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If councillors don’t live in the wards they represent, how can they truly understand the people they serve?
The recent Sudbury.com article asking whether ward councillors actually live in the communities they represent struck an important nerve in our city. Residency may not be a legal requirement, but it is certainly a moral one. Representation is supposed to be rooted in shared experience, not in distant oversight.
When I ran in Ward 8 in 2022, it was because I live here and see the issues the same way residents do. I walk these streets, deal with the same traffic bottlenecks and hear the same concerns about taxes, infrastructure, snow clearing and public safety. That connection matters. It shapes the decisions a councillor makes because those decisions affect their own daily life too.
That is why the conversation about councillors living outside their wards should not be brushed aside, and why residents have every right to ask hard questions.
When someone seeks to represent a ward they do not live in, they start from a distance. When they won’t clearly answer where they live, the distance grows even wider.
Ward 8 has seen this first-hand. The incumbent's (editor’s note: Ward 8 is represented by Coun. Al Sizer) approach to representation has often felt more administrative than neighbourly. Residents regularly tell me they rarely see him in the community unless there is a camera, a ribbon, or a scheduled meeting.
Leadership is more than attending events or voting at council. It is about being present in the everyday life of the ward. If a councillor only drops in occasionally, they end up responding to problems long after residents have been dealing with them. Physical presence isn’t everything, but it is the minimum.
New Sudbury deserves a councillor who understands its challenges not from afar, but from lived experience. The fact that this discussion is even happening shows how frustrated people have become with feeling unheard or overlooked. Trust is built when elected officials actually live among the people they serve.
As this conversation continues, I’ll remain here in Ward 8, listening, showing up, and staying in touch with the people. Representation begins at home — and for me, home is right here in Ward 8.
Patrick McCoy
Greater Sudbury