2026 London Municipal Election: Dan Meinen – Councilor Ward 7

Name: Dan Meinen

What position are you running for? Councilor Ward 7

What do you see as the principal opportunities and obstacles facing London’s economy over the next Council term? What should the City do to support business growth, job creation, entrepreneurship and investment, and how should it work with employers, Western University, Fanshawe College and others to attract and retain the talent London needs?

London’s unemployment sat at 8.2 per cent in June, down two straight months but still among the worst big-city rates in Canada. The obstacles are real: trade uncertainty hitting our manufacturers, Canada’s highest downtown office vacancy dragging on the tax base, and a City Hall that reacts instead of plans. So are the opportunities: the 401 corridor, two strong post-secondary institutions, anchors like General Dynamics and 3M, and health care.

The fix is practical. Faster approvals, so businesses can build. Serviced employment lands, so London always has a shovel-ready site for an investor. Fight for every existing job before chasing new ones. And act on downtown vacancy with a Vacant Building Registry and Escalating Fee Bylaw, revenue dedicated to revitalization, instead of studying the problem for another term.

I’m a Fanshawe grad and a tradesman. The talent pipeline works. Retention is what’s broken. Fixing it takes co-op placements that build local roots, housing people can afford, and a city worth staying in.

London now has a new Downtown Plan. Which elements would you prioritize and what results should Londoners expect to see during the next Council term? Please address the downtown business environment, public spaces, housing and office conversions, cultural and civic destinations, safety, transportation and implementation accountability.

The Downtown Plan has 58 actions and four Big Moves. A plan that size only works if Council picks priorities and reports results. Here are mine.

Business environment first, because nothing works without tenants and foot traffic. My Vacant Building Registry and Escalating Fee Bylaw makes sitting on a dead storefront cost more than filling it, with revenue dedicated to revitalization. Pair that with office-to-residential conversions: every conversion turns an empty floor into customers on the sidewalk.

Safety is a requirement. People won’t shop, dine, or rent downtown if they don’t feel safe walking there. That means visible presence, and homelessness spending that moves people from crisis into housing.

Public spaces and the City of Music designation matter, but they follow the fundamentals.

On accountability: by this time next term, Londoners should see a public ledger with quick-start actions completed, vacancy rate, downtown residents added, and dollars spent.

London faces an urgent health and homelessness crisis. Residents, employees and businesses also have concerns about violence, property crime, public disorder and confidence in public spaces. These conditions require related but distinct responses. What actions would you support in each area, and what responsibilities should fall to the City, police, the health system, other orders of government and community partners?

These are related crises but distinct problems, and they need distinct responses.
London has done more than most Ontario cities on homelessness: the Hubs, the Cheese Factory Road shelter, the Indwell residence, the $37.6 million Fund for Change, and an active homeless list down from its 2024 peak. The question Ward 7 families ask is whether that spending moves people from crisis into stable housing.

Three proposals. One: waive development charges on non-profit supportive and deeply affordable housing. Two: pair every dollar of encampment management with a funded supportive-housing pipeline. Three: written cost-sharing agreements whenever London carries provincial costs. Roughly half of what fills our encampments is provincial responsibility. Council votes are leverage.

Crime and disorder are a separate file. They need consistent enforcement and visible police presence in the core, while trained health teams handle health calls. The division of labour: the City builds and coordinates. Police enforce. The health system treats. The province funds what it’s responsible for. Community partners deliver housing with supports.

What changes would you support to increase housing supply and affordability and create neighbourhoods with access to employment, services, transportation and public amenities?

As a Building Inspector, I see where the process can improve. London has cut approval times to 4.6 months; the next gain is certainty. The real delays sit in zoning and site plan approval. The answer is by-right zoning for medium density along corridors where infrastructure is in place, like Hyde Park, Sunningdale, and Wonderland. That’s smart density at corridors and nodes, not reactive infill that erodes established neighbourhoods.

Affordability: waive development charges on non-profit supportive and deeply affordable housing. Push office-to-residential conversions downtown, where units land next to jobs, transit, and services. And keep pressure on senior governments, because the City can’t subsidize its way to affordability alone.

Connection is the piece London keeps skipping. Neither BRT leg reaches the northwest. I’ll push for a northwest park and ride.

Finally, infrastructure first, then houses. Release the 1,476 hectares inside the growth boundary in phases as servicing is built, with an infrastructure readiness test so roads, sewers, schools, transit, and parks arrive with the subdivision, not a decade behind.

London’s cultural facilities, venues and public spaces are essential to the life of the city, and several face age, capacity or funding pressures. What cultural infrastructure should be prioritised during the next Council term, and how should the City decide where to invest?

The honest answer starts with how we decide, not what we announce.

Four tests for any cultural investment. What does it cost over its whole life, not just the ribbon-cutting? Does it fill a real gap or duplicate what exists? Who else is at the table? And does it pull people downtown?

Start with what we own. Centennial Hall opened in 1967 and has been on borrowed time for decades. The next Council should settle its future with a public business case, renew or replace, instead of another decade of deferral. A decision on our main mid-size venue is the concrete version of the City of Music commitment. Beyond that, protect the workhorses: libraries, community centres, and the public spaces people use every week.

What I won’t support is announcement-driven spending. If the numbers are good, culture wins on merit.

London’s economic success depends on reliable local, regional, national and international connections. How would you improve local transit and service to major employment areas and shift workers, intercity bus and air links, and passenger rail? What should businesses and employees be able to expect in terms of frequency, reliability and access?

Start with what Council controls: London Transit. The LTC identified 24,000 service hours as priority and funded 18,000. That gap lands hardest on shift workers, when buses run every 30 to 60 minutes or not at all. I’d close that gap, finish BRT on schedule, and push for a northwest park and ride, so one of the city’s fastest-growing areas isn’t car-only.

On rail: London had a GO train. The pilot died in 2023 because it was designed to fail: a four-hour trip boarding before dawn, while the promised $160 million in track upgrades never materialized. Rail is provincial and federal, but London’s job is to make the business case impossible to ignore: regional advocacy tied to specific asks, including track investment and trips under two hours.

Intercity bus and air are access questions. Protect and grow connections at London International Airport, and make sure bus terminals connect cleanly to local transit.

The standard: frequency you can plan a job around, reliability you can plan a business around, and public reporting so Londoners can see whether service is improving.

What changes would you make to municipal approvals, regulation, procurement and customer service to make it easier to invest, build and operate a business in London?

I work inside the approvals process every day. London does some of this well: residential approvals average 4.6 months, third best in the country, with Ontario’s lowest development fees. The delays sit in zoning and site plan approval, and in unpredictability that makes investors price risk into every project.

Approvals: by-right zoning for medium density along serviced corridors, so routine projects are not delayed. Published service standards for every approval type, with actual processing times reported against them.

Regulation: the Building Code is provincial law. What the City controls is everything layered around it: zoning, site plan requirements, studies, and resubmissions. That’s where the audit belongs. Every redundant study is a tax on building.

Procurement: open more contracts to local small business, break them into sizes local firms can bid on, and publish what we buy, from whom, and what it delivered.

Customer service: one coordinated front door. One accountable team, not five departments with five queues.

None of this needs new money. It needs the discipline to measure, publish, and fix.

London City Council approved the 2025–2035 ReconciliAction Plan in May 2025, committing the City to 155 actions over ten years. What should the next Council do to translate these commitments into a clear, properly resourced implementation plan developed with Indigenous partners? How would you advance reconciliation through economic development, procurement, planning, cultural investment and municipal services?

A plan with 155 actions over ten years faces the same risk as every big plan at City Hall: it gets endorsed, celebrated, and then implemented at whatever pace the budget allows. The test is whether it gets what any major commitment needs: priorities, resourcing, and public reporting.

First, build the implementation plan with Indigenous partners, not for them. That means Chippewas of the Thames, Oneida of the Thames, Munsee-Delaware, and London’s urban Indigenous community at the table deciding which actions come first, and resourced for that work.

Second, put it on a ledger. Each budget should show which actions are funded, complete, or behind.

On the files: set a real target for Indigenous business participation in City contracts, break contracts into sizes those firms can bid on, and count the results. Consult First Nations early enough to shape planning decisions. Fund Indigenous-led cultural spaces on their terms. And measure municipal services by results.

London’s growth depends on roads, transit, water and wastewater systems, emergency services and community facilities. How would you determine which investments proceed first, pay for growth fairly and maintain competitive property taxes?

This is my area of expertise, and I’m running in the ward where the gap between growth and infrastructure is most visible. Sunningdale is being widened after the subdivisions arrived. A 200-metre stretch of sidewalk is still missing between Dyer Drive and Fanshawe Park Road. That’s the pattern to break.

Ranking projects should be public, against three questions: Does it unlock approved growth? Is it a safety or maintenance obligation? Is it already carrying demand? Publish the ranking and the reasoning.

Growth should pay for growth. It doesn’t. Provincial exemptions forced London to drain about $32 million from reserves, and this spring staff flagged a $40 million development charge shortfall. The fix: realistic forecasts, hold the province to backfilling its exemptions, and release the 1,476 new hectares in phases tied to servicing. The exception: waive charges on non-profit supportive and deeply affordable housing.

On taxes: Londoners aren’t angry about the bill so much as when they can’t see what it bought. Fix what we own before buying new, stop paying consultants to tell us what staff already know, and put every major capital project on a public ledger.

London City Council approved the Climate Emergency Action Plan in 2022. The Plan calls for a 55 per cent reduction in community-wide greenhouse-gas emissions from 2005 levels by 2030. Which elements of the Plan would you prioritise, accelerate or change during the next Council term? How would you ensure that climate action strengthens resilience, affordability and economic competitiveness for residents and businesses?

Start with the number nobody at City Hall likes saying out loud: emissions are down 22 per cent from 2005, against a target of 55 per cent by 2030, and this spring’s audit confirmed we’re nowhere near on pace. A plan with 200 actions that misses its headline target is a wish list.

Prioritize actions that cut emissions and save money, because those survive every budget. Transportation and buildings drive most of London’s emissions. That means finishing BRT on schedule and closing the LTC’s service gap, because a usable bus is climate policy that also gets shift workers to work. It means energy retrofits, starting with the City’s own facilities.

Accelerate resilience, because the climate costs Londoners already pay come through severe weather: flooded basements, ice storms, and the insurance bills that follow. Stormwater capacity, sewer separation, and tree canopy are unglamorous, but cheaper than repair.

Change the accounting. Rank the 200 actions by cost per tonne reduced and report it publicly. And be straight about jurisdiction: the grid, vehicle standards, and building code are provincial and federal. London’s job is to do its part, prove it with numbers, and push senior governments on the rest.

How should Council respond when strong-mayor powers are exercised, and how would you use your role as a councillor to provide effective scrutiny and accountability?

Strong-mayor powers exist whether Council likes them or not. The question is how a councillor does the job when majority decision-making no longer fully applies.

A councillor’s job is scrutiny: read the budget line by line, ask the questions in public, and put the trade-offs on the record. When it takes a two-thirds vote to change a budget line, every councillor’s vote and every public question carries more weight, not less.

Three things in practice. First, insist on paper. When strong-mayor powers are used, the reasons should be written, public, and on the agenda, not delivered as a done deal. Second, use the tools Council still controls: committee scrutiny, public delegations, information requests, and budget amendments, even when the threshold is high. Third, judge the powers by results. If a strong-mayor decision speeds up housing Council would have studied for another year, I’ll say so. If it’s used to skip scrutiny on spending, I’ll say that louder.

What role should arts, culture and the creative industries play in London’s economic and community development? How should the City support cultural organisations, artists, venues, festivals and creative businesses while ensuring that municipal investment produces lasting public value?

London is a UNESCO City of Music, one of only a few in Canada. That designation is an economic asset, not a plaque. Music and the creative industries fill hotel rooms, restaurants, and storefronts, and they’re often the reason a Western or Fanshawe grad decides to stay. Treat them like the export sector they are.

The City’s role is to make it easy to build, gather, and perform. That means one front door for venues and festivals on licensing, noise, and permitting. It means protecting the small venues where careers start, because a City of Music with no stages is a slogan. It means using City-owned space and Downtown Plan dollars to put live performance on the street, where it drives the foot traffic downtown needs.

On lasting value: every cultural dollar goes on the public ledger. Report what it cost, what it returned, and who showed up. Fund what delivers, and the case for culture makes itself.