Alireza Izadjoo · For Ward 4 Councillor
Ten issues. Every commitment comes with a date, a cost and a plain answer to who decides.
A ward councillor is one of nine votes on Council, so each commitment on this page is labelled with what it takes:
No vote is needed. I can ask for the staff report, file the motion, bring people together or publish the numbers myself.
I'll move it and vote for it, and it needs a Council majority to pass.
York Region or the Province decides. I'll put Ward 4's request on the record with a motion or a formal request, and publish the reply.
Each commitment also says when it happens, what it costs and where the money comes from, how you can check it yourself, and where in Ontario it has already been done. When a number is my estimate rather than the Town's, I say so, and it gets replaced the month the staff figure arrives.
And when you ask the Town for something reasonable, I'll find out what's possible first, then come back to you with an answer and a date.
You ask. I follow through.
Issue 1 of 10
Free backyard-suite plans with a ten-day permit, and first call on sewer capacity for rental homes.
Newmarket built 683 homes in 2025, against a typical 300 a year, and the Town's own pledge is 6,400 homes by 2031, 1,250 of them rental. At the end of 2024 the Town had uncommitted sewer capacity for only 2,170 more people, and capacity for another 7,767 was locked until York Region's sewer expansion, expected around 2028. One Newmarket household in four rents, and a one-bedroom now rents for about $2,323 a month. In Ward 4, the files in play are 92 homes on Old Main Street and two townhouse proposals on Main Street North.
New homes are welcome, in the right places: near the rapid-transit stops on Yonge and Davis, and gentle additions like basement and backyard suites on our streets. Not when the pipes, sewers and roads aren't ready. Not without a written traffic and parking plan. Not by paving over green space, and not towers on quiet side streets. And growth should pay its own way, as far as provincial law allows.
I'll ask staff to publish three or four free, pre-approved designs for detached backyard suites that already meet the Town's 2026 suite by-law and the Building Code. Anyone using a plan unmodified would get a ten-business-day permit lane. Ward 4's single-family lots are exactly where this fits, and the Town issued 34 suite permits town-wide in 2024.
I'll move to amend the Town's servicing-allocation policy so the uncommitted capacity for 2,170 persons and the 150-person reserve for small developments go first to purpose-built rental, non-profit and backyard-suite applications. The 12-month use-it-or-lose-it rule would stay. Staff already flagged an affordable-housing priority in December 2024; this would make the rule explicit and public.
I'll move to fund the Main Street North reconstruction the Town's own 2023 study recommended (an urban-standard road, sidewalk, storm sewer and dry pond, and traffic calming) in the 2028 capital budget, so that it comes before the 92-home build-out. I'll also put my written position on the record that the Main Street North townhouse files meet the parking by-law as written.
I'll move a licensing by-law requiring a Town licence within seven days of any N13 “renovation” eviction notice, with a building permit first, a professional's report, and moving support for the tenant. It would cover the ward's small apartment buildings and every basement suite.
Fourplexes and small apartment buildings as of right within 400 metres of the Yonge and Davis Viva stations, at the height of a house and with no minimum parking. Provincial law stops at three units, but a council can go further: Toronto allowed four units on every low-rise lot in May 2023 and small apartments on major streets in November 2025. Bill 185 already bans parking minimums inside protected transit station areas, so this extends a rule the Province set for the corridor to the streets one block in. It needs five votes, staged through the Official Plan review that must finish by January 1, 2028. It's cost-neutral to the Town, and each new unit beyond the three provincially exempt ones pays development charges.
Issue 2 of 10
Raise the seniors' tax rebate to $500 and open water relief to more households.
The average Newmarket home pays about $6,534 in property tax in 2026. Of each dollar, the Town keeps 37 cents, York Region takes 38 and the school boards 25. The Town's own relief is narrow. There's a $381-a-year seniors' tax rebate, but only for homeowners 65 and over who receive the Guaranteed Income Supplement, and a $41.99-a-month water rebate for people on GIS, ODSP or Ontario Works. The Town's rebate page doesn't say how many households actually get either one. Behind the bill sits a $232 million, ten-year infrastructure shortfall.
In February 2027 I'll ask staff how many households get the $381 rebate and what it costs, since the rebate page doesn't say. Then, in the 2028 budget, I'll move to raise it to $500 and open it to seniors and people with disabilities in households under $50,000 (Toronto's line is $62,000), with automatic renewal once someone is approved.
I'll move to open the $41.99-a-month ($503.88 a year) water and wastewater rebate to any household under the same $50,000 line, instead of only GIS, ODSP or Ontario Works recipients, and to add a one-time credit that forgives the cost of a leak.
The six-town collection contract runs to September 2029, and the joint tender is weighing automated carts. Before the tender is issued, I'll move that Newmarket's requirements include a smaller-cart or bag-limit tier priced at least 25% below standard, keep weekly green-bin service and the three untagged bags, and add assisted collection for seniors and people with disabilities.
I'll move to raise the CARE fee-assistance cap from 50% to 75% off registrations and memberships for households under the same income line, and to let families add Jumpstart and York PLAY on top.
I'll move a Council motion asking York Region to raise its tax-deferral income limits from $23,000 (single) and $40,000 (family), to let eligible owners defer their full bill instead of only the increase, and to adopt the multi-residential tax reduction it has been studying since 2024, so that purpose-built rentals get built.
Launch the home-energy loan the Town designed in 2020 and never funded. Council approved the Newmarket Energy Efficiency Retrofit business case in June 2020, and the April 2026 Community Energy Plan still lists it as “continue to explore funding”. With five votes, Council could pass a local-improvement-charge by-law under O. Reg. 586/06 and seed a $2 million revolving fund: loans of up to $75,000 over 15 years for heat pumps, insulation and windows, repaid on the property-tax bill and staying with the house when it's sold. Toronto's Home Energy Loan Program and Ottawa's Better Homes loan have run this way for a decade. Running it would cost about $150,000 a year, and the people who borrow repay the loan capital.
Issue 3 of 10
Bring the downtown façade grants and patio rules north of Davis.
Ward 4's main commercial street is Main Street North, from Davis Drive to the East Gwillimbury line. Every Town tool for businesses stops at Davis. The downtown façade, signage and accessibility grants cover Main Street South, and patios on Town property are only allowed inside the downtown business improvement area. The Town's Choose Local card is accepted at more than 80 businesses, and its 2025 Summerfest tracked more than $65,000 in spending, all of it downtown. No one has counted the empty storefronts north of Davis.
I'll move to amend the Historic Downtown Community Improvement Plan so Main Street North (Davis to Green Lane) and the north side of Davis Drive qualify for the same façade, signage, accessibility and interior grants as Main Street South. The plan itself recommended extending along Davis Drive, but it never happened.
I'll move to amend the Temporary Patio Program so curbside and parking-bay patios are allowed on Main Street North on the same terms as downtown (a $423.10 licence, and $0.70 per square foot a month for a parking bay). I'll also ask York Region to permit boulevard patios on the north side of Davis.
I'll move to put a construction-mitigation clause in the reconstruction tender: one lane and sidewalk access kept open, work staged block by block, and “open during construction” signs. I'll also move a Choose Local bonus (spend $50, get $25) limited to businesses north of Davis for the construction season.
Four times a year I'll run a clinic with Building, Planning and Economic Development staff at one table. I'll also ask staff for a report on letting a home business operate in a detached garage or backyard suite, which is banned today, and on dropping the extra parking rule for online-only businesses.
A vacant-storefront registry for Main Street, Davis Drive and Yonge Street. Any ground-floor commercial unit empty for more than 90 days would have to be registered, inspected and kept to standard, at $350 to register plus $1,000 a year, waived while the unit is actively listed at a market rent and maintained. The fees would fund the extended façade grants. Hamilton has run a vacant-building registry since 2017, and Oshawa (2024), Gravenhurst (April 2026) and Niagara Falls (September 2026) have followed. It needs five votes under the Municipal Act's property-standards and licensing powers, with a motion by June 2027 and the by-law in force in January 2028. The fees cover the cost.
Issue 4 of 10
Free youth nights in the ward's school gyms, and crossing guards where kids actually cross.
Four schools are inside the ward: Denne PS, Maple Leaf PS, Canadian Martyrs and Denison SS. But the Town's only youth centre, its only library branch and both outdoor rinks are south of Davis Drive, close by but outside Ward 4. Newmarket has 14,520 children under 15.
The Town employs 29 school crossing guards and calls the job “traditionally difficult to recruit”. Its map shows only two school crossings in Ward 4, both on London Road: at Burford Street for Denne PS, and at Osmond Crescent for Canadian Martyrs. Maple Leaf PS on Longford Drive has no school crossing at all. (Longford's ladder-marked pedestrian crossings are at Cherrywood and Gwillimbury.)
Nothing here promises a school, a daycare space or a transit fare.
The Town's own map still lists the Denne and Maple Leaf school gyms as shared-use recreation centres, yet not one Town program or rental is offered at either this fall. I'll move a pilot: a free, supervised drop-in with the gym, games and a homework table, one evening a week from October to May, for ages 10 to 17, run by Recreation staff with youth-centre volunteers. I'll work with the school board on the community-use permit that opens the gyms for evening and weekend use.
I'll request a warrant review of every school crossing serving the ward's four schools, including Longford Drive at Maple Leaf PS, which has no school crossing on the Town's map. I'll move to fund any post the review says is warranted, and every August I'll use ward channels to help recruit for the Town's crossing-guard postings.
The 75% fee-assistance cap is in the cost-of-living section above. Here I'll move to let families stack CARE with Jumpstart ($600 a year) and York Region's PLAY subsidy. I'll also hold two sign-up clinics a year in the ward, because applications take three to four weeks and aren't retroactive.
I'll go to the Library Board as a delegation to ask for a third Library on the Go kiosk, in Ward 4: in a school lobby by permit, or in a community hall. The Magna Centre and Ray Twinney kiosks launched in March 2025 with 150-plus books each.
A Newmarket Youth Council with a real say over $10,000 a year, plus a Youth Friendly Community designation. It would be set up by Council resolution for ages 13 to 20, with at least one seat per ward and support from Recreation staff. (The Town's committee list today has no youth or seniors body.) It would have an annual $10,000 pot of micro-grants for youth-led events and projects on Town property, matched by volunteer hours the way Kitchener's LoveMyHood matching grant values volunteer labour at $20 an hour. Then the Town would apply for Play Works' Youth Friendly Community designation, which dozens of Ontario municipalities hold; The Blue Mountains' 2018 staff report put the application cost at $400. It needs five votes and costs $10,000 plus existing staff time.
Issue 5 of 10
Snow-clearing help seniors can find and get, and benches on the walk to Davis.
In 2021, 13,945 Newmarket residents were 65 or older, and another 12,975 were 55 to 64. The Town's first pilot for clearing windrows (the ridge of snow the plow leaves at the end of a driveway) had 100 places. It received 27 applications and served 16 households through a 131-centimetre winter, and staff found “limited awareness of the program, particularly among seniors without internet access”. The Seniors' Meeting Place is just across Davis Drive from the ward.
I'll move to make the windrow service permanent from winter 2027–28, with the fixes the pilot exposed: paper and phone applications, a decision within 15 business days, the cap raised from 100 to 300 households, a notice of eligibility mailed with the tax bill, and a published cost per household. Vaughan already clears the windrow at the end of every resident's driveway, free, within four hours of the plow. Every September I'll run a sign-up table at the Seniors' Meeting Place and at churches in the ward.
In spring 2027 I'll walk the ward's main walking routes with the Accessibility Advisory Committee: Main Street North, London Road, Longford Drive to Davis, and the 13 crossovers. Then I'll move benches about every 400 metres through the Town's Celebration Bench Program ($2,034 for a ten-year dedication), matched by a capital line, plus lighting and accessible-signal fixes.
I'll move to index the Town's $381 seniors' rebate to each year's levy increase and to publish uptake every year. I'll also move a motion asking York Region to raise its deferral income lines ($23,000 single, $40,000 family, set in 1998) to Statistics Canada's low-income measure.
Building on the Town's 2026 suite by-law, I'll move to waive Town building-permit fees for an additional unit lived in by a family member 65 or over, or rented at or below average market rent for ten years. I'll also move to publish a plain-language garden-suite guide in the ward's six largest languages, and ask staff to report on a HomeShare partnership on Toronto's model.
I'll move to create a Seniors' Advisory Committee (there isn't one among the Town's 12 committees) and to adopt an Age-Friendly Community Action Plan using Ontario's eight-domain guide. I'll also host York Region Public Health's fall-prevention workshops in the ward every quarter.
“Newmarket Snow Assist”: pay back half of a resident's own snow-clearing contract, driveway and walkway included, up to $450 a season. It would be income-tested, for seniors and residents with disabilities, with paper applications and a volunteer match for people who can't afford a contract at all. Hamilton runs exactly this, up to $450 a season from November to April, and Ottawa funds Snow Go Assist through community agencies. The ceiling is 100 households at $450, or $45,000 a year, which is less than one staff position. It needs five votes.
Issue 6 of 10
Hold the Town to its 2027 date for speed cushions on Bristol, Burford and Longford, and push for 30 km/h in front of the ward's four schools.
Ward 4 has six of the Town's 37 community safety zones, and both of the ward's former speed-camera sites, on Bristol Road and Longford Drive. Town-wide, the cameras cut the number of speeding vehicles by 78% before the Province shut them off in November 2025. Since 2022 the ward has had about 86 temporary traffic-calming installs (bollards, radar boards and lawn signs) but only about eight permanent, built measures, according to Town open data.
So far the Province has granted Newmarket $613,886 from its Road Safety Initiative Fund, and in August 2026 that money bought paint: urban shoulders, centrelines and “slow down” stencils on Bristol, Burford and Longford. Speed cushions are planned for 2027 in the 14 former camera zones, which in Ward 4 means Bristol Road, Burford Street and Longford Drive. Some school crossings are proposed for an upgrade to pedestrian crossovers in 2027. A further up-to-$2.45 million is an application the Province has not approved.
Staff will evaluate each of the 14 former camera zones and pick the 2027 measures. I'll hold the Town to its 2027 date for Ward 4's three zones and push for the cushions to go in front of Denison SS on Bristol and Maple Leaf PS on Longford. I'll also push for the two London Road school crossings to be among those upgraded to legal pedestrian crossovers, and I'll vote for the money if Council must approve the list or the Phase 2 spending.
I'll ask staff to extend the Active School Travel package Maple Leaf PS already has (red curbs, walk-time markers and school-zone stencils) to Denne PS, Canadian Martyrs and Denison SS, and to add flashing-beacon school-zone signs on Bristol at Denison and on Longford at Maple Leaf, the way Toronto's school safety zones work.
I'll move that each ward get an annual temporary-calming budget of $30,000 for streets where residents have petitioned (bollards, radar boards, lawn signs and seasonal rubber cushions), spent by the ward councillor with staff. This is Ottawa's per-ward model. It wouldn't replace the Town's petition process for permanent measures, but it would let streets that fail the warrants still get something.
Before the Yonge widening (Davis to Green Lane, done late 2027) locks in its design, I'll move a motion putting Ward 4's requests into York Region's Vision Zero request stream: leading pedestrian intervals (a head start for people on foot) and countdown timers at Yonge and London and at Davis and Main, a senior zone on the Davis frontage east of Yonge, and a crossing review on Yonge between London and Bristol.
In Newmarket's camera zones, the number of speeding vehicles fell by 78% before the Province banned the cameras. I'll move a motion asking Queen's Park to let towns use speed cameras again in school zones, as Toronto has. Until then, I'll ask York Regional Police for enforcement where the Town's own speed data shows the worst speeding.
30 km/h in front of all four Ward 4 schools. The Town's Traffic By-law already sets 40 km/h on Town streets, apart from a short list of faster roads, and only two streets are lower: Lorne Avenue between Davis Drive and Eagle Street, and part of Bayview Parkway, both at 30. I'll move to add the school frontages of Denne PS, Maple Leaf PS, Canadian Martyrs and Denison SS to that 30 km/h list, marked with school-zone signs and the flashing beacons in the commitment above. It needs five votes to amend the by-law, and the cost is signs, with no construction.
Issue 7 of 10
Restart the Town's bike plan, beginning with a safe Main Street North route to the GO station.
Viva Blue runs along Yonge and Viva Yellow along Davis, on the ward's edges, but inside the ward the only local bus is YRT Route 44. From late August 2026 until spring 2027, Metrolinx runs no weekend trains at Newmarket before 2 p.m. The Town's active-transportation plan has been suspended since 2021. The ward's cycling network is about 9 kilometres of painted lanes and sharrows, none of it separated from traffic, and none of the Town's four bike counters is in Ward 4. York Region's Yonge widening will add boulevard cycle tracks from Davis to Green Lane by late 2027.
I'll move to end the 2021 suspension and adopt a funded four-year cycling program. The first project would be the Ward 4 spine: buffered lanes on Main Street North from Davis to the town line and on London Road from Yonge to Main, tied into York's Yonge cycle tracks and the trail crossing at Davis. Painted buffers would come first, with bollards where parking allows, decided street by street with the 2027 parking study.
I'll ask staff for permanent bike and pedestrian counters on London Road and at the trail crossing at Davis, so decisions about Ward 4 use Ward 4 numbers. The four existing sensors are on Eagle and Srigley.
With residents, I'll walk the 15-minute walking routes to Newmarket GO and the Davis Drive vivastations, looking for sidewalk gaps, dark stretches, missing curb cuts and long waits at crossings, and I'll table the fix list for the 2028 budget.
I'll move a motion asking Metrolinx to restore weekend morning service by its promised spring 2027 date and to publish a date for two-way, all-day service at Newmarket, and asking York Region to time Route 44 and Viva Yellow to train arrivals. It would go to the MPP and the mayors along the Barrie line.
I'll move to amend the Parks by-law to set a posted speed limit and clear e-bike rules on Town trails, with signs at the Davis and Bayview trailheads, and to keep Newmarket out of the provincial e-scooter pilot until the Province delivers the rules and enforcement powers the Town asked for in 2026.
A separated cycling spine for Ward 4, built to a plan the Town actually funds. Toronto's Cycling Network Plan, adopted in June 2024, commits the city to 100 kilometres of new or upgraded bikeways in 2025–27 through a rolling program with a public prioritization framework. Newmarket needs the same thing at its own scale: a four-year list adopted by Council, a line in the budget, and a first project. Main Street North and London Road already carry painted lanes on Town roads. Separating them with curbs or bollards and linking them to York's Yonge cycle tracks would give every home in the ward a protected route to the GO station and Viva without touching a Regional road. It needs five votes.
Issue 8 of 10
A replacement date for every Ward 4 playground, 500 more trees, and a $2,000 rebate against basement flooding.
The Town's inventory lists eight park spaces in Ward 4, with five playgrounds and one spray pad. The Ward 4 sports pad in the Town's 2023 parks plan was pencilled in beside Rogers Park, but it was built at Proctor Park and opened in 2025. Rogers Park still has no hard-surface court.
Tree canopy across the ward is about 22%, against a Town target of 35% by 2051, and it drops to about 7 to 9% on the blocks along Yonge (both figures from Town open data). Underground, the 2025 Asset Management Plan reports a $232 million ten-year renewal shortfall and water-main breaks rising to 23 a year.
I'll get the age and condition of the ward's five playgrounds from staff: Marilyn Powell, Proctor, Rogers, Bubba Blight and M.J. Stiles, the last still sand-surfaced. Then I'll put any structure past its useful life into the Town's annual playground replacement program, which had about $1.1 million of capital authority in 2026 and did three parks in 2025 and three in 2026, none of them in Ward 4.
Rogers Park has no hard-surface court. By January 2027 I'll ask staff for the status of every Ward 4 line in the 2023 parks plan, and I'll push for a hard-surface court at Rogers Park in the next parks capital plan. It would be designed with boards and a water connection so residents can flood it as a volunteer-run rink in winter, the way Ottawa's community rinks work, and bundled with a winterized upgrade of the Rogers Park pavilion.
I'll move to raise the cap on the LEAF backyard-tree subsidy from 50 to 250 trees a year town-wide. I'll ask staff for a Ward 4 boulevard planting list that starts with the low-canopy blocks along Yonge and the Newmarket Heights streets, and I'll hold a spring planting day each year with the neighbourhood action table.
I'll ask for the asset plan's list of cast-iron mains and break history for Ward 4 streets, and work to get the two worst into the 2028–29 water capital program. Water is paid for by water rates, not taxes, and the plan already lifts water capital from $3.35 million to $6.85 million a year.
The six-town collection contract runs to September 2029, and the joint tender is weighing automated carts. Before the tender terms are set, I'll hold two sessions in Ward 4, and I'll move that the tender keep a smaller-cart option, a bag-tag option and large-item pickup for homes without storage, including renters in Newmarket Heights.
Newmarket already has a climate plan. The Town's April 2026 Community Energy Plan sets a first target for 2031, and my job is to see it delivered. Every 90-day report card will show where the Town stands against that target, and what each climate program costs and has achieved, in plain language.
Every staff report and budget item should show its effect on emissions next to its cost. And when the Town buys vehicles, boilers or roofs, it should compare the cost over their whole life, energy included, not just the price tag.
When a Town building's roof or heating system is due for replacement anyway, I'll push for the option that's cheapest over its lifetime, which is often the clean one: solar, a green roof, a heat pump or geothermal, wherever the lifetime numbers work.
Newmarket has no advisory committee on climate or the environment. I'd move to create one with a real job: track the Town's progress against its targets, review the climate side of the budget and big decisions before the vote, and report publicly once a year, with residents who have the expertise, and young people.
A basement-flooding protection rebate paid from the stormwater rate: $2,000 per home for backwater valves and sump pumps, with priority set by the Town's own flood-risk assessment and a cap of 100 homes a year. The Town's stormwater rate funds ponds, sewers and a $100 tree rebate. In 2018 the Town started a small backwater-valve subsidy (up to $500 a home, from the water budget), but it no longer appears on the Town's pages. This would turn it into a real rebate. Hamilton's Protective Plumbing Program pays up to $2,000 a home, and Toronto's subsidy pays up to $6,650. It would cost $200,000 a year, about 2.5% of the stormwater capital target, with no tax impact. The asset plan says about 1.2% of properties aren't resilient to a 100-year storm, and this is for them. It needs five votes.
Issue 9 of 10
Keep the Newmarket Heights safety table funded, and find it a home in Ward 4.
Newmarket Heights, the streets around Longford Drive near Davis and Yonge, is one of York Region's four community-safety focus areas. About 4,978 people live there, and 46% of them rent, against 14% across the Region. Between January 2023 and July 2025, the Central Newmarket action table reduced risk in 81% of 793 cases, and its youth drop-in draws 20 to 25 young people a week. But the federal money that paid for 64% of it ended on March 31, 2026. Since 2023 the table has been asking for a weather-proof space people can walk to, and it still doesn't have one.
As the federal money lapses, I'll move that the Town bridge-fund the Central Newmarket action table at $50,000 a year for 2027 to 2030, and write to York Region asking that Central Newmarket stay a focus area in its 2027 plan. The Town is already listed as a partner, and this would make it a funder too.
With residents, York Regional Police #1 District community officers and Town parks staff, I'll walk all eight Ward 4 park spaces and the walking routes to the Davis vivastations, checking lighting, sightlines, dead ends, litter and broken fixtures. Then I'll move the fixes. Park lighting and local street lights are Town assets.
I'll move a written Town protocol for encampments in Town parks and on trails, modelled on Hamilton's published protocol: outreach first, notice periods, storage of belongings, when trespass notices are issued, and who calls the Region's outreach team. That way the September 2025 Environmental Park response becomes the standard rather than a one-off.
I'll move that by-law enforcement publish response-time targets by type of complaint (health and safety within 24 hours, property standards within five business days, noise and parking the evening they're reported) and schedule evening and weekend coverage for the Davis Drive and Main Street North hotspots.
With landlords and the action table, I'll organize a Central York Fire Services “Book a Visit” blitz in Newmarket Heights' rental and apartment buildings: working smoke and CO alarms, escape plans, and preventing cooking and smoking fires, the ward's top recorded causes. The target is 500 units by the end of 2028.
A Newmarket Heights community hub on Town terms. Since 2023 the action table has run tax clinics, legal aid, monthly dinners for 60 residents and a weekly youth drop-in out of a borrowed church hall, and it has told Council it needs a space people can reach without a car and use in rain and snow. Toronto's Community Space Tenancy policy leases City-owned space to non-profits at nominal rent for exactly this kind of programming. Newmarket's version would start with an interim community-use permit for evening space at Maple Leaf PS or Denison SS by September 2027. A permanent, winterized hub, either an upgraded Rogers Park pavilion or a Town-leased storefront on the Davis frontage, would be decided in the 2028 budget with the table and the Region as co-funders. It needs five votes, and the interim step costs custodial hours only.
Issue 10 of 10
Town notices in six languages, and a welcome evening for new neighbours four times a year.
One in three Newmarket residents is an immigrant, and about 17,000 report a mother tongue other than English or French, led by Persian (more than 4,000 residents), Mandarin, Russian, Cantonese, Italian, Spanish and Tagalog. In June 2026 the Town launched phone interpretation on demand, in 300-plus languages and billed by the minute, and its own report still lists “promoting the availability of the service to the public” as pending. Settlement services are paid for by the federal and provincial governments. The Town's tools are how it communicates, its permits, its facilities and how it recognizes people.
I'll move a Town communications standard: every town-wide service notice (waste, snow and windrows, water, tax rebates, recreation registration and emergencies) and every planning notice for a Ward 4 application published in English plus the six largest non-official mother tongues in the census (Persian, Chinese in both scripts, Russian, Italian, Spanish and Tagalog), with the list reviewed after each census. My own ward newsletter would go out that way from the first month.
I'll request the report on usage and cost that the Town promised within a year of launching the service. I'll move to post “Interpreter available, 300+ languages” at every Town counter, on the phone tree and at Council and public planning meetings, and to amend the Procedure By-law so a resident can make a delegation to Council with an interpreter.
I'll move one “community festival pathway”: a single application, a permit-fee waiver for Newmarket-based non-profits booking a Town park or pavilion for a cultural celebration, insurance available through the Town's program, and a published annual calendar of community flag raisings under the Clerk's policy. I'll help groups through the three-month permit process myself.
Four times a year I'll host a welcome evening in halls in and beside the ward (and in the school gyms once a community-use permit is in place), with Town customer service, library card sign-up, a settlement navigator, York Regional Police #1 District and the Seniors' Meeting Place at the table. There would also be a six-language welcome sheet, delivered through the sales offices of the ward's new subdivisions on Old Main Street and Main Street North.
I'll move to add a “Community Groups and Cultural Leadership” category to the Town's Community Awards, ask for a directory of Newmarket's community and cultural associations on newmarket.ca, and co-host a Culture Days showcase with the ward's Persian, Chinese, Russian, Italian, Filipino and Hispanic associations.
A Newmarket Community Celebrations Grant of $50,000 a year, with up to $3,000 per Newmarket-based non-profit for cultural festivals, seniors' clubs and youth-led events on Town property. Staff would score applications against published criteria, Council would award the grants each spring, and a two-page outcome report would be due two months after each event. Markham runs the model: Celebrate Markham distributed a $504,800 pool in 2025–26. Newmarket's own Cultural Master Plan lists a grants program as a task that was never built. $50,000 is about 0.03% of the Town's $181.9 million operating budget, or about 57 cents a resident, with sponsorship revenue first and the levy second. It needs five votes.
November 15, 2026 to February 23, 2027
When the term starts, staff will already have built the 2027 budget. Here's what one councillor can do before it passes, and what I'll have on the record by the end of February.
Every dollar this campaign raises and spends is on the ledger, updated weekly. The four commitments behind this plan are on the home page.