Vote Monday, October 26, 2026 Trillium District — Kingston municipal election
Trillium District Dr. Prakash Dayal
FAQ

Questions residents ask

Including the hard ones. If yours isn't here, call 613 217 6708 and ask me directly.

Voting
When and where do I vote?

Ontario municipal elections fall on the fourth Monday of October — Monday, October 26, 2026. Voting locations, advance polls and any online or mail options are set by the City of Kingston Clerk's office. Watch for your voter notification card in the mail.

Am I in the Trillium District?

Kingston elects one councillor per district. The City publishes a district lookup by address — enter your street and it will tell you which ballot you receive. If Trillium comes back, I'm on it.

Do I need to register in advance?

Most residents are already on the voters' list. If you've moved recently, or your card doesn't arrive, contact the City Clerk's office to confirm or update your registration — you can usually also be added at the polling station with proper identification.

The candidate
What party do you represent?

None. Ontario municipal elections are non-partisan — no party labels appear on the ballot. I'm running as an independent resident, with no interest group and no donor list behind me.

What qualifies a scientist to sit on council?

Municipal government is mostly an engineering and budgeting problem — roads, water, waste, permits, taxes, and whether spending produces service. I hold a doctorate from ETH Zürich and have spent 25 years across academia and industry, including at Queen's University and ESG Solutions here in Kingston. More about my background.

Have you held office before?

No. I'm a first-time candidate, and that is part of the case — I arrive without favours owed and without the habit of approving whatever was approved last year.

How do I reach you directly?

Email dayal4kingston@gmail.com or call 613 217 6708. I answer my own phone. Questions, criticism and invitations to speak to your street or residents' association are all welcome.

The platform
Can one councillor actually cut my property taxes?

One councillor is one vote, so no single member sets the rate. What a councillor can do is scrutinise the budget in committee, vote against increases, publish where the money goes, and build a majority for restraint. That's the honest version of the promise — and more than the district gets today.

Sales tax is federal and provincial. How can a municipality touch it?

A fair challenge, and there is a mechanism. There is no sales tax on basic groceries — so why tax the seedlings, vegetable plants, soil, fertilizer and tools people need to grow food? Taxing those is taxing food indirectly.

In principle the exemption should be Canada-wide. To act immediately, a municipality can issue online refunds against submitted receipts for qualifying gardening purchases, then claim those funds back from the provincial and federal governments through special grants.

Why free land for Queen's startups instead of tax relief for everyone?

Because it pays for itself. A company that stays in Kingston employs residents and pays commercial rates for decades; land sitting idle pays nothing. This isn't charity to startups, it's an investment with a return — and I'd hold it to that standard publicly.

Isn't backyard gardening a small answer to grocery prices?

On its own, yes. Food prices are set well above City Hall. But a city can lower the cost of growing food, open plots to people without yards, and stop taxing the inputs — and for a household growing a season of vegetables, that is real money. I'd rather do the small thing that works than promise the large thing I cannot deliver.

Where can a councillor only advocate, not decide?

Sales tax rates, currency and the value of the dollar, immigration, and criminal law are all set provincially or federally. Council can pass resolutions and lobby, and I will — but the platform page marks which planks council decides and which it can only push for, so you know what my vote actually controls.

Still have a question? Ask it — I'd rather argue with you than avoid you.

Email me