Harbourfront Centre at York Quay - Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc.

Resources for Connecting with Elected Officials

This is a significant year with municipal elections across Ontario.

Municipal elections will be held on Monday, October 26, 2026.

Relationships with elected officials are important for OALA and are an opportunity to express our concerns and perspectives with legislators. In the previous 2022 election, approximately 6,325 candidates competed for 2,842 elected positions in Ontario's 417 municipalities. The average voter turnout across municipalities was 32.9%.

We want to make sure landscape architects have their voice heard by municipal legislators. Therefore, it is integral for candidates to be informed about key facts and concerns, including:

what is landscape architecture;
its contributions to the health, safety and well-being of the public;
that the profession is a fast-growing sector; and
that landscape architects are employed in the private, academic, and public realms across the province;

We also want to ensure that candidates and the public at large know the contributions we can make and the issues that are impacted by the work of landscape architects, including:

pedestrian street safety and walkability;
flood protection;
improved universal accessibility outdoors; and
protection of natural areas to mitigate the effects of climate change.

OALA is governed by a Title Act introduced by the Ontario government in 1984. In 2016, OALA launched a campaign to enhance legislation to the Practice Act. The OALA is working hard to build relationships with the re-elected and newly elected MPPs, as well as municipal government officials, to achieve this goal and to continue to raise awareness of issues that landscape architects can affect, and elected officials have a stake in.

List of Links to Additional Resources

There is no one comprehensive resource for all municipal candidates in Ontario. We suggest doing a web search for those in your local riding.

Find out if you are eligible to vote, how to vote, and how to support your local candidates in the 2026 Voters’ Guide for the Ontario municipal council and school board elections.

Find your electoral district via your postal code.

Key Documents and Messaging

How the Ontario Government Can Better Protect our Province (Updated May 2025)
OALA has prepared a one-pager entitled What Landscape Architects Can Do for Municipalities. (Updated July 2026)
Why Ontario Needs a Practice Act for Landscape Architects - OALA prepared this two-page document for Attorney General Doug Downey, MPP (Barrie-Springwater-Oro-Medonte) in December 2020 to answer the question “what problem are you trying to solve?”o
Ground73 – Cycle issue (Summer 2026) has several stories about the changes and cycles in the industry.
Landscape architects are already in the public eye. Municipal World is a well-respected national magazine. OALA has been published in the magazine four years in a row. See below a list of published articles:
- May 2022 – Designing Safer Streets - Putting People First by Glenn A. O’Connor and Lawrence Stasiuk
- March 2021 – Parks are the new medicine. How COVID-19 made parks essential to healthy cities by Cynthia Graham
- March 2020 – Keeping Canada’s shorelines safe by Cynthia Graham
- March 2019 – Transforming the landscape. Five ways landscape architects are enhancing communities across Canada by Jane Welsh and Robert Norman

OALA has received endorsements from a number of current MPPs including:

Teresa J. Armstrong, MPP (London-Fanshawe), Terence Kernaghan, MPP (London North Centre), Peter Tabuns, MPP (Toronto-Danforth), Kristyn Wong-Tam, MPP (Toronto Centre)
Stephanie Bowman, MPP (Don Valley West), Stephen Blais, MPP (Orleans), John Fraser, MPP (Ottawa South), Ted Hsu, MPP (Kingston and the Islands), Mary-Margaret McMahon, MPP (Beaches- East York), Adil Shamji, MPP (Don Valley East), Rob Cerjanec, MPP (Ajax), Lucille Collard, MPP (Ottawa-Vanier)
Aislinn Clancy, MPP (Kitchener Centre), Mike Schreiner, MPP (Guelph)
Bobbi Ann Brady, MPP (Haldimand-Norfolk)

Key Municipalities

The Municipal Outreach Committee has discussed focusing outreach efforts in a select number of municipalities to ensure a more focused and strategic outcome.

The municipalities of focus have been selected because they fit one or more of the following criteria:

They have OALA members who are engaged constituents;
They are larger municipalities with a substantial number of constituents;
They are key focal points for the province; and/or
They may have a pre-existing relationship with OALA.
They have been invited to the 2026 OALA luncheon hosted in Ottawa during AMO Conference.

The chosen municipalities are as follows:

Ottawa
Hamilton
Toronto
Guelph
Oakville
Burlington
Brampton

Timmins
Kawartha Lakes
Sault Ste. Marie
Sarnia
Peterborough
Barrie
London