Larry mccabe

Larry McCabe grew up in Stratford and attended Carleton University for anthropology he returned to his hometown in 1998 and built his business and raised his family here.

A seasoned hospitality and tourism executive and the owner of Pazzo Pizzeria for 24 years and the Morhaven Lodge since 2018. In addition to running his own businesses and working to make them more sustainable, McCabe has volunteered for a number of community initiatives, including the Stratford Tourism Alliance from its conception and a board member of the Savour Stratford Culinary Festival.

McCabe has long had an interest in municipal affairs and public policy, particularly those that relate to climate change, housing issues, and economic development and diversification. It is this interest that led him to work with the United Way and other community organizations to launch the Hospitality Workers Fund in 2020 to support fellow community members and to protect the community’s labour force.

At a pivotal time coming out of the pandemic, McCabe appreciates the need for competent fiscal stewardship and an entrepreneurial mindset as Stratford and all of Ontario prepare for the recovery stage of the pandemic and the community as a whole prepares for a changing nature of work and commerce.

1. What will be your unique contribution to council?

Openness to action and experimentation to move the city ahead on climate action and community development

2. How will you tackle urban sprawl and protect prime agricultural land?

By encouraging density in the core with a focus on the Grand Trunk site, old manufacturing sites on Douro and King and pushing incentives for development of secondary suites. Would like to see subsidies to develop residential above ground level in the historic downtown. I would not be in favour of annexing more land.

3. How will you encourage businesses and individuals to respond to climate change?

We should be telling these stories and encouraging the sharing of best practices. I have been doing this with my own business as we have contracted with Bullfrog Power, sources more locally, got rid of single use plastics and diverted compostable waste. City infrastructure needs to be upgraded, buildings, vehicles to be less energy intensive, this should be monitored and reported back to the community. I look forward to working with the new climate change coordinator.

4. What is your idea(s) to attract new industry to Stratford?

I think we need to look at where we can best differentiate from other communities and for me this means tourism, digital media and the arts. This could include and arts school, movie studio, digital technology incubator, hospitality school, hotel, spa, interactive virtual reality studio, further expansion of UWaterloo and perhaps agricultural technology and product development.

5. How will you address wealth inequality, homelessness and poverty in Stratford?

Many of the solutions will have to come from other levels of government as are ability to effect overall taxation is limited. Having said that I would encourage the work that is being done by the United Way to establish The Community Renewal Company to address affordable housing, encourage the YMCA to include affordable housing in their proposed new facility, increase the pace of the cities own affordable housing builds and encourage the building of secondary suites by streamlining that process.

6. How will you engage and inform the public about current issues and legislation?

In addition to encouraging the use and evolution of the new engagestratford.ca web portal, I will be maintaining my own website throughout my term to post things that I think are worth discussing or that might not have been properly presented. I would like to see more informal outreach by council, perhaps at schools, in the square. I would like to look at the current procedural bylaw and look at the ways that we can increase transparency and reduce formality. Open discussions benefit everyone even when they are uncomfortable or contentious.

7. Would you support term limits? Why/why not?

For myself yes, but that would largely be because I think it is hard to absorb new ideas when you have been following a certain path for a number of years. It is difficult to unseat incumbents, so you have a situation where the advantage is difficult to overcome and new thinking is kept out.

8. What is your plan to better engage youth in Stratford?

To begin with I would like to see more youth sitting on some of the many boards and committees in the city. This could be done through a social media campaign to to take away the perception that these positions are unavailable or restricted. I would like to see council present at the high schools to encourage familiarity. I will continue to host a website and will encourage ideas to be shared which I can bring to council.