The 2026 municipal elections are taking place across Ontario on Oct. 26. To help students cast an informed vote this election season, we reached out to all five City of Waterloo mayoral candidates for interviews: incumbent Dorothy McCabe, 2022 runner-up Shannon Weber, Business Improvement Area (BIA) executive director Jeyas Balaskanthan, 2025 federal independent candidate Jamie Hari, and startup founder Jerry Jiang.

Of the five candidates, we sat down with Dorothy McCabe and Jeyas Balaskanthan to discuss their platforms and received written responses from Shannon Weber. The other two candidates did not respond to our interview requests.

Dorothy McCabe (incumbent since 2022)

McCabe is seeking to be re-elected for a second term after first winning the mayor’s seat in 2022 on a climate-forward platform. A community leader of nearly 20 years, she attended Wilfrid Laurier University for her BA in communication studies.

Housing

McCabe points to her first term as evidence of her housing priorities: the city has approved roughly 24,000 housing units, passed Waterloo’s first affordable housing strategy, and launched an affordable housing grant. “We’ve taken some big steps into the space, which is not traditionally work that local municipalities have done. But because we’ve seen the housing crisis of four years ago and the challenges that still remain, we have stepped firmly into this space and are doing some really groundbreaking work.”

Transit

“Transit is very high on my priorities. I’m a transit user; I’m an e-bike user,” she says. McCabe is working to restore 15-minute peak service on bus routes 9 and 13 that serve North Waterloo, which were cut in the last budget. She also seeks to improve service to Vista Hills. “My message to students who come here is… don’t come here thinking you need to buy a vehicle. Come here and try [transit] first.” She adds that the city has been awarded Platinum Bicycle Friendly Community status by the Share the Road Cycling Coalition.

Jobs

“We really want to keep students here,” she says, citing a new city partnership with the Accelerator Centre, backed by provincial funding and focused on health-tech companies scaling up near the planned hospital. “There’s a limit to what municipalities can do. What I’m trying to do is create the conditions for success.” In her view, more capital and more investors give students a reason to stay in Canada rather than leave for the U.S. for work.

Cost of Living

“Affordability isn’t just one thing,” she says, citing free or low-cost city programming like festivals, movie nights, and events like Lumen as one lever. McCabe also emphasizes the importance of walkability. “The more we can build a community that is walkable, that someone can use a bike or an e-scooter, or transit to get around, that takes a $20,000 a year cost burden off of their shoulders,” she says, referring to the annual cost of owning a vehicle.

Climate

“This is something that I ran on in 2022, and for me, it’s foundational,” McCabe says, noting climate sustainability work that has been integrated across city departments rather than siloed. She highlights the city’s push toward 10,000 newly planted trees, an urban forestry strategy awaiting council approval, and an emerging “carbon budgeting” process that will weigh climate impacts alongside cost in all city decisions.

Why Students Should Care

“It’s a perennial problem across most elections,” she says. If students don’t vote, McCabe says, they let older residents make the decisions for them instead. Issues like transit, recreation, parks, and water are critical student needs. “It is worth taking the time to exercise [your] democratic right.”

 

Shannon Weber

Weber has spent more than 30 years in municipal government, non-profits, and higher education after earning a BA in economics at UW and an MBA at Wilfrid Laurier University. She narrowly lost the 2022 mayoral race and is running again this year.

Housing

“Housing needs to work for people at every stage of life, and that absolutely includes students.” Weber points to her own time as a student, working part-time to cover the costs of education and housing, and recognizes that housing has become significantly more expensive since. Her pledge is to improve transparency and reporting on the 2023 Affordable Housing Strategy, prioritizing measurable timelines and annual targets. Weber points to property taxes as an indirect pressure on renters. “We have seen record high property tax increases… and I recognize that this is an important issue for residents in our city.”

Transit

Weber supports the continuation of the U-Pass for post-secondary students, aiming to keep it as an affordable transportation option as ridership grows. She hopes to expand services to the west end of Waterloo to better support student riders: “I have met many post-secondary students in neighbourhoods such as Vista Hills and Laurelwood that have no viable GRT option.” She says closing that gap would be a priority.

Jobs

“My goal is to make Waterloo a place where talented young people choose to study, start their careers, build businesses and stay.” She believes that the local government needs to champion and scale up Waterloo’s existing innovation infrastructure. “I will use my economic development background and community connections to pursue these opportunities and help Waterloo achieve our full potential,” she says. Weber also believes that attracting and retaining talent includes focusing on quality of life in the city through enhancing attainable housing, public spaces, and strong neighbourhood communities.

Cost of Living

Weber cites affordability as one of the biggest concerns she hears from residents, pointing to housing, transit, property taxes, utilities, and the services residents rely on as key areas the city can control. “My approach is simple: every tax dollar should work as hard as the people who earn it,” she says. “For young people, affordability means being able to afford a place to live and get around without breaking the budget.”

Climate

Weber frames climate policy around resilience. “Climate readiness is about being prepared for the weather we know is coming and making sure our infrastructure can handle it,” she says. Her plan calls for a citywide flood and climate vulnerability review, along with a 10-year resilience plan to identify infrastructure vulnerabilities. “Waterloo can’t do this alone. We’ll need investment and partnership from other orders of government, and that means strong advocacy and collaboration to make sure Waterloo gets its fair share of infrastructure funding.”

Why Students Should Care

Weber argues that the municipal government touches students’ daily lives most directly, and “students are affected by it more than they may realize.” She points to her own narrow loss in 2022, “I ran for Mayor four years ago and lost by just 330 votes, so I know firsthand how much a relatively small number of votes can matter in a municipal election.” Her message to students is straightforward: “Your vote matters, and every vote counts.” Weber adds, “I’d encourage every student to take a few minutes, learn about the candidates and vote.”

 

Jeyas Balaskanthan

Balaskanthan is the executive director of the Uptown Waterloo BIA and has spent more than 20 years working in student residence management in higher education in Waterloo.

Housing

Balaskanthan distinguishes between “affordable housing” and “attainable housing,” and says the city needs to work with landlords directly. “We need to work with landlords who already have the housing and [make sure] that they are holding up their end of the bargain,” he says, citing rating systems, co-op housing options, and the city’s rental licensing bylaw as tools to hold landlords accountable when tenants report issues.

Transit

“We need more LRT, more GRT,” he says, noting the region is already looking at expanding service and adding routes. He adds that the ION runs directly through UW, and that students’ transit fees already provide unlimited access. “When transportation is there, accessibility is there. It’s great, it gets greater use, and it’s also great for the environment.”

Jobs

Balaskanthan highlights the city’s track record of homegrown companies staying local, citing TextNow’s billion-dollar valuation as a UW offshoot that still employs people in the city. His focus is on space: “There are firms here, office spaces, because of the hybrid workplace now, spaces available. How do we collaboratively work together, bring folks to the table to create those spaces?” Balaskanthan wants to make sure graduates have somewhere to launch startups and stay in the city.

Cost of Living

He highlights local food access, floating the idea of a smaller-scale farmers’ market in Uptown, similar to St. Jacobs Market, that students could reach on foot or by ION. “You are cutting out the middleman and the money, obviously it’s directly going to the farmers as well,” he says, also mentioning community-supported agriculture box programs as an underused option for students living off-campus.

Climate

Balaskanthan cites the city’s 2030 and 2050 climate targets and its relationship with Sustainable Waterloo Region, and points to evolv1, a LEED-certified, carbon-neutral building in the David Johnston Research + Technology Park that feeds energy back into the grid, as a model for how the city should work with developers going forward.

Why Students Should Care

“Municipal politics affects a student’s life quite a bit,” Balaskanthan says. He emphasizes the privilege for students to vote in Waterloo and in their hometown, and how municipal government is responsible for many aspects of a student’s day-to-day life, from rent to roads to restaurants. “It is in the best interest of students to pay attention because you can have a great way of shaping your four or five years here.”

 

Jamie Hari

Hari is a former candidate for Waterloo MP, running as an independent in the 2025 federal election. He has lived in Waterloo for more than 20 years.

Housing

Hari’s platform calls for mandatory rent registries that would require landlords to disclose all their rental holdings and their units’ monthly rent rates, and to pay an annual landlord registration fee that scales with their number of holdings. Hari also wants 25 per cent of new builds mandated as “affordable for singles” under $1,500 a month and 50 per cent mandated as “affordable for families” under $2,350 a month.

Transit

His platform calls for fully subsidized transit passes for seniors and students, down from the current $47 monthly rate under the Affordable Transit Program. In the long term, Hari aims for GRT passes to be subsidized for all residents.

Jobs

Hari’s campaign website does not outline specific jobs policies.

Cost of Living

Hari calls for a progressive property tax scheme that would exempt the first $250,000 of a home’s assessed value, with increases targeted at properties valued above the city’s roughly $700,000 average.

Climate

Hari proposes a mandatory polluter registry, which would require businesses to disclose their local emission rates and contribute to an environmental resilience fund for any emissions exceeding provincial, federal, or international standards. He also wants businesses to be required to meet provincial and federal emissions standards to be eligible for local programs.

 

Jerry Jiang

Jiang is the founder of Akatos, a Waterloo startup community.

Housing

Jiang’s campaign website does not outline specific housing policies.

Transit

Jiang says additional bike lanes are only part of the solution, but his campaign website does not outline specific transit policies.

Jobs

Jobs sit at the core of Jiang’s platform: he wants Waterloo to become “Canada’s home for ambition.” His proposals focus on making it easier for people to find collaborators and workspace to start a business, including cutting the regulatory barriers that make it harder for people with ideas to get started.

Cost of Living

Jiang’s campaign website does not outline specific cost of living policies.

Climate

Jiang’s campaign website does not outline specific climate policies.