Platform
St. Catharines has more tools than it uses. I'm running to make it use them. Every commitment on these pages sits inside what a city councillor actually controls — and where an issue crosses into the Region's or the Province's territory, the page says so, and says what a councillor can honestly do about it.
Last updated: September 3, 2026
Where I start
City council is lower-tier government. Some of the biggest issues people care about — homelessness, policing, public health — are run by Niagara Region, not the City of St. Catharines. I'd rather be straight about that boundary than promise things a city councillor can't deliver.
What a city councillor does control is real: property standards and by-law enforcement, zoning and development approvals, building permits and how the City organizes itself to issue them, parks and public space, local roads and pipes, and the budget that pays for all of it. That's the list these pages work from.
The five files
Business permitting
Opening or taking over a storefront can mean inheriting compliance problems you didn't create, then getting conflicting answers from City departments about how to fix them. The rules are mostly provincial. The coordination is the City's, and it's fixable.
Downtown
The causes of the crisis downtown are the Region's file. The impact on our sidewalks, doorways, parks, and businesses lands on City property, and managing that impact is squarely the City's job.
Housing and revitalization
Most of our growth has to happen inside the existing footprint. The City's biggest contribution to housing is saying yes to good projects, and putting derelict land back to work.
Ontario Street
A sourced, dated record of the former GM property, from the plant's closure in 2010 to the enforcement orders of 2026. The page is the record; my position is below.
Flooding and infrastructure
Three storms, more than 300 millimetres of rain, thousands of basements. Where the flood decisions actually sit, what the City's own documents say, and the five things I'd push for.
Ontario Street: where I stand
For years the former GM site was treated as something the City could do little about. Then this spring, the City issued property standards orders against the owner — using authority it has had the entire time. The owner appealed; the City's Property Standards Committee confirmed the orders and set a compliance deadline of October 23, 2026. The owner has now taken that decision to the Ontario Superior Court, asking for the orders to be set aside or the deadline pushed to June 2027. The enforcement the City finally started is being tested in court, and the test is whether the City holds the line. The record is on this site, because residents should be able to check it for themselves.
What I'll push for:
- Hold the line. If the orders stand and the owner doesn't comply, the City has clear options — fines, prosecution, or doing the required work and adding the cost to the property. I'll push for the City to use them on the same timeline it would use for any other property in St. Catharines.
- The owner pays. Securing and cleaning up that property is the owner's legal responsibility, and the City is now enforcing exactly that. Public money shouldn't pay bills the City is ordering a private owner to pay.
- Report the file routinely. A standing public status report — orders, deadlines, appeals, inspections — updated whenever something changes, so nobody needs a freedom-of-information request to find out where things stand.
- Keep contamination in the Province's lane, on the record. The soil and groundwater are provincial. I'll advocate in writing for the Ministry to enforce remediation, and I'll always label that as advocacy, not delivery.
- Plan the site as both halves of one problem. Our biggest derelict-property problem and our biggest new-homes opportunity are the same fifty acres of serviced land. I support redevelopment with an affordable-rental component, and I'll ask the questions the current concept plans haven't answered.
How the City pays for things
Affordability and the infrastructure backlog are the same problem. Nearly everything a city does is paid for from property taxes and user fees, so every deferred pipe and road eventually lands on your bill, with interest. Deferred maintenance is a hidden tax increase.
The biggest fiscal challenges as I see them:
- The renewal gap. Infrastructure is aging faster than replacement budgets grow, and construction costs have run well ahead of inflation.
- A narrow revenue base. Cities carry growing responsibilities on a tax designed for a smaller job.
- Unproductive land. Vacant and derelict properties consume services while contributing almost nothing in assessment.
That third one is where a councillor has real leverage, and it ties my platform together. Fifty acres of fenced-off brownfield on Ontario Street pays almost nothing toward your roads, pipes, and parks. The same land redeveloped becomes taxpaying homes and businesses — new revenue without raising anyone's rate. And infill like that uses infrastructure we've already built and already maintain, which is the cheapest growth a city can have.
Pair that with disciplined basics — one-time money goes to capital, not to propping up operating budgets, and asset management plans get followed rather than shelved — and that's my honest answer. No magic: fewer liabilities, more contributors, and maintenance done on schedule, because on schedule is when it's cheapest. The specific decisions on stormwater and the 2027 budget are on the Flooding and Infrastructure page.
How I'll work
My commitments on representation are mechanical, because mechanics are what you can hold someone to.
- Doors don't stop after the election. I'm at doors in the ward now, Tuesday to Thursday evenings and Saturday middays, and that doesn't stop if I win.
- I answer my own email. grant@granthigginson.ca reaches me, not a staffer.
- Every significant vote gets explained. You'll be able to find out how I voted and why. You won't agree with every vote; no honest councillor can promise that. But you should never have to guess my reasons.
Council is a mayor and twelve councillors, two per ward. Nothing I care about passes on my vote alone, so treating disagreement as betrayal is a plan for accomplishing nothing. My working life has been getting organizations full of capable people with conflicting incentives to a decision anyway, and the method transfers: argue the issue hard, on the record, with sources. Never make it personal. Find the eighty per cent you share before fighting over the twenty you don't. And when you lose a vote, lose it gracefully and stay at the table.
One argument, five files
The City already has the tools. What's missing is the coordination and the will to use them. On Ontario Street, that's property standards. On permits, it's a process where departments talk to each other before the owner pays for it. Downtown, it's enforcement, maintenance, and a reliable partnership on outreach. On housing, it's approvals and zoning. On flooding, it's measuring what the system can carry before deciding what to fund. I'm not asking for new powers. I'm asking the City to use the ones in the book.
This address reaches me, not a staffer: grant@granthigginson.ca