ELIGIBILITY:

You’re Canadian > Live in London > Are over 18

WHERE:

AT WESTERN! UCC, 2nd Floor Community Room (269C)

WHEN:

THIS THURSDAY, October 1st 10am to 8pm

TO BRING:

DRIVER’S LICENSE:
(From another province is okay)
If it has a London address on it, that’s all you need to bring. If not ↓↓↓

PROOF OF RENTING:
A copy of your lease / rental agreement.
(Original, not a photocopy or digital)

OTHER WAYS TO PROVE WHO YOU ARE:

Ontario Health Card
Ontario Photo Card
Bank or credit card statement
T4/pay receipt
Gov of Canada, Ontario or Municipal Gov document
Income tax assessment
Utility/Phone/Cable bill
Official Western Document showing campus residence
(You do not need photo ID)

OTHER WAYS TO PROVE WHERE YOU LIVE:

Bank statement showing your London address
Credit card statement showing your London address
Utility bill for hydro, water, gas, telephone or cable
Insurance policy/statement showing your London address
Pay stub/T4 showing your London address
Government document showing your London address
Western residence document, issued by the university officials responsible for residence

WHY?

• Transit until 3am?

• Better coordinated construction?

• Garbage same day, once a week?

• Affordability prioritized?

• Better connected pathways?

TO WESTERN STUDENDS
From Ian Leishman

Having Western students in the City of London has such a positive impact on our city, and I don't think that gets talked about enough.

Start with Western itself. Western is one of London's largest employers. In fact, Western reported this year that up to 14,000 people work at the university during the academic year, making it the second-largest employer in the city.

And when you think about all those people, it isn't just your professors. It's the people maintaining the grounds, working in cafeterias, cleaning buildings, running IT systems, managing residences, doing construction and renovations, supporting research, and coordinating all the different pieces that go into running a world renowned university.

Then there are all of you.

While you're living here, you're paying rent, buying groceries, going to restaurants, shopping, getting haircuts, taking transit, going to concerts and events, and hopefully getting away from studying once in a while and actually enjoying what London has to offer.

All of that has a meaningful and powerful impact on our local economy.

But the contribution Western students and the Western community make to London goes well beyond money.

Western's 2025-26 United Way campaign raised more than $515,000 for United Way Elgin Middlesex. That money supports 33 local social-service agencies. Western's campaign accounts for about 10 per cent of the money raised through United Way's annual campaign in our region and is the largest university United Way fundraising campaign in Canada.

Just this month, Western students participated in OServes 2026, volunteering alongside organizations here in London. Students worked on projects that included making cards for pediatric patients, preparing welcome kits for vulnerable high-school students and working with local organizations including Nokee Kwe and the Muslim Resource Centre.

Western students are also using what they're learning to provide actual services to Londoners.

Western kinesiology students have been running community blood-pressure clinics at recreation centres around the city. As of May, those student-run clinics had already provided screenings to more than 400 Londoners, particularly older adults.

Western law students are doing something similar through Community Legal Services, providing free legal assistance to people who otherwise may not be able to afford it. In 2025-26 alone, students handled more than 600 cases and consultations involving things like housing disputes, small claims, criminal and provincial offences and family-law matters. That clinic is now moving downtown, making those services even more accessible to the community.

These are just a few examples.

You're not just living here and spending money here. You're volunteering here, raising money here and using what you're learning at Western to help people who live here.

As I've been knocking on doors throughout Ward 6, I've also spent a lot of time talking with residents who don't attend or work at Western.

And yes, sometimes I hear concerns about students.

Sometimes it's noise. Sometimes it's garbage. Sometimes it's the normal challenges that come with having thousands of students and longtime residents living in the same neighbourhood.

When people bring up noise, my response has been pretty straightforward, including at the Ward 6 debate on Rogers TV: those of us who are older were young once too.

University is a lot of work and a lot of pressure, and students are going to have times when they want to unwind and enjoy themselves.

What has stood out to me much more, though, are the stories I've heard about what happens when there actually is a problem.

I've had residents tell me they've approached students about something that was bothering them, and the students listened and fixed it.

Garbage is a good example.

London's garbage collection isn't simply the same day every week. Frankly, that can be confusing whether you've lived here for eight months or 30 years.

I've heard concerns from longtime residents about students putting garbage out too early or leaving bins out too long. But students certainly aren't the only people who get garbage day wrong.

And I've repeatedly heard that when somebody actually talks to the students involved, they'll say they didn't know when garbage day was and then address it. They take the garbage off the street and start putting it out when they're supposed to.

I've even heard stories of students going above and beyond and helping elderly neighbours get their garbage and recycling to the curb and then bringing everything back afterward.

These are real stories people have shared with me while I've been knocking on doors, and I certainly appreciate hearing them.

And while I'm talking about garbage, this is another reason I think London should look seriously at having garbage collection once a week, on the same day every week. It would be easier for everybody to understand and could help reduce garbage sitting around neighbourhoods attracting animals and critters.

Another issue I hear about constantly from students is late night transit.

If you're looking to unwind from the stress of school on a weekend and you go downtown for the evening, you should have a reasonable way of getting home.

London Transit has made some improvements, including extending service on some routes until 1 a.m. That's a good step.

But I think we should do a pilot project to have services go until 3 a.m. on appropriate routes and nights.

Because when the buses stop running, your choices become pretty limited. You can take a cab or rideshare, which can be expensive, or you may end up walking home in the middle of the night and perhaps not feeling particularly safe doing it.

Students are major users of London Transit. When I'm talking to Western students and repeatedly hearing that late night service doesn't meet their needs, I think the City should listen.

I tend to look at things with a business mindset. If you have customers using your service in huge numbers and they're consistently telling you that there's something they need, you should at least be looking seriously at whether you can provide it.

And this isn't only about going downtown and enjoying yourself.

Anyone who has been through exam season at Western knows studying doesn't conveniently end at 11 p.m.

There are late nights at the library, group projects, labs, meetings, assignments and reports that somehow all seem to be due at exactly the same time. Sometimes you simply need to be somewhere late because you're working with a group or trying to finish something.

Having later transit would help with that too.

Better coordinated construction is something I hear students and non-students alike are looking for.

I can't remember a year when it has felt like there has been this much construction happening on so many of London's major roads at the same time.

Road work has to happen. I understand that, and so does pretty much everyone I talk to.

The issue is how we coordinate it.

We need to do a better job making sure we're not unnecessarily clogging multiple major routes at the same time. I also think we need to look at why roads sometimes seem to be blocked off when very little visible construction is actually happening.

Could some projects run longer hours? Could certain work continue later into the evening? Could we have construction happening overnight in some locations, like you see in Toronto? Could projects be staged differently? Could signage and detours be clearer?

I'm not saying overnight construction is necessarily the answer.

Finances are important. We shouldn't spend money we don't have, and students probably understand that as well as anybody. Many of you have very fixed incomes that aren't particularly high, and you have to manage your money carefully to get by.

If having crews work all night would make a project dramatically more expensive, maybe that doesn't make sense. Maybe instead they work until midnight. Maybe there are other options.

What I'm saying is that we should be looking at everything we can reasonably do to coordinate construction better, get projects finished faster, keep traffic moving and make it easier for people to understand how they're supposed to get around.

And that brings me to affordability.

Students understand budgeting better than people sometimes give you credit for.

A lot of you are working with a very fixed amount of money, and tuition, rent, groceries, transportation and everything else have to fit within it.

Over four years, the property-tax increases approved by the current City Council amount to a 26.9% cumulative increase when compounded.

Now, many of you aren't directly paying a property-tax bill.

But that doesn't mean property taxes don't affect you.

If you're renting, the cost of owning and operating that property matters. Property taxes are one of the expenses your landlord has to deal with, along with insurance, maintenance, utilities and everything else. Those costs contribute to the overall cost of providing housing in London.

And affordability is already a real problem for a lot of students.

I want the City to take affordability seriously, and that means being as careful with taxpayers' money as many of you have to be with your own.

Food affordability matters too.

If you don't know about it, Western students who are struggling with food insecurity can access food support through the USC. And beyond campus, there are some incredible organizations doing this kind of work throughout London, including Urban Roots London, which grows food locally and they've distributed over 131,000 pounds of produce across London, either donated or sold really cheap.

Housing is another major part of affordability.

I'm encouraging Western to look at opportunities to use more of the land it controls to build additional student residences.

I think there are a lot of advantages to doing that.

More students could live within walking or biking distance of campus. It makes active transportation easier. It reduces the number of cars needed for trips to campus. And it gives students another option besides renting a house in a residential neighbourhood that may have originally been designed for a single family.

We all know what sometimes happens with those houses. Living rooms disappear, basements get reconfigured and suddenly you're trying to fit as many bedrooms into a house as possible.

I'm not convinced that's always the best housing we can provide students.

More residence space would also give students another housing option where Western has greater control over the quality and cost.

That said, the City of London can't force Western to build residences.

And that gets into something important about what I can and can't promise you.

If I'm fortunate enough to be elected as your representative for this area of London, I can advocate for these things.

But I would be one of 15 people on City Council making decisions for London.

I'll be straight with you. I can't single-handedly make these things happen. Neither can any other individual member of City Council.

Really the only way to move anything forward that will benefit residents of Ward 6 with the City of London, is to rally at least 8 of London's 15 councillors to our side.

An important part of why I'm running, and something I've put on the pamphlets I've been handing out at doors, is that I won't make promises I can't keep.

What I can promise is that I will advocate for the things I've talked about here.

And what I can promise is that I will be accessible, accountable and responsive to you, the residents of Ward 6.

It's important that you know what I want to advocate for, but I think it's just as important that you know how I plan to try to get things done.

That means teamwork.

It means working with other people and treating them with respect and kindness, even when you don't agree with them.

Sometimes it means compromising in order to actually achieve a result.

And sometimes it means bringing together people who may start out with very different perspectives and trying to get them behind the same idea so that something can actually move forward.

As a real estate broker with Royal LePage, I have a great deal of experience negotiating some very tough deals.

Through my years working at 103.1 Fresh Radio here in London, and through my experience as president of the Old South Business Association, I've also had a lot of experience bringing people together for the greater good of the community and getting things done.

And finally, since I've spent this much time talking about London, I'm going to sell you on the city for a minute.

Yes, you're here to get your higher education. But I sincerely hope you also make the most of everything London has to offer while you're here.

This is a great place to live. It's a great place to work, start a business or begin a career. It's a phenomenal place to eventually raise a family if that's something you want to do.

We're not far from Port Stanley or Grand Bend. There's plenty of entertainment. London is Canada's UNESCO City of Music, something I would really like to get behind even more so that we continue bringing great music here and become better known for it.

And if you want the metropolis, Toronto isn't that far away. Neither is cottage country.

Okay, I'll stop selling London now.

But I am selling it for a reason: I want you to stay here.

It would be great for London if, after you've spent these years here learning and developing your talents, you decide to stay.

I'd love to see more Western graduates start businesses here, build careers here, raise families here and use everything they've learned to help move this community forward.

You are some of the future leaders, entrepreneurs, engineers, doctors, teachers, researchers, artists, business owners and community builders who are going to shape whatever comes next.

Whether you're here for four years or the next forty, while you're living in London, you're a Londoner too.

And I think the city should treat you that way.

Sorry this took so long to get out to you.

If you've actually made it all the way down here, you probably deserve a gold star or a ribbon or something. Haha!!

Thanks for taking the time to read this,

Ian Leishman
Ward 6 City Councillor Candidate
www.VoteIan.ca

Let’s chat!

ian@ianleishman.ca, Cell: 226.270.3988

More about Ian & his platform: Click Here

More About voting: City of London Information for voters