For Mayor · District of Highlands · 2026
A fourth-generation View Royal family, my partner Ann and I were enticed to the Highlands twenty-one years ago by the Highlands Stewardship Foundation — to build Eco-Sense here. I've spent the two decades since working to protect the natural systems that sustain this community. Now I'm asking for your trust as Mayor.
Why I'm running
I'm a fourth-generation View Royal resident, drawn to the Highlands twenty-one years ago when the Highlands Stewardship Foundation encouraged us to build our Eco-Sense project here. In the two decades since, I've built things, run businesses, grown food, and learned how water moves through this place — and spent the last stretch of it at the regional tables where decisions about our water get made.
I'm running because the pressures on a small rural community are growing — housing, climate, cost, and a region expanding right at our doorstep — and steering through them takes someone who already knows the files, already holds the region's trust, and already knows how to bring people to agreement. Not to remake the Highlands. To keep it what it is, through a decade of change.
About Gord
At Eco-Sense — the demonstration farm my partner Ann and I run on Compton Road — we've spent two decades living within the ecology of a place: regenerating soil, restoring habitat and ecological function, working with the land's natural water flows, harvesting rainwater, treating greywater, and growing food. It's not a slogan. It's how we live.
I design and build, and I've put that to work here as a volunteer — the Eagles Lake washroom, the mechanical systems at the Twinflower bathroom, the broom-composting trials that made the soil for our community garden, and the garden's fence and solar array. And when I talk about water governance, it isn't theory: I've helped write the rules other communities use.
The snapshot above lists the roles; here's what they taught me. A working life of self-employment — an automotive centre, consulting, building, farming, designing rainwater systems — teaches you budgets, accountability, and how to deliver when every outcome lands on your shoulders. No one hands you a result. You earn it.
For twenty years I've taught and spoken publicly on water, permaculture, composting, food forestry, building science, and earthen building — work covered in well over 200 articles across magazines, newspapers, books, radio, and television. I've also been retained to write water policy for other governments: technical advisor to Metro Vancouver's non-potable water re-use work, technical editor on the Province's greywater and composting-toilet standards, and on water policy for the Regional District of Nanaimo and Islands Trust.
What two decades at Eco-Sense have taught us — water, soil, building science, growing food — we offer freely: tours, talks, workshops, and neighbours' questions we're always glad to take. Few things feel better than helping someone's curiosity about all things sustainable.
Representing Highlands — without importing the region's growth
Being engaged in the region is how we protect ourselves from it — a voice, a vote, and early warning on decisions that touch our water, our roads, our rural character.
We are a community of 2,600 with growth pressure at our doorstep. The pressures driving the region — rapid development, expanding services, growing demand — are pressures we feel from next door, not values we share for our own community. I keep those two things firmly separate.
At the regional table my job is to make sure growth elsewhere pays its own way, that infrastructure is planned honestly, and that Highlands is never quietly absorbed into someone else's expansion agenda. The work is, at its core, protective on behalf of Highlands: stay at the table, hold the region accountable, and bring home a community that keeps its rural independence intact. A community our size doesn't hold its ground by accident — it holds it with one vote, used well, carried by a voice the region listens to.
As your Highlands councillor, the region entrusted me to chair its water supply — stewarding its budgets, planning its infrastructure, and bringing thirteen jurisdictions to agreement. That experience is the advantage Highlands takes into the mayor's chair.
My Record
Here's the big picture first: a mayor's job reaches well beyond council chambers. A mayor speaks for Highlands at regional tables — on water, growth, infrastructure, money, health, housing, and transit — among much larger neighbours. At those tables, Highlands has exactly one vote. What amplifies that vote is a voice the region already trusts — and after twelve years, CRD directors and staff come to me when a Highlands matter is on the table for my thoughts. Nobody hands you that standing. You earn it by being the person the region trusts — and the work below is how I've spent it: protecting Highlands' interests while helping the whole region get its hardest decisions right.
For the better part of a decade I've helped govern the drinking-water systems the Capital Region depends on. These aren't ceremonial seats — they carry real delegated authority over budgets, infrastructure, and long-range planning.
It's a 22-member commission representing the region's municipalities and electoral areas — and those commissioners have chosen me to chair the work, completing four years in the chair after four years before that as Vice-Chair. Chairing this commission is, in effect, being the region's mayor for water: bringing many municipalities and many competing interests to one table and helping them reach decisions together on the biggest water-governance questions the region has faced — from how we plan for growth to how we secure supply for the next generation.
The reinvestment program that keeps the regional system reliable, seismically resilient, and ready for the future — including the 2022 Master Plan rollout, dam-safety work, and planning for the future filtration plant. In 2026 alone, a $72M capital program.
The long-range blueprint replacing the previous plan — now moving from what to build into how and when to build it.
Refreshing the commission's priorities for the next five to ten years.
The commission doesn't drive growth — it plans for it. This program makes sure that when growth does occur, the cost of the added system capacity it requires is carried by that new development, rather than falling on existing ratepayers.
I've held the line on factual precision throughout — correcting the record when the numbers didn't support the narrative, and insisting that decisions affecting 430,000 people rest on evidence, not assumption.
The JDF system delivers water to the western communities — Langford, Colwood, View Royal, Metchosin, Sooke, parts of Highlands, several First Nations, and the JDF Electoral Area.
A 20-year financial and technical roadmap mapping roughly $2 billion in infrastructure — what we own, its condition, its worth, and when it needs replacing, so ratepayers aren't blindsided. It's a model now being extended to the region's other services.
Keeping the cost-recovery framework fair and current, so that as the western communities develop, new growth — not existing ratepayers — carries the cost of the capacity it requires.
Delivered for the Highlands
Some of what I'm proudest of on council:
It didn't have majority support at first. I helped move it from a contested idea to the core of how the District plans and funds its infrastructure — so we repair and replace on evidence, not crisis.
I championed including natural assets — our groundwater in particular — in that framework. Recognizing groundwater as infrastructure changes how seriously we protect it.
I supported carrying our monitoring program through to fully mapping our aquifers, lineaments, and wells — and directing staff to develop a watershed management plan. Real local evidence, for the decisions ahead.
I developed the broom-composting program at the Broom Bash that created the soil for our community garden — an approach Metchosin and Sooke have since adopted.
Workshops and presentations for the community on integrated food systems and all things water — groundwater, greywater, composting toilets, rainwater harvesting, and conservation for agriculture.
Where I Stand
These are values and a direction, not a wall of promises. And an honest note on how councils work: a mayor doesn't set policy by decree — council chooses the direction together. My job is to make sure our strategic plan comes from collaboration, not conflict. Four commitments anchor how I'll serve.
Highlands chose to be what it is: large rural lots, no urban services, forest and rock and quiet. That wasn't an accident, and it isn't up for quiet erosion.
I'll defend the land-use framework that keeps us rural, and stay skeptical of pressures — from developers, from neighbouring growth, from convenience — that would chip away at it one exception at a time.
We live in the Coastal Douglas-fir zone — one of the most threatened ecosystems in British Columbia.
Our sensitive-ecosystem protections and OCP policies aren't red tape; they're the reason this place still works as habitat. I'll defend and, where the evidence supports it, strengthen those tools — grounded in real inventory and current science, not decades-old baselines.
Water is my life's work — designing it, teaching it, and now helping govern it for the whole region.
I bring it home to a community that lives almost entirely on groundwater: protecting our aquifers and watercourses from contamination and overuse, and planning honestly for water security in a drying climate that is already changing how water moves through this landscape.
Highlands sits within the territories of as many as seven First Nations. Reconciliation isn't a statement on a website — it's a relationship.
Built through consistent, respectful, good-faith engagement over time. As mayor, I'll begin that relationship-building in earnest from day one — advancing practical steps that fit our authority as a small municipality and that the Nations themselves help shape.
How I lead
I listen before deciding.
I explain difficult decisions honestly — even the ones you won't like.
I believe science and community wisdom belong together.
I work respectfully, even when we disagree.
Housing, water & staying a community
Younger families, aging parents, longtime residents on fixed incomes — people need realistic ways to stay here. And every housing decision in the Highlands runs through one question first: can the groundwater support it?
Council was already developing an accessory-dwelling approach when the Province introduced blanket rules permitting secondary suites on most Highlands properties. That's the law now. Our job is to make it work responsibly — and that starts with keeping our water clean.
Conservation matters, but the most urgent job is keeping pollution out of our aquifers. When a home relies on a well, a failing septic system or the wrong development next door isn't a nuisance — it's a threat to a family's drinking water. Guarding recharge areas and getting on-site systems right has to come before anything else.
Many homes already have unpermitted dwellings. Rather than punish, I want a secure, non-punitive path to compliance with fire, electrical, sewer, and building safety codes — because a suite that's legal is a suite that's safe, for its occupants and its neighbours' water.
Our aquifer mapping and watershed planning can show where demand is supportable, where it needs strong conservation, and where groundwater genuinely limits it. Reviewing how our bylaws — including business licensing — apply in groundwater-protected areas is part of keeping the wrong activity out of the wrong place.
Rainwater harvesting, greywater reuse, efficient fixtures — the tools I've spent a career on help a rural community make room for people without overdrawing its water.
Raising kids who love this place
If the next generation is going to carry the Highlands forward, they need to grow up connected to it — hands in the soil, feet on the trails, curiosity met with real answers.
The Highlands has something rare: deep natural assets and easy proximity to the region's families. That's a gift. It makes us a natural home for nature-based learning — the kind of place where children can learn why a watershed matters by standing in one.
I've spent my life helping people of every age connect to the land through workshops, tours, and honest conversation. As mayor, I'll champion that same spirit for our youngest residents: welcoming the ideas, partners, and thoughtful proposals that help kids build a lifelong relationship with this place. Not every idea will be the right fit — but the right response to a good idea is to listen to it fully before we decide.
A Vision for the Next Four Years
Long service is only worth something if it stays curious. The region is changing, the climate is changing, and the risks to a small rural municipality are changing with them. The job isn't to coast on tenure — it's to stay responsive: to understand those risks better, and to finish the work the community has already started.
My vision isn't a grand new direction. It's making the Highlands we already have work better — sharpening the tools so that protecting our character, our ecosystems, our water, and our relationships becomes something we do reliably and well, not something we scramble at.
Good decisions need time and genuine public input, and I've repeatedly pushed for more of both. As mayor I'll re-engage the public directly: resident surveys, regular Committee of the Whole meetings re-established, and standing advisory committees that bring resident and expert voices in early — the way the Regional Water Supply Commission's Water Advisory Committee does. Chairing is a craft I've spent years at, and a well-run meeting is where every voice is heard and the best argument wins. The mayor sets the tone and the agenda, and so sets the pace — I'd set one that makes room to listen before we decide, not after.
The community asked for regenerative development in the South Highlands — something more imaginative than the conventional industrial-commercial status quo. That vision has yet to be properly sold and shown. The pragmatic path isn't retreating to the familiar because the new is harder to picture; it's actioning the South Highlands plan for the benefit of the Highlands — showing residents and the region what regenerative development makes possible, including the water security a drying climate demands. I'll carry that across the line.
Highlands should be the community others look to on watershed protection and green-space protection — not a follower of urban service models. I'll keep us in that leading role, defending the land and water that make this place what it is.
Pragmatic, not imitative. A small rural municipality shouldn't copy the patterns of growing suburbs. I'll pursue smart, affordable capacity — grants, partnerships, shared services, better use of our committees — so we meet our ambitions without bloating the budget or the bureaucracy.
This isn't about big gestures. It's the steady, responsive work of keeping a small rural community intact through a decade of change — listening closely, adapting where we must, and defending our rural independence. For years, Highlands has been too quietly engaged in the region, and too easily overlooked. The difference I'm asking to make is to turn that quiet presence into a more influential and respected voice — one the region listens to when decisions reach our water, our roads, and our rural character.