Meet Waterloo region’s new chair, Scott Davey

Ontario's Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Rob Flack, announced today the heads of the regional councils across the province. Now, for Waterloo region, that person is Scott Davey. Now, last municipal election, Davey was re-elected to his fifth term as Ward 1 councillor. Here's what he has to say about the new role he's getting into. It is a lot of work, I'm not going to lie, but some of the work that we do at the city council level is elective. As an example, I could do a lot in terms of being finance chair and I sit on various committees. That's certainly not required. We do it as part of the extras of the role. So I will be obviously stepping away from some of those things to focus more on my regional work. But I can certainly do the key work of city council at the same time. It's not uncommon to have the dual role. As an example, the mayor is the mayor of the city of Kitchener, but he also sits on regional council as a councillor. So you do have to wear two hats and represent them equally. And Scott, you're also coming in without any regional council experience. I mean, you've obviously sat on city council for a few terms now, but not on regional council, which is a different beast, similar but different. So how... How are you preparing for this role? Similar but different is a really good way of putting it. So obviously in my 16 years of municipal council experience, there has been a lot of insight into regional operations and how the region works. Having said that, the way that I would operate, and I think frankly any good person, whether you're a politician or a staff person, the first thing I'm going to be doing is listening and learning in the role. So it's going to take me quite a while to... to come to grips with all the information that I don't have, as well as meeting with all of my council colleagues to see what their priorities are and where our city staff are. The only other thing I would add that I think is really important is I wouldn't want folks to think that I'm taking both salaries. I'm very, you know, fiscally prudent myself, so I don't think that would be becoming so I'm not sure if it's been made clear, but I will only be collecting, like effectively I'm going to leave the regional chair. Position, I will not be collecting any salary at the city council level. That will be a job that I'm doing just because of the commitment that I made to do it.