Burlington Mayoral Candidates Face Seniors on Transit, Taxes and E-Scooters

Two hundred people filled the Rotary room at the Art Gallery of Burlington, and dozens more sat on a waiting list, for a mayoral forum where older adults wrote the questions. Marion Goard of the Empowered Seniors Speaker Series organized the free event, and Lisa Bilodeau of 100 Women Who Care moderated a conversation on housing affordability, transit, neighbourhood safety, taxes and quality of life.

Four of the five candidates came. Keith Demoe chose not to attend, according to Goard.

Transit took up much of the afternoon. Mayor Marianne Meed Ward polled the room and found two people had taken a bus to get there, which she put down to schedules, trip times and transfers. She pointed to free transit for seniors, low income residents, children under 12 and youth on evenings and weekends, the only such program in Halton, and said a regional handi-van system that does not force a transfer on the way to Juravinski or Oakville hospital is what needs fixing next.

Ward 2 councillor Lisa Kearns pitched a pilot bus that would run a continuous loop between the places seniors actually go: Mapleview Mall, the GO station, Burlington Mall and Joseph Brant Hospital. She also wants benches and shelters at stops, saying riders need somewhere to rest and cover from the weather. Ward 3 councillor Rory Nisan argued for more buses, calling reliability and frequency the whole problem, and for a handi-van you do not have to book weeks ahead.

Where the sharper exchange came

Nisan released an economic platform to reporters the same morning and brought it into the room, promising a tax increase at or below the cost of living and saying an inflationary budget is not a service cut. Kearns took exception to the timing, saying seven days before the polls open is not when an economic plan gets delivered, and that a 2.4 per cent inflationary budget will not touch the city's $350 million deficit. Yugalkeesor Ramdhonee, who came to Canada in 2018 and calls himself new to politics, promised free seniors programs at every seniors' centre and free transit for seniors.

On e-scooters every candidate agreed seniors are not safe enough, and that enforcement and communication are not working. None of them offered a solution. A canvass of the room afterwards found most people still undecided, with one man saying the afternoon had settled his vote, though he would not say for whom.