LANA HISCOCK
FOR KITCHENER WARD 10
About Me
"Affordable Homes for Healthy Neighbourhoods"
About Me
Like many of those in our city I am relative newcomer to the Kitchener-Waterloo region, and have lived in both Kitchener and Waterloo for over six years. In 2016 I moved here to continue my post-secondary education at Wilfrid Laurier, completing an MSc in chemistry, and I then remained at Laurier to begin my PhD in the same field in 2018. In addition to academic chemistry research, I have also instructed university chemistry courses and truly love teaching others. I consider sharing one's knowledge and passion for a subject to be a gift that benefits both parties.
During my time in Kitchener I have deeply enjoyed the lifestyle that our city and region has to offer. Originally from Newfoundland, I grew up in a small, rural town. The economic opportunities and way of life available to many Kitchener residents is not something with which I was familiar as a child or teenager. Having said that, there's a downside - living in a region where the cost-of-living quickly outpaces the wages of real labour. In fact, Kitchener ranks high on the list of most expensive cities for renters in Canada, and rent rates continue to go through the roof in recent years. All this while effective representation for renters in government is severely lacking. (One wonders, how long has it been since our city councillors have rented an apartment, a house, or a bedroom?)
Having been a renter for the past ten years, I know all too well what it is like to pay the equivalent of a small mortgage for an apartment that is not maintained. I know what it is like to make ends meet by relying on our region’s food banks or the generosity of friends and neighbours. I know what it is like, from personal experience, for those on ODSP or other woefully inadequate government assistance programs to struggle to survive in our high cost-of-living city. In my first year here, while subsisting on a graduate student stipend, I took home a grand total of $18,155—paying ever-increasing rent, buying groceries, clothing myself, affording medications—while living nearly $4,000 under the 2016 poverty line. Affordability of housing in Kitchener has only gotten worse since then, with rent prices jumping 22% this year so far.
If you are struggling with the inaffordability of housing, the inflationary (and predatory) prices of goods, having to forego necessary items to pay for more pressing needs, then I know where you are and I have been there too. I want to see fewer people in situations similar to or worse than the one I found myself in, and I will work towards that goal as your City Councillor.
My desire is to represent the under-privileged, the historically excluded, the poor of our society. I believe that the wealthy and politically connected have had a monopoly on government representation for long enough. We deserve city councillors familiar with our plights and experiences.
I believe that social problems require socially-minded solutions. What does that mean? At its core, it means that things necessary for life, living, and the good of society cannot be left solely up to capitalist incentives for profit. Social solutions means using our societal leverage to benefit society as a whole, not just private, faceless corporations and wealthy investors, landowners, developers, and speculators.
For more details on issues that I think we need to tackle as a city, and as Canadians in general, take a look at my Core Values.
Land Acknowledgement
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Land Back
This land acknowledgement is necessary because the the history of Canada as a country was, and is, oppressive. Our region comprises what is known as the "Haldimand tract", a parcel of land surrounding the Grand River, six miles on either side, that was "given" to the Indigenous Haudenosaunee people via treaty in 1784 by those who thought they "owned" the land through violence and oppression of the Native people. This land was colonised, immorally and unjustly, by oppression of our fellow humans through destruction and devaluation of their way of life. Systems of oppression were put in place over many years and these systems have benefitted people like myself while disadvantaging Indigenous people. These systems mean that Indigenous people end up comprising 0.5 percent of the population of Toronto, but end being 15% of the city's homeless population; that 0.78 percent of the general population in cities will experience homelessness, while nearly seven percent of Aboriginal city dwellers will at some point be homeless; it means that Indigenous students face many hardships and barriers to their education, leading to, and compounded by, poor high school graduation rates; the United Nations has called the living conditions in many Native communities "abhorrent"; the residential school system operated by the Canadian government literally ripped children from their parents, abused, and in many cases murdered them and buried them in unmarked graves which are still being found to this day. The systems of oppression we have created must be torn down; a large part of doing that is to return oversight of the land that was not ours to take nor give away.
