2026 London Municipal Election: Zak Rahim – Councilor Ward 3

Name: Zak Rahim

What position are you running for?  Councilor Ward 3

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?

Right now, U.S. Tariffs dominate the headlines as economic obstacles across Canada, but some of the biggest obstacles are in our own backyard within our own governments; including City Hall.

Some of London’s biggest economic sectors: manufacturing, food processing, home building, and distribution centres all depend on approvals and permits clearing fast, and the time a project sits waiting for City Hall to approve something, is time it isn’t creating jobs, expanding the tax base, and bringing economic prosperity to London.

I’d extend the same fast-tracked approval standard I want for housing to permits for business that want to build and invest here. I’d give local companies more priority in city procurement instead of watching contracts default to the lowest compliant bidder.

The City has a clear mandate to make sure there’s a fast, predictable path for business to grow, build, and invest here and subsequently hire and attract top level talent from post-secondary institutions such as Fanshawe and Western.

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 plan only matters if Londoners can point to something different downtown by 2030 that isn’t more offices going empty, more business closing, and more storefronts being damaged.

I’d prioritize office-to-residential conversions with the same fast-tracked permitting I want for housing across London. More housing downtown means a downtown that isn’t empty after 5pm. Where small businesses can rely on steadier clientele.

Further, public space and safety go together; people don’t visit a district they don’t feel safe walking through during the day or night.

Investment in spaces like Dundas Place needs to be paired with a results-focused public safety approach, not treated as a separate issue. Accountability means timelines with someone responsible for each commitment in this plan, not a document referenced for a decade without any ownership or progress tracking.

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?

We need to stop treating these issues with a blanket response.

On addiction and homelessness, London can’t fund healthcare-scale treatment and recovery alone. Anyone who makes a promise of solving the problem is biting off more than they can chew. We also need to recognize the difference between those experiencing homelessness who need housing vs. those experiencing homelessness who need treatment and care.

The City should keep promoting more affordable and supportive housing while pushing the provincial and federal governments to actually share the cost of treatment capacity, not just shelter beds.

On crime and public disorder, London’s incident-based crime rate rose nearly 14 percent in 2025, the worst increase of any comparable Ontario city, even though per-resident police spending is already in line with cities that saw crime fall over the same period.

I want the next council watching results, published and tracked, not just approving bigger budgets and hoping. On public confidence in shared spaces, that comes down to the same standard I want everywhere: a councillor who tracks whether a program is working and says so publicly when it isn’t.

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

I’d cut the municipal red tape that slows down every kind of housing project, faster approvals for new builds, conversions, and infill, so a project that takes months today doesn’t take years. I’d also support housing that makes sense. Why do we approve a low-rise buildings in single family suburb homes, but reject high-rise building in areas of density?

Growth must fit the neighbourhood it lands in, not get dropped on top of it without the roads, parks, and services to support it.

And supply alone doesn’t fix affordability if renters keep getting pushed out along the way. London’s renoviction bylaw was a needed step, but Council needs to realize it isn’t the final oversight of landlord-tenant rules in Ontario, it’s the Provincial Government. Council needs to focus stronger efforts on lobbying the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing to bring in solutions.

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?

Before spending new capital on bricks and mortar, make it easier for people to actually use the space and infrastructure we already have. That means cutting the same red tape at our existing venues and public spaces: simpler booking processes, lower fees, and faster approvals for artists and organizers who want to use Museum London, the Grand Theatre, our libraries, and our community spaces. Maintain what we have before we expand, a new facility announcement makes for a good ribbon-cutting, but keeping what’s already here accessible and affordable to use is the less glamorous work that actually matters. Where new investment is genuinely needed, the test is simple: does it remove a barrier standing between Londoners and the culture we already have, not whether it makes for a good headline.

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?

Employers in Ward 3’s industrial areas keep telling me the same thing, LTC’s schedule doesn’t line up with when their shifts actually start and end, so workers without a car can’t take the job.

I’d push the City and LTC to require direct employer consultation all employers instead of running transit on a schedule built around downtown commuters/local suburb routes alone.

On rail and air, London doesn’t control those links, but the City needs to be at the table pushing the provincial and federal governments for both freight capacity and passenger rail improvements, not waiting for other cities to make that case first. London has the potential to be a huge transportation hub in Southern Ontario. A key link to the proposed Toronto-Chicago rail route, a cargo hub for our airport, and an air passenger hub for Southern Ontario that isn’t Pearson Airport.

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?

Two changes.

First, procurement: London should weigh local businesses in its bidding instead of automatically handing contracts to whoever provides the lowest cost bid. This is why London-based firms keep losing work to Toronto or American competitors on price alone, with service costs showing up later.

Second, permitting: I want the same fast-tracked approval standard applied across the board, for housing, for accessibility retrofits, for a small business trying to open its doors, so what takes months today takes weeks tomorrow. London has started this with Pathways to Approval, and that’s a good start, the next step is measuring it publicly: average approval time by project type, published every year, so it can’t quietly slide back.

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?

Reconciliation needs to be measured, not just declared. The ReconciliAction Plan runs 2025 to 2035 with a large number of actions attached to it, and a ten-year plan like that only means something if Londoners, including the Indigenous and First Nations communities it’s meant to serve, can actually see what’s moved this term. I’d want the same public, plain-language annual progress report I want for every major City commitment: which actions are complete, which are underway, which haven’t started, and why. A land acknowledgement is a starting point, not a substitute for that follow-through. And funding decisions and grant panels tied to reconciliation should include the communities they’re meant to serve in setting the priorities, not just consult them after the fact. That’s how a plan turns into results instead of a line in a strategic document.

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?

nfrastructure that’s already failing goes first. A sinkhole is a warning sign that maintenance got deferred past the point it was safe to defer. That comes down to whether the City is funding its core mandates or items that fall outside them. If the City can’t afford to fix broken sidewalks because it spent too much on fancy bus shelters that have been smashed many times over, that’s a red flag worth recognizing.

On paying for it fairly, before asking taxpayers for more I want the wasteful spending already in this budget found and cut. Competitive property taxes and keeping up with growth aren’t opposite goals if the City prioritizes what’s actually failing instead of what’s easiest to announce.

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?

London isn’t going to hit the targets set in 2022, and pretending otherwise doesn’t help anyone plan around it. I’d rather see the next council publish an honest, updated timeline than keep citing a target everyone already knows it missed.

I’d also want to hold agencies, boards, and commissions accountable for the green commitments they’ve already made. For example, in the 2023 multi-year budget process, the London Police Service committed to dramatically increasing electric vehicles in its fleet, the only thing I’ve seen since is more gas-powered pickup trucks.

What I won’t support is asking taxpayers for more money to chase a number on paper when the City hasn’t shown it can hit the targets it already has. Results first, funding tied to what’s delivered, it’s as simple as that.

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 under provincial law regardless of who holds the office, so my job as a councillor is watching how they get used, not assuming good faith by default. Council already has leverage when it disagrees: a two-thirds vote can override a mayor’s veto of a bylaw or budget, and that mechanism should get used when it’s warranted. Public Accountability applies to every part of City Hall, mayor’s office included.

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 already has strong cultural anchors, Museum London, the Grand Theatre, and Canada Life Place, plus a designation most Londoners don’t even know we have: UNESCO City of Music, the first in Canada. The City doesn’t need to build more, it needs to get out of the way of the people already creating here. That means cutting the red tape that makes it expensive and complicated to put on a festival, run a pop-up, or open a small venue: cheaper vendor licensing, simpler permitting, and faster approvals. Every dollar and every hour an artist or organizer spends navigating City Hall’s paperwork is a dollar and an hour they’re not spending on the actual event. Lower the barriers to entry and London’s creative community will do more with what’s already here than any new grant program would.