By Pepper Parr
March 25th, 2026
BURLINGTON, ON
Everybody knew, or at least those who have an understanding of what goes on at City Hall.
The event was scheduled to start at 11:30 – at about 11:15, people began to show up.
It didn’t take long for what turned out to be a very respectable crowd to be in Civic Square waiting for Lisa Kearns to tell them what they were hoping she would tell them – she was going to run for Mayor
“I love this City, I’ve always loved this city. I knew one day that I would call Burlington home.
Kearns: I’ve shown up. I’ve listened. I’ve kept trust. I’ve asked the tough questions.
“As your Councillor, I’ve shown up. I’ve listened. I’ve kept trust. I’ve asked the tough questions.
“Today, we are not just talking about the future – we are choosing how we shape it, together.
“I believe it’s time to get back to basics. Back to leadership that is present, accountable, and grounded in the everyday lives of the people we serve.
“That’s the foundation. And when we get that right – everything else becomes possible.
“I bring another perspective that matters – unmatched real-world corporate experience that shapes how I approach every tax dollar spent.
“Budgets aren’t just numbers on a page – they are priorities. They are the hard choices. Hard choices everyone is making these days. And they must reflect discipline,
accountability, and respect for the people facing a tax bill.
“Fiscal responsibility means making sure that growth today doesn’t become a burden tomorrow. It means delivering real proven value that makes your life better, not just
promises and not the desire of the day.
“Burlington is more than a place. It is a community defined by compassion, resilience, and a quiet determination to look out for one another.
“I’m intending to run for mayor because Burlington deserves leadership that is ready on day one. Kearns was not able to finish the sentence – the applause just burst – even Kearns was a bit taken aback.
She continued: “Leadership that understands both the complexity of our challenges and the strength of our community. Leadership that knows this city – not just in policy, but in practice.
“What people want is not complicated.
“People want a city that is welcoming, safe, and filled with opportunity.
“A city where you can enjoy your neighbourhood with pride, where families feel secure, and where we take care of the spaces we all share.
When she said: “”I’m intending to run for mayor…” the applause was electric. Kearns was taken aback for a couple of seconds.
“Here’s what I know.
“The next chapter of Burlington won’t be defined by one decision, or one issue. It will be D E F I N E D by how we
lead. And I believe that we need to lead from out in the community with transparency and accountability.
“Leadership should look like this:
People wanted to record what they were certain was an important occasion.
“Listening to every voice from every corner of the City. Every neighbourhood, every business, every community.
“Because leadership isn’t about standing above people. It’s about standing with them.
“That is why I am stepping forward.
“That’s what makes this moment so special to me.”
It took five seconds for the crowd to gather around her for the best photo op she has ever had.
The campaign doesn’t start officially until May 1st, but expect her to see every event she can cover in day and be out the next day doing the same thing.
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Lisa Kearns claims to be real world corporate experience that shapes how every tax dollar is spent. Is that what she calls how she voted for the past? Budgets aren’t just numbers on a page they are hard choices?
In 2020-2021, Tim Commisso & this council made plans for Burlington’s future. That plan was a 5 yr forecast that was to increase our taxes by 32% starting in 2023. That 5 yr plan called for
2023 7.97%
2024 6.84%
2025 6.45%
2026 5.13%
2027 4.92%
Avg 2023-2027 6.26%
So you see, raising the taxes were planned all along. Lisa Kearns, Rory Nisan, Shawna Stolte, Paul Sharman, MMW, were all part of that planning. When 2024 came they actually wanted 7.82% but were knocked down to 6.68% due to significant pressure put on them thru petitioning and delegations.
I wonder, if Lisa Kearns becomes mayor, is she going to be scrapping the planned increase for next year? Or are we just going to be getting more of the same?
Because we aren’t hearing any apologies for the tax increases we’ve been saddled with. Instead she’s talking about how hard these choices have been.
Is that what doubling the cost for Skyway from $21m to almost $39m was? A hard choice? Council wants voters to believe it was all covid’s fault. The reality is that they wanted all the bells & whistles and green initiatives, all nice to have not need to have to complete Skyway. They applied for several federal & provincial grants to pay for those green initiatives which caused significant delays & in the end they didn’t get the funding anyways. Skyway revitalization was approved in 2016. But this council took so long to move it fwd & chasing other money, that’s why it ended up caught up in covid costs. Then rather than use competitive bidding they just outright gave the bid away contingent on the price agreed to. Skyway wasn’t alot of hard choices, it was alot of bad choices.
Since 2018 council has doubled what the city is paying on salaries. The mayor like to point to a committee that decides what they get paid. What council doesn’t tell you is that MMW helped spearhead a proposal in 2017 that said the Burlington council should be getting paid similar to Toronto. Its not cheap here but its certainly not the same as Toronto. There was a similar committee MMW was involved in in 2017 about putting aside money to go to Japan & other twin cities in the future. What a coincidence that MMW ran for mayor the following year and won and all these great changes were already in place. You know what would be really great? If people earning average incomes were on the remuneration committee
We are a city of 200,000. We were spending $118m on salaries in 2017 and at the end of 2024, $191,592,000. We can count on it being over $200m at the end of 2025. That’s nuts to have doubled what was being spent on salaries in 6 short years. After being voted one of the best cities to live in, the city’s website changed to boast how they wanted only the best to be working here & were willing to pay for that. We don’t need the best. We need competent bright people who show up. We certainly see that elitist attitude reflected in the egregious amounts spent on salaries. Council including Kearns have had many excuses for this over the past 3 yrs including that they are not competitive with other cities. Except a deep dive comparing Burl to Oakville showed they had more employees & spent less on salaries than we do. So much for that.
There is also the ongoing story about how infrastructure is crumbling & the necessity of funding it to prevent calamity. Its a nice story. But not all good stories are true & this one is no exception. We have significant reserves for infrastructure and assets in decent condition as per the city’s own documents. The fact is that this council made a calculated decision to accelerated funding to infrastructure despite internal documents in 2021 that were very clear that it wasn’t necessary to do so. At that time it showed 91.1% of all capital assets to be in a fair, good, or very good state. The document goes on to state, ““When considering the total quantity and value of assets the city owns, the backlog is not overly significant”
Yet despite this council choose to implement a high dedicated infrastructure levy. Interestingly, this came around the same time that reserves were raided for upfront costs before the purchase of Bateman. An expenditure that is costing taxpayers $4.4m in debt charges yearly.
Not only did they accelerate funding but they chose to reassess the total value of the assets from $5.3 B to $6.3B despite not being legally required to do so until 2028. But my adding another $1B to the replacement cost, that means the tax you collect off that 6.3B is alot more than off 5.3B
There was also the complete overhaul of city haul from top to bottom and then the state of the art IT system complete with AI that I stopped counting around $15-20m. Nobody was against upgrading the system. But the problem with this council has always been that they have never understood the term restraint. It has always been a “we want it all and we want it now” mentality. There was not ever any consideration for taxpayers. They could have chosen btw Bateman and the new IT. Nope. They could have been more reserved in the excessive salaries … the avg wage in ON is about 60k. Entry positions at the City of Burlington start at twice that. Nope. They wanted everything all at once without regard to the effect on taxpayers. That 32% over 5 years … and remember, they knew about it before the 2022 election but chose to not tell taxpayers bc cmon, who would have voted for them? …. that 32% is more like 50% on your tax bill since your tax bill is cumulative.
Even BMA Consulting, a company that pits municipalities against each other and uses questionable tactics to compare costs between cities, warned of the high % of seniors on fixed income in Burlington who might not be able to withstand such high property tax increases. This council has always been a want to have, not need to have council.
Therefore, imo, it is frankly offensive to hear Kearns, and recently Rory Nisan, use the term fiscal responsibility. That concept has been woefully absent from this council. But then again Kearns did end by saying what people want isn’t complicated. Yet you’ll notice that her take on what that is does not include getting our taxes under control.
Looking into the crystal ball, if Lisa is the next Mayor, we will have a whole new group saying we need CHANGE… welcome to the I, ME, MINE crowd who blame whoever is in power ( lol)
Let’s hope that a number of people choose not to run as candidates for the position of Mayor.
It has been a strategy that was used in the last Federal election. Get people to put forward their name, who don’t want the job, and never campaign to cause chaos at the ballot box.
The purpose of doing this is to split the vote.
We have been told that perhaps the race for Mayor could possibly end up being acrimonious.
It would be unfortunate if ” dirty campaign politics” takes place in Burlington and the right person for the job is NOT voted in.
Amen!!
Burlington needs change . No need to explain.
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Early days yet but I would like to know where Councillor Kearns stands on future property tax increases (first priority question) and what her top 3 policy priorities would be over the next 4 years. Lastly, what would she specifically change or correct with the current situation and how would she ensure people’s voices are heard and more importantly actioned.
Only then will I know if I can align with her because let’s face it she has helped to pass many of the increases in the budget (42+% cumulative property taxes over the last 4 years) and not fought hard enough for savings.
Lisa Kearns is smart enough and strong enough to turn the ship but I am not yet convinced that she is truly aligned with the public about the ship’s fiinal destination. I look forward to the next month or 2 where I hope she and any other potential candidates will cut through the politics and answer some of these questions.
To put it simply, it’s time for change and common sense!! Politicians are elected by the people to work for and carry out the wishes of the people! Period!!