Written by Uthish Ganesh in answer to our questionnaire, and published as given. Not our description of them.
I grew up in Ward 21, in Toronto Community Housing. My mother raised me on roughly twenty thousand dollars a year, through cancer, through recovery, in the same neighbourhood where I still live today. I know what it costs to raise a family here because I watched her do it.
After a Master’s at U of T and time at Oxford, I came back. I became a teacher, a department head, a curriculum developer, a basketball coach running early morning practices. My work has never stopped at the classroom door.
I’ve run food programs. I’ve organized town halls that actually fill rooms. I’ve sat with residents, heard their frustrations, and pushed until something moved. Including a dangerous intersection near a school that got a real safety fix after I brought a city official out to see it for himself.
This ward raised me. I’m not here to represent it from a distance. I’m here because I never left.
Our questionnaire
Uthish Ganesh’s own answers to the questions we put to every candidate, published as given — including, where they wrote one, their reasoning in their own words.
The issue has never been that we're building too much, it's that the permission process is so slow that by the time anything gets approved, the people who actually needed those homes have already left. Every ward needs to be part of the solution and that includes ours.
That offer has to actually mean something. Not a shelter bed across the city that doesn't work for that person's situation. A real, accessible and safe alternative. We have to be honest about how often that bar is actually being met right now, because it isn't.
Scarborough residents already pay into a transit system that doesn't serve them properly. I'm not going to support charging people to use roads when the alternative doesn't exist yet. That's not a congestion solution, that's just putting more burden on the people who already have the least options.
Toronto should allocate funds in the existing budget to ensure that repairs are reviewed, assessed and completed in areas that are in the most need, which can be determined by listening to community residents
Toronto must be transparent with how the public dollar is used and if public money is going into projects that aim to serve the city, we must work to make the information as accessible as possible.
We've leaned on enforcement for a long time and the same problems keep coming back because we're not touching the root of them. Addiction is a health issue not a criminal one. Mental health response, Youth intervention, that's where the real investment needs to go. You don't fix a leak by mopping
How it's spent needs to change. The budget must be amended to create more Neighbourhood Community Officer programs that build a proactive approach with the communities they serve. Research has shown that community policing helps humanize the badge and repair historically strained relationships
Surveillance without accountability causes real harm and communities like ours know what that looks like. Clear city wide limits on access and retention and auditing, that's not optional, that's what responsible governance looks like
Scarborough has been shortchanged on transit for decades and that needs to change. But before we talk about expansion, the people relying on these routes every single day deserve frequency that actually works. A transit line that runs every 25 minutes isn't serving anyone. Fix what we have first
More people moved per lane, per dollar. That's what actually serves the most residents. When hard calls have to be made about space, that has to lead.
I've watched families in Ward 21 sit on housing waitlists for years while the city talks about supply. We need the city to actually deliver safe and affordable housing that works for the people already here, not just create conditions for someone else to profit from it.
The city can't do this alone and stepping back entirely hasn't worked either. Land, funding, incentives directed toward non-profits and community housing providers who are actually accountable for residents, not just a balance sheet. That's the model that makes sense for Ward 21
In Scarborough that means corridors that have been neglected for decades finally getting real investment. Housing and transit working together the way they always should have been. That's how you actually serve the communities that have been waiting for the longest
The bottleneck is the process. Expanding as of right zoning and cutting through routine permit delays gets housing built faster without gutting the revenues the city actually depends on. Development charges pay for real things in real communities.
Ward 21 has watched too many projects drag on well past what anyone was told. Strong project management and procurement discipline from the start saves money and time before things go sideways. That's where the focus needs to be.
Competitive contracts sound efficient until accountability disappears with them. And the people who feel that first are always the ones with the fewest options. I want the city delivering services it can actually be held responsible for
Ward 21 does not receive its fair share of the taxed dollar. Major tax increases aren't necessary if we're actually spending what we have properly. The answer is accountability, not automatically going back to residents for more.
Development is happening in this city regardless. The question is whether is contributes fairly to the infrastructure and community it's building into. Property developers must contribute to local community needs if they want to build in Toronto.
Redirecting from expansion or selling city assets are short term moves that create long term problems. A dedicated levy for maintenance creates real accountability and actually addresses the backlog instead of just shuffling it around
Toronto has spent too long quietly aligning in hopes of getting something back. Ward 21 and Scarborough, more broadly, have felt what it means to be not a priority. We need to be publicly pressing for the authority and revenue this city is owed.
Ward 21 deserves a voice at City Hall, not a veto over it. Decisions about our neighbourhoods should be made with residents and a majority of council, not by one person. That's true no matter who the mayor is
Scarborough has been shortchanged for decades. Buses that come every 25 minutes, sidewalks that need repair, parks that need care. Growth only works if the basics work first. Fix what we have then build on it with the community at the table.
Clean streets, working sidewalks, safe and well-lit parks families actually want to use. For too long the basics in Ward 21 haven’t been a given. That’s what residents feel every single day, and that’s what they should judge me on at the end of this term.
Bike lanes done right are a good thing, but done without proper community consultation they create more problems than they solve. We’ve seen that firsthand in Ward 21. Finish what’s been approved, make sure it’s actually working, and bring the community into conversation before anything new gets add
The right to free speech, freedom of assembly and protest should never be curtailed. But clear rules around location, access routes and duration protect everyone, including the people exercising that right. Houses of worship, hospitals, essential services, those need to remain accessible.
Permits, licences, service requests, these are the things residents actually interact with and they’re often frustrating, slow and inaccessible. For families in Ward 21 trying to navigate city services, that friction is real. Fix that first.
Before we cut services residents depend on or go back to them for more money, the city needs to look hard at what it’s spending internally. Administration, staffing, contracts, there is room there and that’s where the conversation needs to start.
You can cut fees and speed up permits but if people can’t afford live near where they work, if transit doesn’t get them there, if the neighbourhood doesn’t feel safe, businesses don’t stay anyway. Get the basic rights and the rest follows. That’s true downtown and it’s true in Scarborough
Housing affordability, transit, public safety, quality of life. That’s what keeps people here and what makes employers want to be here. Targeted incentives doesn’t mean much if the foundation isn’t there, and right now for a lot of Ward 21 residents, that foundation is still being built
We can have all the demands in the world but if we don’t have the people to build, nothing moves. Apprenticeships, training, recognizing international credentials, Ward 21 has residents who could be part of this workforce right now if the pathways actually existed
Clean streets, working sidewalks, maintained parks, that’s what people experience every single day. For a lot of families in Ward 21 the basics haven’t always been a given. Get those rights before we talk about anything else
You can’t fund culture after you’ve priced it out. The venues, the spaces, the communities that make Toronto actually worth living in need to be protected first. Planning and property measures that keep them here matter more than right now than anything else.
Accessibility, geographic coverage, minimum service standards, those have to be the conditions. New technology that only works well in certain parts of the city for certain kinds of people isn’t progress. It’s just the same inequity with a different interface
Each card is one question, with Uthish Ganesh filed under the answer they gave and their own words underneath it. The other options offered are not shown, nor how the rest of the field answered.
How the whole city answeredRegistered candidates from the City Clerk’s official list, refreshed daily. Campaign sites are linked as published by the candidate; a link is not an endorsement.