Livestream recap for Candidates Debate Homelessness Safety Taxes And Growth In 2026 Mayoral Race - Council - October 13, 2026 on October 13, 2026.
One-Sentence Summary
The livestream features five mayoral candidates exploring diverse motivations, examining divergent policy positions on homelessness and safety, discussing fiscal strategies for growth, and reflecting on leadership styles regarding municipal services and policing approaches.
Whole Stream Summary
Five mayoral candidates presented distinct motivations ranging from addressing the drug pandemic to restoring civic pride and leveraging decades of experience. Regarding fiscal strategy and growth, proposals included lowering taxes via cost reductions and tourism revenue, regionalizing services to combat bloat, though one candidate insisted that resolving crime and homelessness must precede any expansion plans. Disagreements also emerged on maintaining municipal services without tax hikes, where candidates debated between exponential growth through zoning amendments, targeted development charges, preventative infrastructure maintenance, and a fundamental review of necessary service levels versus cuts.
Most Newsworthy Items
Recurring solutions below are counted by distinct verified questions; repeated follow-ups within one question count once.
- Ray Botten: Proposing a nine-billion-dollar water storage facility in Meaford (3 distinct questions); Restructuring zoning bylaws to support housing supply (2 distinct questions); Lobbying for Ontario government subsidies on water bills (1 distinct question).
- Jodi King: Incentives, grants, and tax breaks for affordable housing development (3 distinct questions); Intergovernmental grants to attract infrastructure and new businesses (1 distinct question).
- Carol Merton: Regionalizing services and sharing resources (3 distinct questions); Affordable housing first policy on new builds (2 distinct questions); Public representation in all budget committees (1 distinct question).
- Richard Thomas: Development charge incentives for growth (4 distinct questions); Downtown River District cleanup and safety team (3 distinct questions); Transforming tourism into a business (2 distinct questions).
- Andrii Zvorygin: Increase housing supply with vacant home tax (3 distinct questions); Civilian dispatch pilot for lower-risk calls (2 distinct questions); Lower property taxes via cost reductions (2 distinct questions).
Candidate Response Comparison
The following tables summarize each candidate’s verified response to each question. Repeated follow-ups within one question are combined in that candidate’s cell.
1. Why are you running for mayor
| Candidate |
Response summary |
| Ray Botten |
Ray Botten states his mission is to address the drug pandemic in Owen Sound, save lives, and empower youth by setting a positive example. |
| Jodi King |
Jodi King runs because she has seen the city fall apart and wants to unite the community to address homelessness and safety concerns. |
| Carol Merton |
Carol Merton runs to restore civic pride and create a clean, safe, and affordable city where seniors and families feel secure. |
| Richard Thomas |
Richard Thomas explains he is running because he wants to be involved and leave the city better than he found it. |
| Andrii Zvorygin |
Andrii Zvorygin runs to provide safer streets, affordable homes, and a real voice for families, outlining plans for budget reduction and community safety. |
2. Relevant experience for the mayoral role
| Candidate |
Response summary |
| Ray Botten |
Ray Botten describes his background as a Red Seal chef and missionary, emphasizing hands-on service, adaptability, and a desire to serve the community rather than dictate solutions. |
| Jodi King |
Jodi King draws on her 12 years as a retired security guard dealing with difficult situations to argue she can help bring the community together and solve issues through hard work. |
| Carol Merton |
Carol Merton highlights her senior leadership experience in public and private sectors, budget management, union negotiations, and involvement in local housing and poverty task forces to demonstrate readiness for the mayor’s office. |
| Richard Thomas |
Richard Thomas cites his 40 years in Owen Sound, including covering city council as a reporter, serving on the library board for 24 years, and holding various elected and appointed roles in municipal governance and community organisations. |
| Andrii Zvorygin |
Andrii Zvorygin outlines three areas of experience—public work, business ownership, and financial management—as direct qualifications for the mayoral role to ensure cost-effective results. |
3. Homelessness Support and Downtown Safety
| Candidate |
Response summary |
| Ray Botten |
He emphasizes listening to those in grief on the streets, supporting leadership, and fighting for compassion over rules, stating his motivation is to help people dying today. In his follow-up, he argues that forced rules cannot change hearts and that street-level compassion is essential to addressing the crisis. |
| Jodi King |
Drawing from personal experience with homelessness, she advocates for incentives, grants, and affordable housing partnerships to reduce costs, alongside tax breaks for landlords and rezoning to support suitable builds. |
| Carol Merton |
She frames homelessness as a crisis requiring immediate action like public washroom access, syringe drop-off boxes, reinitiated neighbourhood response teams, better sanitation, and affordable housing first. She asserts that homelessness requires a whole-city approach rather than focusing solely on downtown, noting that addicted individuals live in homes as well as encampments. |
| Richard Thomas |
He outlines a ten-point plan including a River District action team, rapid cleanup standards, and extending the neighbourhood response team to balance business security with compassion for vulnerable people. |
| Andrii Zvorygin |
He proposes mobile meals on the outskirts to connect unsheltered residents with housing, shared equipment for cleaning common spaces, civilian dispatch pilots to route lower-risk calls, and neighbourhood watches to keep downtown safe. |
4. Current Tax Rate View
| Candidate |
Response summary |
| Ray Botten |
The candidate acknowledges that everything is higher but argues the current tax rate aligns with the overall budget because the city cannot sustain itself without sufficient funds. He expresses frustration specifically about water bills, stating they should be paid by the Ontario government rather than residents, and calls for lobbying to secure subsidies. In his follow-up, the candidate announces a plan to give back $1,200 a year to property owners and mentions discussing opting out of Grey County as part of his strategy. He urges residents not to turn off their dial on these issues. |
| Jodi King |
The candidate calls for more transparency regarding how tax money is spent and believes residents have a right to know where their money goes. She agrees with other candidates that many people are struggling, suggests offering a tax break to taxpayers so they can afford groceries and fuel, and urges finding out exactly where the money is going at City Hall. |
| Carol Merton |
The candidate expresses concern that residents are struggling financially due to high residential taxes, which are driving people away from the city. She proposes determining core essential services versus nice-to-have items, adding revenue through tourism and institutional links, accessing regional opportunities for shared resources, and regionalizing services to ensure community survival. The candidate expresses strong concern that the committee reviewing the budget has no public membership, stating she voted against this arrangement and would bring it back to the table if elected mayor. She supports public representation in all committees for those paying taxes. |
| Richard Thomas |
The candidate agrees that taxes are high but advocates for growth over cuts as a solution. He highlights his past introduction of a development charge holiday and the municipal accommodation tax on short-term rentals, noting these creative approaches have generated significant revenue to encourage desired growth without reducing services. The candidate agrees with Carol Merton that public representation is essential for budget and city services. He promises to turn back his strong mayor powers to transform the budget process into a public-facing one, allowing the public and council to thoroughly vet it before adoption. |
| Andrii Zvorygin |
The candidate states that Owen Sound’s tax burden is too high relative to local incomes and argues that better government can lower taxes while improving services. He cites historical data on property tax rises outpacing income growth, notes the impact on seniors and businesses, and outlines a plan involving cost reductions in software maintenance, publishing financial records, and creating a savings ledger to ensure taxes match local incomes and service value. In a follow-up statement, the candidate mentions he is the only one with a fully costed plan to both lower taxes and improve services, available on his website. He points out system bloat over the last 12 years and asserts there are many opportunities to save taxes while helping neighbours. |
5. Plan to Achieve Population Growth
| Candidate |
Response summary |
| Ray Botten |
He highlights a nine-billion-dollar water storage facility in Meaford as a catalyst for growth and discusses the benefits of Owen Sound becoming an independent city to retain property tax revenue. Ray Botten proposes a plan to achieve population growth by encouraging immigration and supporting families with children. He attributes these specific measures to his strategy for increasing the state’s population. |
| Jodi King |
She argues that the city cannot grow unless it first addresses homelessness and crime in Owen Sound, suggesting incentives for new builds to offer lower rates and housing for essential workers like doctors. |
| Carol Merton |
She notes that data messages are confusing but emphasizes the need to aggressively target economic development in tourism, clean energy, and medical isotopes while building affordable housing for essential workers. She mentions using tools like building permit fee forgiveness for nonprofit housing and exploring community bonds and land trusts to invest locally and grow the community. |
| Richard Thomas |
He proposes stopping the wait for growth by using development charge incentives, restoring an economic development function, and transforming the tourism department into a business to attract investment. |
| Andrii Zvorygin |
He states that development charge forgiveness has not worked effectively, citing the high cost of Harbor West homes as unaffordable for most residents, and reiterates the need to pursue economic growth while caring for actual residents. |
6. Maintain services without tax increases
| Candidate |
Response summary |
| Ray Botten |
Ray Botten argues that maintaining services requires amending zoning bylaws to support housing supply, emphasizing that exponential growth and infrastructure cultivation are necessary for prosperity rather than incremental band-aid solutions. |
| Jodi King |
Jodi King agrees with Richard Thomas, citing personal business losses due to downtown littering and garbage, and advocates for intergovernmental grants to attract infrastructure and new businesses after the city is cleaned up. The candidate advocates keeping existing assets working to manage tax pressure, citing an asset management plan showing infrastructure needs are high, and proposes preventative maintenance, sewer separation, and transparent reporting on repairs and priorities. |
| Carol Merton |
Carol Merton challenges the premise of maintaining services in a crisis, urging a review of necessary services versus those to cut, and proposing economies of scale, regional opportunities for waste management, and sharing resources like fire inspections. |
| Richard Thomas |
Richard Thomas states that growth is the only solution, proposing targeted development charges and focusing on cleaning up the downtown river district to improve curbside appeal and attract new businesses and industries. |
| Andrii Zvorygin |
Andrii Zvorygin proposes maintaining reliable services by prioritizing repairs based on resident input, implementing preventative measures like early wastewater screening, and matching road surfaces to traffic needs while publishing asset data to ensure transparency. He argues that these strategies will extend infrastructure life and manage costs without requiring tax increases. |
7. Revisiting OPP Costing Process
| Candidate |
Response summary |
| Ray Botten |
Ray Botten agrees the issue needs revisiting due to officer burnout and staffing shortages, praising Carol Merton’s support for the city and Chief Ambrose’s stance on a Gray County police service as potential alternatives. |
| Jodi King |
Jodi King supports moving forward with an OPP costing process to save millions for community targets like homelessness, while noting that rotating OPP officers might reduce bias in handling drug trafficking cases compared to local police. |
| Carol Merton |
Carol Merton advises council to fully understand the budgeting process and revenue-generating activities of the current police service before considering OPP, emphasizing the need for an ‘apples to apples’ cost comparison that includes all offset expenses. |
| Richard Thomas |
Richard Thomas opposes revisiting the OPP costing process, citing that previous figures underestimated costs which would exceed current city police expenses, and highlighting the high financial cost of closing the municipal headquarters. |
| Andrii Zvorygin |
Andrii Zvorygin is open to reviewing the OPP option to address resident concerns about crime, proposing a civilian pilot programme for lower-risk calls and committing to an official costing process if needed to ensure service preservation. |
8. Municipal Actions for Housing Supply
| Candidate |
Response summary |
| Ray Botten |
Emphasizes growth as essential, citing a nine-billion-dollar project as a stimulus opportunity to create jobs and entrepreneurial advances for the municipality. Shares experience managing a homeless shelter with faith groups without government funding as an example of community-driven solutions. |
| Jodi King |
Enforces affordable housing commitments legally and prevents developers from backing out after receiving variances or tax breaks. |
| Carol Merton |
Links housing to economic development, advocates for ‘affordable housing first’ policy on new builds, and suggests using municipal surplus lands for affordable projects. Advocates defining the difference between affordable and deeply affordable housing based on median income and setting specific unit targets to drive construction. |
| Richard Thomas |
Suggests replicating Saugeen Shores’ partnership model, donating municipal land, and using development charge incentives to reward affordable units in new builds. |
| Andrii Zvorygin |
Proposes a vacant home tax, building fee deferrals for affordable projects, surplus site usage, and a home-with-land pathway to increase supply. Follows up by describing a specific home design costing eighty to ninety thousand dollars with a mortgage around four hundred dollars a month that meets building code. |
9. Gaps in Municipal Service Provision
| Candidate |
Response summary |
| Ray Botten |
Sharing his personal experience as an amputee and wheelchair user who is denied taxi service due to liability concerns, he argues that transportation is a major issue for everyone and pledges to change the system regardless of whether he is elected mayor. In a follow-up, he expresses gratitude for the existing mobility service but warns that without changes to taxi policies and enforcement of AODA standards, he will be forced to charge fines against the city daily. |
| Jodi King |
She agrees that transit is the primary gap, citing issues for people with mobility problems. She calls for at least one accessible bus and longer operating hours to accommodate workers and visitors travelling across the town. She discusses the provincial standardization of rideshare contracts and emphasizes the need for the public to demand that accessibility be incorporated into these agreements. |
| Carol Merton |
Identifying transit as the significant gap, she highlights the needs of renters and growing populations, calling for expanded affordability passes, synchronized traffic lights, a working group to address service issues, and pilot projects before signing new contracts. |
| Richard Thomas |
He notes that while car owners worry less about transit, those without cars face significant issues. He suggests combining city transit with rideshare services to create a more efficient, door-to-door solution for off-hours travel. |
| Andrii Zvorygin |
The candidate proposes keeping at-large elections while allowing each councillor to serve a ward they choose, arguing that local representatives can better connect residents with city follow-through on neighbourhood concerns like traffic calming and cleanups. He directs residents to a website featuring a fully costed four-year transit plan that includes evening and Sunday service, as well as mobility transit and rideshare options. |
10. Addressing Cost of Living Concerns
| Candidate |
Response summary |
| Ray Botten |
Ray Botten argues the municipality lacks a mandate for cost of living help but suggests capitalizing on water storage facilities, restructuring zoning to attract residents and jobs, and maintaining great recreation like Harrison Park campground. |
| Jodi King |
Jodi King focuses on affordable housing, suggesting incentives and grants for development below Harborfront unit costs, tax breaks for landlords offering below-average rental units, and rezoning to accommodate suitable builds. |
| Carol Merton |
Carol Merton suggests reconsidering bag tag costs, implementing family transit rates with free access for young children, linking worker rates to local institutions, stabilizing water rates, expanding community improvement plans, supporting nonprofits, and pursuing regional shared services to save money for taxpayers. |
| Richard Thomas |
Richard Thomas agrees that growth is the key to solving problems and affecting cost of living, noting that eliminating bag tags would require finding money elsewhere or increasing taxes. He proposes restoring an economic development function and transforming tourism into a business to bring in investment and jobs. |
| Andrii Zvorygin |
Andrii Zvorygin addresses taxes, housing, and daily services. He proposes reviewing software for lower costs, a vacant home tax to increase supply, affordable rural communities with resident-owned homes, and a pilot programme for free meal delivery to struggling seniors. |
11. Number One Issue Facing Owen Sound
| Candidate |
Response summary |
| Ray Botten |
Ray Botten identifies the drug pandemic as the number one issue, citing government knowledge of Chinese triad gangs and emphasizing that God’s love is the solution to supporting broken people. |
| Jodi King |
Jodi King agrees with Richard Thomas regarding downtown safety, detailing specific assaults in the core and proposing increased police presence and cameras to deter drug trafficking. |
| Carol Merton |
Carol Merton cites homelessness, addictions, mental illness, cleanliness, and safety as causing a loss of civic pride, calls for better funding for social services, and mentions her own downtown plan before the moderator moves to the next question. |
| Richard Thomas |
Richard Thomas states that problems in the downtown river district are the primary issue, arguing that solving them is a prerequisite for economic development and safety, citing residents’ fear of the area. |
| Andrii Zvorygin |
Andrii Zvorygin acknowledges the downtown issue but argues that affordability is the top issue, linking rising taxes to housing costs and business struggles, and promising to lower property taxes. |
12. Effective Decision Maker for Owen Sound
| Candidate |
Response summary |
| Ray Botten |
Ray Botten attributes his decision-making ability to following his heart before God, sharing stories of building bridges in war-torn areas and corruption-ridden places, and concludes with a scripture about hope and a future. |
| Jodi King |
Jodi King emphasizes her lifelong connection to Owen Sound and approachability, citing her ability to listen to everyone from the working class to homeless individuals as evidence of her effectiveness. |
| Carol Merton |
Carol Merton describes herself as goal-driven with a track record of quick resolution and strong networks, advocating for high-performance teams and value for money to make decisions quickly. |
| Richard Thomas |
Richard Thomas states his fifty years of career experience points toward leadership and decisive action, noting that while the mayor is a figurehead, influence comes through leadership which he excels at. |
| Andrii Zvorygin |
Andrii Zvorygin outlines a decision-making process based on three questions, highlighting his experience in council and business to connect resident concerns with financial realities and propose open forums for transparency. |
Chapters
- 00:00 Owen Sound Mayoral Candidate Discussion
- 00:00:48 Why are you running for mayor
- 00:07:38 Relevant experience for the mayoral role
- 00:15:51 Homelessness Support and Downtown Safety
- 00:28:44 Current Tax Rate in Owen Sound
- 00:38:06 Population Growth Plans
- 00:47:23 Maintaining Services Without Tax Increases
- 00:58:12 Revisiting OPP Costing Process
- 01:16:10 Municipal service gaps and neighbourhood concerns
- 01:29:10 Cost of Living Solutions
- 01:36:38 Number one issue facing Owen Sound
- 01:44:55 Effective decision maker for Owen Sound
Transcript: Read the full transcript
Official livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dw-2NvWmDQ
Processed recording used for this transcript: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxuy_FdXGfY
