Five questions with Paul Quinnell, candidate for Perth council in the 2026 municipal election

Editor’s note: To help voters to be better informed, Lanarkist will be asking the same five questions of all council candidates in Carleton Place, Smiths Falls, Perth and Mississippi Mills in advance of the municipal election, which will be held on Monday, Oct. 26, 2026. Questions were sent to all candidates on Sept. 4, 2026. We will publish their responses as we receive them. Below are the responses from candidate Paul Quinnell. View a full roundup of all our Perth municipal coverage here.

1) Tell us a little bit about your professional background, including any prior municipal or other political participation, as well as about you, personally. What made you want to run for council?

I live on Garden Avenue with my wife Jessica and our daughter. I moved to Canada in 2015. Perth was the first place we settled and called home. We lived here on and off while we built a new life, and eventually we bought a house here. Perth holds my wife’s family history but my family’s future.

I grew up in social housing in a small English market town surrounded by orchards, hop gardens and farmland. I watched it grow into a busy urban area. Nobody in that town was asked whether they wanted it. It arrived, and then the bills arrived, and the people who had lived there longest carried most of them.

Over a 20-year career in England and in Canada, my work has been about helping people succeed. I have helped at-risk youth find a career. I have worked on reducing an area’s crime rate by using sport as a youth diversion activity. I have helped students who had been written off by others.

I have never held municipal office and I have never sat on a Town committee. I am currently a member of the Liberal Party of Canada, served as a director at large on the federal riding association and volunteered on the last federal campaign. That is the whole of my political experience, and it is not the same thing as knowing this Town’s files. So I have gone through the 2026 budget by-law, the Official Plan, the new zoning by-law and the Asset Management Plan.

I am running because Perth is growing and the question of who it is growing for is not being asked often enough. Growth is not the enemy. People need homes, and somebody has to build them. But when a development goes in, the gains tend to be private and the costs tend to be shared.

2) How would you describe your personal political ideology and/or affiliation?

Municipal candidates in Ontario do not run under party labels, and no party has any standing in this race. I am not asking anyone to vote on that basis.

Since the question is asked directly, I am currently a member of the Liberal Party of Canada and a director at large on the federal riding association. Personally, I sit to the left of that. I am a socialist in the ordinary meaning of the word. I believe collective effort produces collective wealth, and that the wealth should come back to the people whose effort made it.

At a council table, that is less abstract than it sounds. It comes down to who carries the cost of a decision and whether that is fair to the people already here. Most of what a councillor votes on is not ideological anyway. It is sequencing, procurement, and whether the number in front of you is real.

3) What are the three most common issues voters bring up to you as you campaign?

The cost of living. Not in the abstract. Tax bills, water rates and user fees, and whether people feel they are getting value back for them.

Growth. Almost nobody I speak to is against new housing. What they ask is where the water and sewage capacity is coming from, what happens to the streets they already avoid, and whether services will arrive at the same time as the houses.

Being heard. People tell me consultation arrives after the decision is effectively made, and that a straight answer is hard to get.

4) What three issues are most pressing/important to address locally in your opinion?

Sequencing. The new comprehensive zoning by-law, adopted on Aug. 20, 2026, sets what gets built and where for years. Whether services, roads and capacity are lined up before approvals rather than after is the biggest thing this council controls.

Development charges. They exist so the cost of new roads, pipes and capacity sits with the growth that creates it. If those charges come down, someone still pays. Any reduction should be tied to confirmed funding from another source, in writing, before the vote.

Climate resilient infrastructure. This is about avoided cost, not ideology. The Strategic Plan commits the Town to adaptation. The Asset Management Plan does not price it in. That gap is a repair bill arriving later, and closing it now is cheaper than replacing assets early.

I would add recreation and youth as a fourth if I had the room. It is where my working life has been, and it is not a soft issue in a town growing this fast.

5) What do you feel sets you apart from other candidates?

My platform is published and sourced. Every claim in it traces to a by-law number, an Official Plan section or a line in the budget. Voters can check my work at paulforperth.ca. I would rather be argued with on the evidence than agreed with on a slogan.

I will not promise things council cannot deliver. Perth does not build housing. It does not run the hospital or set rents. I will advocate hard on those files, and I will say plainly which lever is ours and which is not. That distinction is the difference between a councillor who is useful and one who is loud.

And I intend to show up. Every meeting, every vote, and a straight answer afterwards on how I voted and why.