snark]

Originally Posted by Djeffery

....if one of those profile community people did jump into this, all they have to do is put signs along Oxford, Highbury, Dundas and Wellington next year saying "This traffic jam brought to you by Josh Morgan, coming soon to the rest of London"....Never mind just the traffic mess, the cost over runs too.

Originally Posted by GreatTallNorth2

And this is exactly why we need a form of regional government or Board of Control....Its not great, but the alternative is what we have got right now.

How would a hypothetical regional government make the project cheaper, and its construction less disruptive and faster?

[GreatTallNorth2]

Originally Posted by Snark

How would a hypothetical regional government make the project cheaper, and its construction less disruptive and faster?

It wouldn’t make it cheaper or faster. What it would do is allow larger projects to probably get beyond one term at council. Have you never noticed that every good idea in London gets watered down? This happens because the NIMBYS have enough say to either cancel or reduce the project so it’s not as effective. With a Board of Control there are no nimbys because the board governs for the good of the entire city.

[haljackey]

Originally Posted by Snark

How would a hypothetical regional government make the project cheaper, and its construction less disruptive and faster?

Just have a look at how Waterloo Region is set up. The issue with London however is that we're the only big city 'in town'. There would be a lot of opposition from surrounding communities that their voices would be silent if a regional government formed. Perhaps London should just try to annex surrounding communities instead like Arva.

---

I could see Douggie looking into amalgamation 2.0 for big Ontario cities later in his term or perhaps if he wins another term. That would do the hard work for us.

[GreatTallNorth2]

Originally Posted by haljackey

Perhaps London should just try to annex surrounding communities instead like Arva.
.

I don't see how London absorbing surrounding communities helps in any way. We will still have short sighted councillors who will listen to the NIMBYS and never vote for projects that will cost a lot and take time.

[Djeffery]

Originally Posted by Snark

How would a hypothetical regional government make the project cheaper, and its construction less disruptive and faster?

I'm not suggesting it would, not sure why you included me in that quoted reply. I'm just saying that for political purposes, a new candidate could campaign on how unpopular the construction of the BRT is, or on a wider level, that I don't really think BRT in and of itself is all that popular either. It really has a sense of "half-assedness" about it.

[CanadianTalk]

Originally Posted by GreatTallNorth2

It wouldn’t make it cheaper or faster. What it would do is allow larger projects to probably get beyond one term at council. Have you never noticed that every good idea in London gets watered down? This happens because the NIMBYS have enough say to either cancel or reduce the project so it’s not as effective. With a Board of Control there are no nimbys because the board governs for the good of the entire city.

I don't disagree with you that there have been many disappointments from London council over the years (especially recently) regarding a lack of vision, but I'm not sure how bringing back the Board of Control would help with that.

If I remember correctly, all decisions that the Board made had to be ratified by all of City Council anyway, which included the Mayor + 4 Controllers + 14 Ward Councillors. So even during the Board of Control years, the councillors still had a majority of votes, as it is today, and if they didn't like something that the Board passed, they could vote to send it back to the Board.

[CanadianTalk]

Originally Posted by Djeffery

I'm pretty sure Shawn Lewis will be angling for that job, but not until 2030. Him and Morgan are pretty tight right now, no way would he challenge Josh next year....

If Morgan wins next year, it would not surprise me if he seeked a third term, because all he would need to do is serve just over half of his hypothetical 2030-2034 third term, and he would officially be the longest-serving mayor in London's history... not sure if breaking that record or having that title would mean anything to him lol.

But if he were to finish a third term, that means he'd served on Council in some capacity for 20 years, so also not sure if he'd want to stay in municipal politics for that long.

[Djeffery]

For sure, Morgan could easily decide to make another run then too, assuming he wins next year. I think he will get challenged though by current councilors. I know he worked at Western before, but I don't know what his career was there and what he would want to do next. Maybe he will have aspirations of higher office too, run next year for Mayor and then leave to run for whatever party in the next fed election. But again I don't know his party politics so that would depend on the party, the Liberals likely won't have an opening.

[ssiguy]

I don't think the province would allow the City to annex surrounding areas yet again when huge swaths of the city are completely void of any urbanity especially south of the 401. With such massive amounts of land available, it would be very hard for the city to justify.

What the City should do is create a Regional Partnership with surrounding cities to help guide growth. Basically the 3 country area and they would create an effective regional transit system and for closer areas like Arva/Kilworth, perhaps let them tap into the city's water/sewage system as well as benefit from London fire & police to make spending on transit more palatable.

[Djeffery]

If those areas are going to pay for London's water and sewer as well as fire and police, they might as well just become part of London then. I mean, sure London has all that farm land to the south, but no one talks about developing down there. I think the very fact that these areas to the west and north want to develop and tie into city services is the argument the city uses for them to just be part of the city.

Moving the boundary to north of Medway should be an easy argument to make, it's basically part of the city up there now. Going to the west, I'm not sure what the reasonable line is there. But if the city is expected to build a new 4 lane bridge over the Thames and widen Oxford St just to make life easier for people who don't want to pay taxes to live in the city, then I think the city can make that argument too.

[jammer139]

Exactly my point that urbanization on the edges of the city limits will result in much more debate on annexation in the next term. Arva already has a contract with the city for water and sewer and has opened up discussions to increase the volumes. It's a no brainer to see the city limits moved north of Medway Rd from about Hyde Park to Clark Rd. Kilworth and Komoka are bedrooms for London now as seen by the steady stream of inbound and outbound vehicles during morning and evening rush hours.

I don't think we will see the annexation in the next term but would not be surprised in the 2030's it happens.

The former Westminster township lands which London didn't really want in the last big annexation when they were only interested in going as far south as the landfill will never see residential growth demands due to the landfill. Nobody is going to want to live downwind of the landfill. Don't forget that London's landfill is also coming up on being full at it's current design. Planning on how to expand it to buy additional decades of use may involve buying hundreds of additional acres abbutting the current boundaries. And don't forget Green Lane Landfill just to the west which is now owned by the City of Toronto and used by St Thomas and other Elgin county municipalities had a recent report saying they will be full in 5-10 years.

Whats it like living across the road from dump.
https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.6945406

[ssiguy]

If London managed to get it's hands on Kilworth/Komoka/Arva, then it would result in a huge population and tax revenue loss for Middlesex Centre.

If that was the case, MC should expand into Strathroy-Caradoc and absorb basically anything except Strathroy. Actually, I think that makes a lot of sense as I have always thought Strathroy should be it's own city.

[Djeffery]

Why not the other way around, and MC just gets absorbed into what's around it after London picks off the best parts? Draw the new London northern boundary along Eight Mile Rd at Plovers Mills near Thorndale and run all the way west along that to where it meets Lamont, and to where Lamont meets Amiens west of Komoka where the current boundary of MC and SC is. Everything south of that line becomes London, everything north goes to the other townships. Certainly a big chunk of land and probably grows London's land area by 50%.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by GreatTallNorth2

It is hard to believe how poorly our city is run and I am not sure there is any improvement possible without either a regional government or board of control. I am just in Calgary right now and both the highway system and light rail are unbelievably good. I cannot see London getting any better with our current system. No one with any vision whatsoever. Josh Morgan is a one trick pony and focuses on housing only.

He didn’t have my vote before and he surely doesn’t have it now. The only thing that has gone up in London are Tax rates