Your Vote, Your Neighbourhood
On Monday, October 26, communities across Ontario will vote for the people who will shape, more than any other level of government, the quality of our everyday lives. Not in the abstract. In the specifics. Whether there's a bench on a trail where you can sit and get to know your neighbours. Whether the park near you gets maintained. Whether the neighbourhood festival gets funded next year.
This election is an opportunity to ensure our communities' social infrastructure gets recognized. We get to ask if our elected leaders value the shared places, shared experiences, and shared platforms that enable people to meaningfully connect with each other and build the kind of trust a community runs on. Social infrastructure has been WRCF's focus since 2023 because we keep seeing the same pattern in the work we fund and the conversations we have. The vitality of a neighbourhood hinges on whether there are places and reasons for residents to show up and gather together, and whether those gatherings are engaging enough for them to keep coming back.
October's ballot will elect our local and regional councils, as well as school board trustees. Taken together, these are the entities that control a large share of the infrastructure we're talking about: parks, arts facilities, libraries, recreation centres, community centres and trails locally; transit and public health regionally; school gyms and grounds by school boards. Municipalities and the region both shape the planning decisions that determine whether a new development has a front porch or a parking lot.
Unfortunately, municipal elections consistently draw the thinnest turnout of any vote we cast, often under a third of eligible voters. That gap between how much these decisions matter and how few people weigh in on them is, frankly, the whole opportunity. So this fall, I'm hoping that our residents close that gap in a small, doable way, by learning who's running before you vote.
Every municipality in the region has its own elections page with dates, ward information, and candidate lists. The Region of Waterloo's elections page links to all three cities and four townships in one place. The information is all there, but I'd suggest taking it one step further: attend a candidates forum. Showing up to hear candidates answer questions in front of their neighbours tells you more in twenty minutes than any pamphlet will. And, it gives you the opportunity to ask your questions and hear the responses from all candidates so you can make informed decisions based on what matters to you.
I'd like to also address those brave souls running for public office. If you are a candidate in this election, thank you for putting your name forward. If you're looking for ways your platform could strengthen the social fabric of this region, I have three starting points worth considering:
Invest in shared places for joy and gathering. Support the creation and activation of parks, plazas, community centres, and third places where people can linger without needing to spend money.
Invest in shared experiences. Embrace community festivals, markets, events, and programming that give residents reasons to be in the same place at the same time, doing something together rather than side by side.
Invest in shared platforms, including local media. A community's ability to know itself, including what's happening, who's running, and what's at stake, depends on having a healthy local information ecosystem.
None of this requires reinventing your platform. It only requires acknowledging that the infrastructure of social connection and trust is not merely a "nice-to-have" layered on top of "real" municipal business. It is the business.
Whichever side of the ballot you're on this October, the ask is the same. Residents, take the extra step and learn who's asking for your vote before you cast it. Candidates, treat the benches and the block parties and the local papers as seriously as the roads and the sewers. The strength of our social infrastructure will be built by the choices residents make on October 26, and the choices our elected leaders make in the years after. Communities of Waterloo Region will only be as connected as we decide, together, to make them.
Eric Avner
WRCF President & CEO
eric@wrcf.ca