TCMV

David Alton

Community Facilator

Received the Lynn Macaulay Community Education Award in 2025 for their efforts to change narratives about the housing crisis
Worked in Community Facilitation with numerous organizations including Social Development Centre, Sidewalk Labs, and Waterfront Toronto
Also consulted for the University of Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier University, the Region of Waterloo, the City of Kitchener, Cities of Migration, Waterfront Toronto, Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust, and the City of Toronto
Serves on the Board of Outta Work Actors, Moss Park Arena, and Central Student Association
Long history of grassroots organizing and non-profit leadership

David Alton’s Priority Issues

Right to mobility:

5-minute wait times, safe travel programming, Ion expansion, transportation innovation laboratory, sidewalk clearing, bike share program, pedestrianized King Street

Right to housing:

Leveraging public land, social housing boom, vertical communities bylaw, age in place program, 24/7 low barrier hubs, safe tenting framework

Right to collective action: Municipal sovereignty, public education fund, municipal finance reform, and neighborhood planning controls

Right to belong:

Arts and culture master plan, safety hubs, reviving downtown community spaces, Indigenous spaces, peace city declaration

Rights of land and water:

Schneider Creek Watershed Park, Grand River Watershed park, water conservation inventory, community land stewardship, tree canopy program, native species bylaw review

David’s proposals are part of a broader context that this slide cannot cover in its entirety. Please check out David’s website for more information.

Source: davidalton.org

David’s Answers: Muslims & Islamophobia

How will you strengthen relationships and trust between police services and Muslim communities?

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I am not sure if this should be the goal. Our local anti-hate monitor has identified a potential lone wolf person spewing Islamophobic hate and the police are not taking it seriously. I think we need to better resource our police free hate monitoring infrastructure so Muslim communities can better protect themselves.

How will you work with mosques, Islamic schools, and Muslim organizations to improve community safety and emergency preparedness?

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I want to hire local non profits like the Centre for Mutual Well-being to run police free safety programming at community centres and recreation facilities. This will give local communities more resources and control over their safety tools and ensure safety is more accessible and culturally responsive.

What steps will you take to address Islamophobia and anti-Muslim discrimination?

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I would article counter disinformation and stigma that is currently being allowed to grow uncontested. I would work with local Muslim communities to identify people to run for office next election and leverage my political capital to support them.

How will you ensure Muslim residents and community organizations have a meaningful voice in municipal decision-making?

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I want to create a public education fund to provide operational funding for organizations counting stigma

How will you support Muslim organizations that provide community services, settlement support, youth programming, food assistance, and other essential services?

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I think my public education fund and my plan to have non profits run safety program at community centres are both ways to provide more stable funding to muslim non profits.

How can the city provide a more nuanced approach to zoning for religious institutions (such as mosques) given their practices, cultures and needs differ?

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I am planning on doing an equitable review of zoning to remove longstanding inequities in city policy

What do you think is the greatest problem the ward is facing, and how do you plan to address it?

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I’m running for Mayor. The biggest issue the city is facing is how unaffordable housing is and how it is driving people to homelessness. I have an 18 housing platform created by lived experts to address this precarity.

How will you ensure that anti-racism and EDI policies explicitly recognize and address anti-Palestinian racism where it occurs?

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Our EDI team needs to name Zionism as a Islamophobic ethno nationalist movement and treat it as such. I also want to pass new zoning and bylaws to block the expansion of weapons manufacturing and fine orgs found connected to the genocide.

How will you ensure that your city’s commitments to freedom of expression, anti-racism, religious freedom, and equal treatment are applied consistently across all communities, including when issues are politically contentious?

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I want to root as much of the cities policies in international human rights law. I think elected officials need to militant in upholding human rights law. And I hope use my experience as a facilitator, mediator and Public educator to assist in those difficult decisions.

Are there any other priorities or topic you would like to add?

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If any of your community is living in unsafe housing, in crowded housing, in unstable housing, they qualify for the same supports as other homeless people. I want to help people get loud about the scale of housing precarity and build more affordable and adequate family size housing.

Kitchener