Concordia graduate runs for Westmount City councillor

From Queer Concordia to canvassing for municipal office, The Link chats with Jessica Winton

NewsHannah Vogan — Published October 21, 2025 10 minutes

In June, Jessica Winton received her degree in urban planning from Concordia University. Today, she is president of Queer Concordia, a master’s student at the University of Ottawa, and a candidate for Westmount, District 2 city councillor in the upcoming elections. 

Winton, who moved from New York City to Westmount in 2009, said she witnessed the borough change in her formative years. Her platform focuses on advocating for environmental justice, community engagement and empowering others to live the lives they want.

Winton’s campaign uses strictly two mediums: social media and face-to-face canvassing. When she isn’t in Ottawa pursuing her master’s, she’s creating online promotional content or knocking on doors throughout Westmount. You won’t find any posters of her, because that’s not her style: “I want to be more than just a face on a sign.”

The Link sat down with Winton to discuss her campaign. 

Disclaimer: Answers have been edited for clarity.

How would you define your platform?

I'm running on a proactive and educated platform. My degree is in urban planning. The city has a lot of work to do in terms of infrastructure and urban design. I know a lot of people have had issues when it comes to permitting and such. For example, when it comes to replacing a slate roof, slate roofs are like $250,000 to replace, and you're not allowed to replace it with anything else. Unless you have $250,000 sitting around, you're stuck with what you've got. “If it's falling apart, too bad”—that's the current approach of the city. That's got to change. 

I think communication is really important. The city is not very transparent, and that goes for most governments, but I'd really love to bring an unprecedented amount of transparency. We have something called the Green Grants program, and when I ask people if they know of the program, I have not gotten a single “yes” out of well over 100 doors. The city will subsidize environmentally-friendly purchases up to $200 per household per year, but people don't know about that, and I think it's really a matter of communicating. 

There's also a lot of intergenerational households, a lot of seniors and young families, and I think we're only planning for the present as opposed to the future. When it comes to making sure that there's enough homes for people my age who can afford a home one day, or family housing, social housing, they're really important.

If elected, what are some ways you would improve communication from the city?

One of the things that I promise to do is not stop door knocking after I'm elected. I would make sure that I'm actually hearing from everybody. One of the things that a lot of councillors do is they get elected and disappear, because they really just want your vote, and once they have your vote, they're gone. 

I don't plan to take that approach. I would love to engage with people at least once a month, if I can, and try to hold a lunch or something every two weeks, to invite everybody and have an open door policy to make myself accessible. 

Why is going door to door an important part of your campaign process?

If you're walking around the neighbourhood, you won't see any signs of me, because I think it's really important not to just be a face on a sign. I'm a real person. I think it's important to talk to people and see what they want to see from the city. 

I know when I've gone door to door, a lot of people say some candidates only drop off flyers; they never knock. That bothers me. Door knocking is one of the best ways to engage with people and understand what people are concerned with. 

I hear a lot of things and from all different sides. Young families are concerned about the garbage pickup being once every two weeks, because obviously when they have a bunch of diapers, it doesn't smell very good.

How do you balance campaigning, being the president of Queer Concordia and pursuing your master’s in Ottawa, and how would you balance your responsibilities if elected?

For Queer Concordia, I've taken a step back, and I'm there more to advise. But if we get a funding increase, I would serve in an actual position that I could do full time. Currently, I’m giving advice to the current team when they need it.

As far as my master’s, all my classes are pretty manageable. Balance isn't hard to find; even if I were elected as city councillor, I could make the shift in priorities. There's an option to do part time classes, and I'll do that if I have to.

On the positions page of your website, you talk about the city’s lack of financial responsibility. What are some ways you believe the city is spending money frivolously? 

The city spends an insane amount of money consulting. For example, [Westmount city councillor] Antonio D’Amico, he wanted to get rid of dogs from the Summit Woods because dogs are allowed off leash, and he thought that was a travesty. I believe he spent around $30,000 of the city's money through lawyer fees to see how they can remove dogs from being allowed in those woods. 

When you have to outsource a lot of the work to consulting companies, they charge you a lot of money. It costs more not to have the in-house expertise than it does to pay consultants. 

I'm really hoping to build a strong foundation of knowledge within the city that is informed. The city spends a lot on consulting, and that needs to stop. 

Another campaign promise you have is timeliness. What is your view on a reasonable response time from the city?

From all departments, within a week, at least an acknowledgement when an email is received. A lot of the time, when I have emailed current city councillors, I don't get any acknowledgement that they've gotten my email until I go to a city council meeting and ask them. I’m frequently told they've looked at my email, and it's been a month. That's completely unacceptable. 

At least a week of time is reasonable. I know that things can get busy, but sitting around waiting for things, like if you have a hole in your roof, can be incredibly emotionally draining, and I hope to avoid a lot of those pitfalls.

You talk about improving city infrastructure. If elected, what is at the top of your improvement list?

There are a few things, like repairing what’s been neglected for a long time. In King George Park, also known as Murray Hill [Park], there's a pool that's been neglected for as long as I can remember. It's currently filled with tree branches, and the gate is locked off. 

There's tons of empty land within the parks that we could be using for community gardens or other events, and we need to be more cautious with where we put our money. A lot of infrastructure is over a century old, like our pipes under the ground. 

We need to make sure we're prioritizing the right places and redoing our streets. Sherbrooke St. is actively being repaired, but I'd love to see more infrastructure being repaired. Our roads are in awful condition. You shouldn't get flat tires on your bike because of all the potholes.

What does the southeast revitalization look like to you?

The southeast area around Atwater, Dawson, in between Ste. Catherine St. and Dorchester is currently more or less abandoned. There's loads of empty lots. The city owns some parking lots that we could develop for seniors housing, family housing, affordable housing, that we just haven't developed. It's been this way, from what I understand, for 40 years; it's becoming increasingly unsafe.

There's people who get killed at Cabot Square, and it's time to follow through with revitalizing the area. This is something that'll take more than a decade to complete, but it's time to stop sitting around like we have for so many other things in the city.

When canvassing, what recurring sentiments or frustrations have you noticed?

I've heard a lot of concerns about bike lanes—not in terms of getting rid of all of them, but the fact that they're quite unsafe. At a lot of intersections in Westmount, it's majority just stop signs. Cyclists don't always follow stop signs, and neither do drivers, so this can create a lot of collisions or points of contention, where someone's gunning it down the hill on their bike and blowing through a stop sign, where a car might collide with them. 

People would really like to see a lot more pedestrian safety, and safety for cyclists and cars as well, because these things interact a lot together. Implementing things like bump outs at intersections, where you have increased pedestrian visibility because the sidewalk is curved outward at the intersection. There’s a little island where pedestrians or cyclists are much more visible, and giving more space to cyclists on bike paths, or widening the sidewalk so people can walk in larger groups. 

Your platform mentions Westmount should use its spaces more wisely. What are some examples of spaces rife with alternative use?

The biggest one is the Mountainside United Church. It's sat empty for at least six years. A developer currently owns the church because he plans to turn it into his house, as well as a few other houses on the empty side of the property—that has to be 20,000 square feet, which I think is a little silly, to put lightly. I'd like to see the city acquire the church and turn it into another community centre.

District 2 doesn’t really have any city services outside of the actual parks themselves, and it leaves us very disconnected from the rest of the city. There’s a huge divide in terms of what people experience in the city from upper and lower Westmount. In Murray Hill or King George Park, there are some spaces that are enclosed by hedges that I think can be a great space for a community garden. There's obviously the splash pool that's been broken forever, and some other spaces around the park that are sitting empty; why not put something there?

Your platform highlights a safer and more secure Westmount. What does that look like?

When it comes to public safety, a lot of it is focused around the southeast area—around Westmount Square, where there's a lot of protests. Protests create a lot of noise, and that's their fundamental right. 

However, when it comes to police conduct, they don't exactly act as they should. When they use tear gas or pepper spray, it can have adverse effects on pedestrians nearby. 

For example, in the village, there are protests for queer rights and the police often end up pepper spraying and tear gassing the demonstrators within a few minutes or less, shutting down the metro lines simultaneously because of their rapid use of tear gas and pepper spray being so rampant it leaked out into community events nearby—there was tear gas that affected a newborn baby. 

I'd really hate to see this happen in Westmount. Holding police accountable for how they act is important, because a lot of the time, they stand around and look intimidating without actually doing anything. When people are killed on Ste. Catherine St., around Cabot Square, I don't understand how this is acceptable as a city. We've let things fall into such disarray where people are literally dying, and we are doing nothing about it. You can only do so much by just having police stand there. 

I also understand that we have a large Jewish population in Westmount. I believe it's like 22 per cent, and they're starting to fear for their safety because of hate crimes. I'd love to have a more accountable security system so that everybody can feel safe, no matter where or who they are.

Your platform endorses a mandatory rental registry. Why is it important to you?

A mandatory rental registry is important to make housing accessible. Montreal and Westmount in particular have this old system, where a building will put a sign up with a phone number for people to see if the apartment is available. 

That method is out of reach for people who are using the internet to find housing. Having a mandatory rental registry with history of the rent also allows you to negotiate more as a tenant, for a fair price. 

We’ve been seeing rental increases where a place goes from $1,000 to $1,400 a month in the span of a few years. We have no system in place to hold landlords accountable to provide housing in a way that people can access.

Why should people vote for you?

If you want somebody who actually cares and is proactive, and really does want to hear from you, I believe I would be a great city councillor. I'm educated in urban planning; I’m doing a master's focusing on recycling policy. I know that's a big point of contention for a lot of people, but to make sure that we're doing things properly as a city, people really need to be informed on these topics, rather than just saying they care. Because, let's face it, I don't know if they do.

If you’re registered to vote in the upcoming Westmount city council elections, advance voting will be held on Oct. 26, and election day will take place on Nov. 2.

This article originally appeared in Volume 46, Issue 4, published October 21, 2025.