🔎 The race
Waterloo votes **Monday, October 26, 2026** for a mayor, seven ward councillors and two Region of Waterloo councillors — 35 certified candidates across 9 city offices, on an envelope of 94,608 eligible voters. Nominations closed at 2 p.m. on August 21, and the City Clerk's certified lists, filing dates and a candidate events calendar are posted on waterloo.ca. Advanced voting across Waterloo Region has already begun. In 2022, 22,435 of 82,557 eligible voters (27.2%) cast a ballot in the city.
The mayor's race is a **2022 rematch plus three newcomers**. Incumbent Dorothy McCabe beat Shannon Weber 9,543 votes (43.5%) to 9,212 (42.0%) four years ago — a margin of 331 votes — and The Record reconstructed the geography: Weber dominated the suburbs and held a 799-vote advantage outside Ward 7 after her campaign outspent McCabe more than two-to-one, but McCabe's 1,130-vote cushion in the downtown Ward 7 carried her. Weber has name recognition and a proven base; McCabe has incumbency in a young, campus-heavy city the Record describes as having half its 142,450 residents under 36. Jeyas Balaskanthan, Jamie Hari and Jerry Jiang all entered on nomination day itself, CityNews Kitchener reported.
**Dorothy McCabe** filed first, on May 1, and launched pledging to keep refusing the province's strong-mayor powers. “I love the job,” she told The Record. “There’s more to do in Waterloo.” Her record pitch centres on BuildNowWR, the University Avenue East project where “the first 85 co-operative housing units” are under construction with “approximately 800 additional units planned over the next two to three years” (CTV survey), plus a site identified with the University of Waterloo for the city's first hospital. She says she does not lean on tax increases as a first resort and would not defer maintenance to smooth them (The Record) — a hard case to sell: the December 2025 budget added 6.9% to a typical household's combined tax-and-utility bill in one year, and the Record calculated that Waterloo's municipal taxes rose 31% between 2023 and 2026 — about $1,040 on a typical home, the highest of the region's three cities.
**Shannon Weber** has made that ledger her wedge. “Over the past four years, residents have seen a 27 per cent increase in property taxes. And they’re asking a fair question: what do we have to show for it?” she wrote in CTV’s candidate survey, recalling that in 2022 “I fell short by just 331 votes.” The 48-year-old MBA and former Conestoga business instructor (Record profile) promises to “lower tax increases to inflationary rates” under the banner *Affordability First — Get the Basics Right — Ready for the Future*. She skipped the October 8 Wilfrid Laurier debate, first citing scheduling, then illness — an absence The Record says shaped the closing week.
The three first-time candidates split the remaining lanes. **Jeyas Balaskanthan**, most recently executive director of the Uptown Waterloo Business Improvement Area, runs on red tape and service: “We cannot accept increased taxation as a solution to every spending decision” (CTV); he is undecided on strong-mayor powers (Record). **Jamie Hari**, a cybersecurity expert spending about $25 on his campaign after finishing last — 76 votes, behind a candidate named Santa Claus — in the 2025 federal election as an independent (Record), says flatly “I am a socialist” (Record) and wants a city-run grocery store, free transit and municipally built housing reaching 10% of stock. **Jerry Jiang**, founder of the Akatos startup house, pitched keeping student founders in Waterloo — “Waterloo is full of people doing extraordinary work that the world never sees” (Record).
Away from the mayor's office, the crowded contests are the two open wards: **Ward 2** (seven candidates; Royce Bodaly retiring) and **Ward 5** (five; Jen Vasic retiring) — Bodaly and Vasic are the only incumbents not seeking another term, per CityNews. Ward 4 councillor Diane Freeman, at city hall since 2006, faces Travis Restoule and Syed Tirmizi, and seven candidates contest Waterloo's two regional seats with incumbents Jim Erb (the city's top-voted candidate in 2022, 12,541 votes) and Chantal Huinink (Record). All of it plays out under rules Queen's Park changed mid-term: the regional chair is now provincially appointed, and The Record counts 15 elected regional seats after this vote, down from the past arrangement.
⚡ Key issues
Property taxes: a 31-per-cent term becomes the referendum question
Waterloo's combined city-and-regional municipal taxes rose **31% between 2023 and 2026** — an estimated $1,040 on a typical home, versus 27% in Kitchener and 26% in Cambridge — the steepest of the region's three cities, The Record found. The December 2025 budget alone added 6.9% (about $209) to a typical household's tax-plus-utilities bill, with the city property-tax portion up 6.4% (Record); councils bought more police and firefighters, sidewalk snow clearing, homelessness and climate programs, and deferred less maintenance. Weber vows to cap future increases at inflation; Balaskanthan promises a line-by-line review of the $115M net operating budget; Hari wants the burden shifted toward the wealthy; McCabe argues the spending met public priorities without “pushing costs forward to future councils” (CTV).
Housing in a student city: BuildNowWR, the university district and rents
“Housing affordability and availability is Waterloo’s most pressing challenge,” Mayor Dorothy McCabe writes in CTV’s survey — and her BuildNowWR project on city land beside RIM Park is meant to hold about 1,000 affordable and attainable units, with 85 co-op homes already being built by Union Community Housing and a site pushed forward for Waterloo's first hospital. The race ran through the university district's housing politics too: hundreds attended a University of Waterloo screening of professor Brian Doucet's housing-crisis film, where the message was to grill municipal candidates (Record). In a city where roughly half the residents are under 36, Jamie Hari proposed bylaws compelling landlords to reveal rents and holdings plus municipal non-market housing (Record), while Jerry Jiang pitched keeping student entrepreneurs from taking their “big ideas” to other cities.
Water: a scarce-resource city argues about growth
The Region's water shortage forced a June 2026 water-allocation policy that rations new capacity, prioritizing affordable housing — “a transparent way to prioritize the limited capacity available,” McCabe told CTV, insisting water and wastewater “must remain publicly owned and municipally managed.” “This past year Waterloo Region was on the front page of the Globe and Mail because of the future water issues that surfaced,” said Balaskanthan, blaming a disconnect between growth targets and infrastructure. The candidates diverged sharply: Hari floated bylaws forcing large users to publish consumption and barring privatization; Ward 2's Shawn Humes demanded full allotment transparency, noting his ward received 1.77 litres per second of new allocation that quarter; regional candidate Rami Said calls the crisis “the consequences of decisions made years ago”; and Jerry Jiang told the Laurier debate the city should look at a pipeline to a Great Lake.
Transit: ION stage 2 to Cambridge — and who keeps building
Regional council approved **Stage 2 ION** — extending light rail from Fairway station to downtown Cambridge — in November 2025, and staff are now pursuing full provincial and federal funding, so Waterloo's mayor and regional councillors will carry the ask. The Tri-Cities Transport Action Group published a 2026 election questionnaire for mayoral, council and regional candidates on transit and active transportation, and CycleWR ran “ride with candidates” sessions across every Waterloo race. Transit was among the prepared topics at the Laurier debate; on the platform spectrum, Hari wants GRT passes phased in free (seniors and students first, then all residents) per the Waterloovotes guide, while Jiang leans on making the city easier to bicycle around.
Addiction, homelessness and the Victoria Street encampment split
Every mayoral candidate was pressed on addiction and encampments, and a documented split emerged: McCabe, Weber and Jiang support regional council's **appeal of the court ruling that blocks dismantling the Victoria Street North encampment** in downtown Kitchener, while Balaskanthan and Hari oppose it (The Record). McCabe has joined Ontario Big City Mayors lobbying the province for treatment and supportive-housing funding; Weber pairs “compassion and accountability,” pushing for more recovery beds while protecting public spaces; at the campus debate Hari drew applause for arguing that former BlackBerry chiefs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie should be taxed more heavily rather than praised — “I really think it’s blasphemous,” Jiang shot back — while Hari calls housing-plus-supports “literally the best financial decision possible.”
Queen's Park in the room: an appointed chair and strong-mayor powers
Provincial intrusions on local autonomy threaded through the campaign. The **Better Regional Governance Act** made the regional chair a provincially appointed position — no Waterloo voter gets a ballot line for it, and The Record counts 15 elected regional seats after this vote (CityNews flagged the change back in August). McCabe built her May launch on *continuing to reject* strong-mayor powers (Record); Balaskanthan says he's undecided; Hari and Ward 5 candidate Marty Rempel both ran explicitly against what they describe as Queen's Park eroding municipal representation (CTV).
- The assignment context referenced incumbent mayor 'Shannon Stephen' — no such name is on the certified Waterloo roster. The incumbent mayor seeking re-election is Dorothy McCabe, and the 2022 runner-up is Shannon Weber; profiles follow the pack roster only.
- No all-candidates meeting hosted by an entity called 'iXW' was found. Waterloo's documented meetings were organized by VisionWR/Vision Waterloo Region, the Waterloo Forum at Laurier, CivicTechWR, neighbourhood associations and the city clerk's own events list.
- The pack's Record headline 'Mayor Dorothy McCabe defends Waterloo tax hikes as challenger calls for restraint' (Oct 5) could not be resolved to a standalone therecord.com URL via its Google News link; the closest linked Record story from the same date — 'Waterloo mayoral candidates clash over taxes, housing and city spending' — is cited instead.
- Record numbers vary by method: the December 2025 budget story reports a 27% four-year increase in city taxes and utilities (~$700/year for a typical household), while October 2026 campaign coverage calculates 31% (about $1,040) for 2023–2026 municipal taxes. Both are cited with their sources.
- CTV's survey lists several non-respondents: Jerry Jiang, Asma Al-Wahsh (spelled 'Asna' on the page), Venkat Kondam, Syed Tirmizi, Eda Dede, Julie Wright and Abdullah. In an earlier cached version Sandra Hanmer was also marked non-responsive; the current page includes her responses.
- No published poll of the Waterloo mayoral race was found.
- CTV's page renders Soo Bok Lee as 'Soobok Lee' and Ward 7's candidate as the single name 'Abdullah'; pack spellings are used for profile keys.
- The Record (Oct 5) says McCabe, Weber and Jiang support the Victoria Street encampment appeal while 'Balaskanthan and Jeyas' oppose it — the second name appears garbled, so only the three named supporters are asserted.
- No population figure was given in the brief; the 142,450 figure used in the race paragraphs is The Record's own description of the city in campaign coverage.
| Dorothy McCabe Incumbent Elected 2022 · Mayor (43.5%) | 🔎 Incumbent mayor, first elected in 2022 with 9,543 votes (43.5%) — 331 ahead of Shannon Weber — and first to file again, on May 1, 2026. Her pitch: BuildNowWR (“one of Canada’s largest affordable and attainable housing projects” — 85 co-op units under construction, about 800 more planned), an identified site for Waterloo's first hospital, publicly owned water services, and continued refusal of strong-mayor powers (CTV, Record). |
| Jamie Hari | 🔎 A cybersecurity expert who ran federally as an independent in 2025 — last of nine with 76 votes, behind a candidate named Santa Claus — on what The Record says was an roughly $25 campaign budget. “I am a socialist,” he told Record coverage of the all-candidates meeting; he wants a city-run grocery store, phased free GRT passes, municipal non-market housing reaching 10% of stock, landlord rent-disclosure bylaws and a ban on water privatization (Record, CTV). |
| Jerry Jiang | 🔎 Founder of Akatos, a Waterloo startup community he calls “a hacker house for young builders,” running his first election on keeping student entrepreneurs in the city: “Waterloo is full of people doing extraordinary work that the world never sees” (Record). At the Laurier debate he called a Great-Lake water pipeline and sidewalk-snow robots worth studying, and defended tech philanthropists against Hari's tax-the-rich call: “I really think it’s blasphemous” (Record); he did not answer CTV's survey. |
| Jeyas Balaskanthan | 🔎 Moved to Waterloo in 1997 to study, worked at both universities and most recently served as executive director of the Uptown Waterloo Business Improvement Area. A first-time mayoral candidate preaching tax restraint (“We cannot accept increased taxation as a solution to every spending decision”), red-tape cuts for small business and a customer-focused city hall; undecided on strong-mayor powers (Record, CTV). |
| Shannon Weber Ran 2022 · Mayor (42.0%) | 🔎 Lost the 2022 mayoral race by 331 votes (9,212, 42.0%) and is running again on “Affordability First,” pledging to “lower tax increases to inflationary rates” after what she calls a 27-per-cent property-tax rise (“what do we have to show for it?”). Age 48, an MBA and former Conestoga business instructor with 30+ years in municipal, higher-education and financial-sector roles (Record); she missed the October 8 Laurier debate, citing illness (Record). |
| Chantal Huinink Incumbent Elected 2022 · Regional Councillor | 🔎 Incumbent regional councillor (elected 2022 with 4,655 votes) with a social-work background who cites personal experience of the housing system and reliance on public transit as shaping her priorities in housing, transit and community health and safety (CTV). |
| Chris Moser | 🔎 A lifelong region resident who built a business locally over more than 40 years, running for a Waterloo regional seat on “practical business experience, financial discipline and stronger accountability” against “deteriorating infrastructure, poor planning and decisions that don’t deliver the results taxpayers should expect” (CTV). |
| Jim Erb Incumbent Elected 2022 · Regional Councillor | 🔎 Incumbent regional councillor — Waterloo's top-voted candidate in 2022 (12,541 votes) — and chair of regional council's Community and Health Services Committee, whose mandate covers affordable housing and homelessness; supporting “some of the most vulnerable in our community” is his stated top issue (CTV). |
| Lindsay Manary | 🔎 First-time candidate for one of Waterloo's two regional seats, campaigning on leadership that “listens and acts with purpose” with housing and affordability as headline issues (CTV). |
| Rami Said | 🔎 A Waterloo-born small-business operator running for a regional seat on transparency, arguing residents “are now dealing with the consequences of decisions made years ago” on the water crisis and questioning the Wilmot land-assembly process (CTV). |
| Sarvesh Pratap Singh | 🔎 First-time regional-council candidate whose career is in people-and-culture work, running on the everyday family squeeze — housing, groceries, transportation, childcare and taxes (CTV). |
| Soo Bok Lee | 🔎 A 23-year Waterloo Region resident describing herself as a mother, small-business owner and personal support worker, calling homelessness “our most urgent issue” and demanding immediate shelter-and-housing action in the regional race (CTV). |
| Joel Botter | 🔎 A lifelong Waterloo resident in his first municipal race, framing affordability as the root issue “that many others stem from” amid cost-of-living and climate pressures (CTV). |
| Sandra Hanmer Incumbent Elected 2022 · Councillor, Ward 1 | 🔎 Incumbent Ward 1 councillor (2022: 1,675 votes) and 34-year Waterloo resident whose professional background spans health, social services and disability sectors locally and internationally (CTV). |
| Asma Al-Wahsh | 🔎 One of seven candidates for the open Ward 2 seat (Royce Bodaly is retiring); she filed May 1, 2026 (waterloo.ca) and did not respond to CTV News Kitchener's candidate survey (CTV). |
| Janice Moore | 🔎 A 30-year Ward 2 resident, accountant and board volunteer running on listening and careful stewardship of resources; she says the neighbourhood sustained her family through a personal loss and she wants to give back (CTV). |
| Khaled Berbash Ran 2022 · Councillor, Ward 2 | 🔎 Running in Ward 2 for a second time (703 votes in 2022 against Bodaly) on “experienced technical leadership” — traffic calming, sidewalk safety, snow clearing, parks and service reliability (CTV). |
| Moraa Mochama | 🔎 Immigrated to Canada as a child and has been in Waterloo since 2013; running in the open Ward 2 race so its “incredibly diverse” population — age, race, religion, income — has a voice at city hall (CTV). |
| Shawn Humes | 🔎 A community-association co-founder and city-committee volunteer in Ward 2 who is spotlighting the water-allocation process — his ward received 1.77 litres per second of new allocation that quarter, mostly toward affordable housing — and demanding “full transparency for our City’s water allotment and usage” (CTV). |
| Venkat Kondam | 🔎 One of seven candidates for the open Ward 2 seat; he did not respond to CTV's survey (CTV) and his detailed public record is thin — his main published answers are in the Bird Friendly Waterloo survey. |
| Ying Susan Jiang | 🔎 A longtime Waterloo resident and parent running in Ward 2 on pathway safety, winter maintenance, affordable-housing access and cycling infrastructure, promising “evidence-based solutions” and deeper resident engagement (CTV). |
| Hans Roach Incumbent Elected 2022 · Councillor, Ward 3 | 🔎 Incumbent Ward 3 councillor (2022: 1,404 votes) who brands himself council’s “independent voice” on taxpayer value, with affordability — housing costs, property taxes, cost of living — as his declared top issue (CTV). |
| Victoria Robertson | 🔎 A first-time Ward 3 candidate focused on sustainable long-term growth and “raising the bar on what it looks like to be a city councillor,” campaigning ward-wide since May (CTV). |
| Diane Freeman Incumbent Elected 2022 · Councillor, Ward 4 | 🔎 Ward 4 councillor since 2006 and an environmental engineer by training, citing the East Side Library at RIM Park, the Eastbridge splash pad and the BMX pump track among her ward deliverables (CTV). |
| Syed Tirmizi | 🔎 Challenging 20-year incumbent Diane Freeman in Ward 4; his name appears on the certified list, but he did not respond to CTV's candidate survey (CTV) and detailed platform material from him was not found. |
| Travis Restoule | 🔎 A Ward 4 resident of 24 years with 29 years of corporate leadership experience, including co-founding “We Are All in This Together,” which raised more than $200,000 for local restaurants during the pandemic; running for “fresh voice and new leadership” (CTV). |
| Andrew Portwine | 🔎 A Ward 5 candidate describing a childhood interest in politics and a later break with the party that first shaped him, entering his first municipal race (CTV). |
| Eda Dede | 🔎 One of five candidates for Ward 5's open seat; she declined CTV's survey (CTV) but joined CycleWR's ride-with-candidates series on cycling and transit. |
| Marty Rempel | 🔎 A Ward 5 candidate who says he ran because of provincial moves — “dismantling school boards,” expanded mayoral powers, an appointed regional chair — that each “remove one tier of local autonomy and democratic representation” (CTV). |
| Scott Piatkowski | 🔎 An eight-year public school board trustee (including chair and vice-chair) switching to city politics in Ward 5, crediting himself with delivering the Weber Street at Bristol Street pedestrian crossing (CTV). |
| Victoria Richardson | 🔎 A lifelong Waterloo resident and 16-year neighbourhood-building volunteer who entered Ward 5 after councillor Jen Vasic stepped aside; she cites lived experience as a homeowner, a local university and college graduate, a mother, a person with a disability and a member of the 2SLGBTQ+ community (CTV). |
| Damian Mikhail | 🔎 A Ward 6 candidate attacking “passive politics,” pointing to youth unemployment, absentee landlords and a growing homeless population as failures Waterloo must root out at the source (CTV). |
| Mary Lou Roe Incumbent Elected 2022 · Councillor, Ward 6 | 🔎 Incumbent Ward 6 councillor (2022: 896 votes) running on continuity — “Everyone deserves a councillor they can count on” — with the rising cost of everyday life as her top issue (CTV). |
| Abdullah Abdullah | 🔎 Filed on the final day, August 21, to force a Ward 7 contest against incumbent Julie Wright (CityNews); the certified list shows the single name “ABDULLAH” (waterloo.ca), and he did not respond to CTV's survey (CTV). |
| Julie Wright Incumbent Elected 2022 · Councillor, Ward 7 | 🔎 Incumbent Ward 7 councillor who won with 3,041 votes in 2022 — the downtown ward whose turnout decided Waterloo's 2022 mayoral race — now facing a last-day challenger; she did not respond to CTV's survey (CTV). |
🎙 Debates & forums
Yes — Waterloo ran a real slate of face-to-face events. Four of the five mayoral candidates debated **October 8 at Wilfrid Laurier University** (The Waterloo Forum) before a student-heavy audience — Shannon Weber first cited scheduling, then illness, and The Record's write-up says the absence and “barbs” shaped the night, including Jamie Hari vs Jerry Jiang over taxing the Lazaridis/Balsillie pair (recording, Record coverage). All five mayoral candidates had earlier sat together before a crowd of 200-plus at an all-candidates meeting covered by The Record; VisionWR's recordings of the Waterloo Mayoral All Candidates Meeting are posted in three parts (1, 2, 3). There are also all-candidates recordings for Waterloo's regional-councillor race, Ward 7, the Clair Hills/Vista Hills/Laurelwood Ward 2 meeting and the Lakeshore North Ward 3 meeting. The city's own candidate events calendar lists a Ward 2 neighbourhood meeting (October 1) and a Ward 5 all-candidates meeting October 21 at the Lincoln Road Chapel, organized by the Lincoln Heights Neighbourhood Group with Vision Waterloo Region and CivicTechWR; more meet-the-candidate broadcasts run on Radio Waterloo and via Waterloo Region Votes.
🗞 On the radar — local coverage
- 2026 Municipal election: Waterloo Region District School Board trustee candidates
- Municipal election: List of candidates running for office in Waterloo Region
- Waterloo Region municipal election: How to vote
- Waterloo municipal election: Meet the candidates
- Here's who's running for mayor and regional council in Waterloo region in October municipal election
- Online platform aims to making voting easier for Waterloo Region residents
- Waterloo Region: Who’s running to be a school board trustee in the 2026 municipal election?
- Waterloo Region: Candidates running in the 2026 municipal election