Regional Representation

People want a community where they can afford to live and work, and quality of life continues to improve. Affordability isn't just about taxes, it’s also about housing, transit, access to services, safe neighborhoods, and thoughtful decisions that recognize the pressures that families of all kinds are facing.

Affordability and Strong Communities

Strong communities happen through intentional investment and planning. Maintaining safe and welcoming public spaces, supporting attainable housing, advocating for fair taxation, and ensuring transit and essential services are accessible and efficient are all necessary. But so is making decisions that consider long term impacts, so growth does not come at the expense of livability. Affordability and qualify of life must be treated as shared priorities, not competing one.

Everyone should have a safe and affordable place to call home. That means supporting a mix of housing options, investing in the infrastructure that growing communities need (and holding back if growth is not meeting expectations), addressing homelessness with compassion and evidence-based solutions, and working with other governments and community partners to deliver housing that people can actually afford.

Transit to support that housing should be practical, reliable, and accessible. Service should reflect how people actually move throughout Durham, making it easier to reach work, school, medical appointments and community activities while providing good value for every dollar invested.

Residents rely on public services every day and those services must be dependable, efficient and responsive. Planning and delivery must be guided by evolving community needs whether that’s about strengthening public health systems, improving paramedic and emergency services, or ensuring access to clean water and effective waste management, we need to always align our services with the needs of our population.  

Modern Accountable Government

We deserve a regional government that is transparent, efficient and focused on results. That means reducing unnecessary duplication of services, asking tough questions about budgets and expenditures and ensuring decisions are made openly and with evidence and data to support them. It also means examining our own roles.

A reduction in the size of Regional Council would support a smaller and more agile council table where debates don’t drag on and projects don’t stall in bureaucratic gridlock.  Retaining local voice is also important and I would not support a “mayors only” regional council which has been mandated in other jurisdictions. Such an action would effectively eliminate all dissenting voices and give mayors total control over regional matters.

Independent and Accessible Leadership

Good leadership isn’t about ideology, party politics, or headline grabbing.  It’s about listening, asking thoughtful questions, acting independently and knowing that working collaboratively is the only way to get things done. It is also about making evidence-based decisions that are informed both by resident feedback and the long-term interests of our community.

Niki is not someone who will compromise her core values, but she will always be flexible and open-minded. She will work hard to build consensus on issues that matter and will never back away form challenging the status quo when it is needed.