The candidates campaigning to win Thursday's Kitchener Centre byelection — or at least the ones who are willing to participate in public debates and speak to the media — are sharing their positions on topics that are very familiar to all Ontarians: the housing and homeless crises, the doctor shortage, the greenbelt, minister’s zoning orders (MZOs), and the high cost of living.
There is one topic, however, that while mostly ignored will likely become a major concern for whoever wins the seat, and that is the potential restructuring of Waterloo Region.
Waterloo is one of the regions, along with Durham, Halton, Niagara, Simcoe County and York, that the provincial government has decided needs to be rethought. Originally, Steve Clark, who was serving as housing minister, wanted to appoint “regional facilitators” to “make recommendations to the province on what locally supported governance models would best support Ontario’s fastest growing municipalities in moving forward on shared priorities to help municipalities meet their housing targets and build housing-enabling infrastructure.”