Ready to Fix City Hall
An outsider with a professional background in public finance, leading 1,000 concerned citizens. Together, we are the vehicle for change in Ottawa.
I’m assembling 1,000 people ready to work together and win back our city. Follow here for my values, priorities and thoughts on how we get Ottawa back on track.
1,000 People Can Take Back Ottawa
We Need a Candidate Who Can Win the Mayor’s Race
Who Really Runs Ottawa?
Three Priorities for Restoring Ottawa
Winning Ottawa. Governing Differently.
Transit is Broken. Here’s How We Rebuild It.
City Hall isn’t working. People are asking who I am and whether I’m ready.
That’s fair. If we’re going to take on City Hall, you deserve to know who I am and what I’ve done.
Public finance professional
I’m an economist and community organizer. But more specifically, I’m a public finance professional who has spent over two decades aligning incentives, fixing broken processes and getting public institutions to deliver.
I spent nearly twenty years at the Department of Finance Canada, working in the fiscal and international departments, where I helped structure multi-billion-dollar financing arrangements, stretched our fiscal capacity to achieve the largest impact possible, and developed budgets and economic plans at scale. I went on to serve as Chief Economist at the G20’s Global Infrastructure Hub.
I’ve worked on financial challenges that require creativity, transparency, and a long-term perspective.
My academic training shaped that path. I did my undergraduate degree at Carleton University, graduate work at the London School of Economics, and later executive education at the Harvard Kennedy School focused on organizing people, power, and change.
Economics taught me how systems work. Organizing taught me how to change them.
About five years ago, I made a decision. I could keep applying those skills globally — or I could bring them home to the city I love.
The City of Ottawa spends more than $5 billion each year. Yet there is remarkably little public scrutiny over how that money is managed. I saw that accountability gap in Ottawa, and I started working to fill it.
I grew up in Ottawa’s west end and went to Nepean High School. My wife and I now live in Capital Ward, under the watchful eye of our Australian Shepherd. Our two daughters are off at university. This city isn’t an abstract policy problem for me — it’s home.
In 2022, I got involved in the McKenney campaign because I believed Ottawa needed serious change. After that campaign, Catherine and I founded CitySHAPES, a nonprofit focused on building better cities. That work shifted for me into local community organizing under the Better Ottawa banner.
Some of you came to know me through the Lansdowne debate. But that was only one file. I’ve worked on budget transparency, zoning reform, income tax clinics, climate policy and strengthening community voices in decision-making.
I’m an outsider at City Hall. But I understand public finance. I have insider knowledge of how our local government works, and what is needed to get better value out of our tax dollars.
I’m also not afraid to stand up to the handful of powerful developers who have been able to get the big decisions at City Hall to line up with their priorities.
At this stage of my life, I don’t need to do this. I’m choosing to — because when you see your city drifting off course, you have a responsibility to step up.
My vision for Ottawa
Over the past months, I’ve been laying out a vision for our city. It rests on three priorities:
Lower your costs, where only the City can act. Residents are being squeezed. We must fix the structural problems driving higher housing and transportation costs, as well as higher taxes. This includes getting our public transit system back on track.
Return control to the people. Decision-making has become too centralized and too insulated. Communities deserve meaningful authority over the issues that affect them most directly.
Live up to our true potential. Ottawa is full of talent and opportunity, but for decades our city has moved sideways. We can be more ambitious. Our city can be fiscally responsible, well-run and genuinely great.
And we will run the city differently:
Unprecedented transparency in how the city spends your money and how decisions are made.
Real on-ramps for engagement, allowing all residents to be part of building stronger local communities.
Last week, I shared my transit plan. Next week, I’ll share my fiscal plan, to address the serious financial challenges ahead. These pieces are not campaign slogans. It’s time we had real discussions about the city we want to build.
Not me. Us.
I often say that 1,000 committed citizens can change Ottawa.
City Hall insiders have a vested interest in protecting the status quo. That won’t change on its own.
I cannot do this alone. No one can.
But if enough residents decide that Ottawa belongs to us — not to the insiders and power brokers — then we can return City Hall to its rightful owners.
This is bigger than any one candidate.
I’m prepared to stand at the front of that movement.
But it only works if we build it together.
Be the change Ottawa needs. Join The Thousand.