Photo by Josie Vallier/Kingstonist.
After a dozen years in the big chair, Kingston Mayor Bryan Paterson isn’t sure what his political future holds heading into a municipal election year.
City Hall’s longest serving mayor said he’ll be taking time to rest and reflect over the holiday season before deciding whether to seek a fourth term as mayor.
“That’s a decision that I will look to make probably early on in 2026,” Paterson said in a wide-ranging year-end interview with Kingstonist.
Though Kingston’s 96th mayor calls it “the best job I’ve ever had,” he stated his motivation on whether to seek re-election in October 2026 will be based on both the challenges and opportunities that are ahead for the City.
As 2025 winds down, City Hall has certainly faced its share of challenges, from the ongoing homeless situation to fighting an unwanted trade war.
Paterson stated bluntly that U.S. tariffs have taken a toll on the local economy and thwarted new investment.
“It’s definitely paralyzed some investment. There were a number of companies that were ready to locate here and bring new jobs and investment. This tariff craziness has definitely held a lot of that back,” he said.
Paterson was hesitant to provide specifics about what types of businesses have pulled back planned investments in Kingston over the past year. He said anything to do with the manufacturing sector that involves steel or aluminum, with both sectors suffering under the weight of U.S. tariffs, have been impacted, including local employers like Novelis Kingston.
The mayor said the City’s revised strategy has been to focus on helping the businesses already here, pointing to support for companies like SnapCab Canada, a Kingston-based maker of custom workspace pods that broke ground in June on an 18,000 square foot addition to its manufacturing plant on Railway Street.
Council also passed motions endorsing ‘Shop Local’ policies, while adopting a ‘Buy Canadian’ emphasis when it comes to awarding lucrative municipal contracts.
“We’ve had to pivot, but I believe that this too shall pass,” Paterson said of the tariff war.
Kingston Mayor Bryan Paterson speaks at the ribbon cutting for RXN Hub on Monday, Oct. 20, 2025. Photo by Bill Hutchins/Kingstonist.Housing & homelessness
Paterson said affordable housing and homelessness also remained among his top priorities over the past year.
“This continues to be probably the toughest issue that I have ever seen, municipally. It’s incredibly complex and challenging. Every individual is unique and we are trying to meet those needs, and to help people find a pathway out of homelessness.”
The mayor backed the purchase and conversion of the former Extendicare property on Queen Mary Road into a transitional housing, primary health care and community hub. It’s part of a broader strategy to decentralize transitional housing and emergency shelter beds and relocate some into the suburbs, including a new 35-bed facility set to open at 924 Sydenham Road, a decision that has left area residents concerned about their safety.
He pointed to past experience that shows concentrating too many shelter beds and supports in one area, primarily the downtown core, creates more problems for surrounding neighbourhoods than spreading them out.
Paterson said integrating more shelters and transitional housing into different pockets of the city is a better strategy, noting, “I don’t see us backing away from that.”
He also defended the multi-million dollar cost of assembling several trailers into a shelter at 924 Sydenham Road, rather than investing the money into more permanent housing.
The newly-assembled Sydenham Road Shelter, pictured here in early December 2025. Photo by Emily Wright/Kingstonist.
“Yes, there is a substantial price tag to this shelter we’re building on Sydenham Road, but it’s far less if we went to build something ourselves,” Paterson said.
He added: “This is probably, compared to other options and alternatives, more cost-effective and ultimately we’re just trying to make a dent in this challenging issue.”
On the push to build more rental housing in a city with a 2.4 per cent vacancy rate in 2025 (a three per cent rate is considered healthy), Paterson said Kingston is on track to exceed its provincially-set target for new housing starts for the third year in a row.
“I can say with 100 per cent certainty we’re going to exceed our provincial housing target yet again this year — probably one of the few cities in the province that have exceeded our housing target all three years that the province has been doing this,” he attested.
Kingston will record nearly 1,000 new housing starts in 2025 compared with the provincial target for Kingston of over 600, which will enable the City to receive another big incentive cheque from the province, he explained.
Paterson, who is a full-time mayor but continues to be a part-time teacher of economics at the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC), is keenly aware of the tall building activity taking place in the downtown core, and the controversy that high-rises may be crowding out heritage.
“If we want to see the heart of our downtown sustained, we need more people living, spending time, and spending money in the core. You cannot just rely on the tourist season,” the mayor stated.
Critics have complained the ‘sky’s the limit’ with many of council’s recent building approvals, but Paterson insisted Kingston planners and politicians are being careful with the heights and locations they approve, pointing to Queen Street as ideal for tall residential buildings, including more that are planned around a new conference centre on the North Block.
Corner view of the proposed conference centre and residential tower at Ontario and Queen Streets. Rendering via Patry Group.
“We’re still being very measured,” said Paterson. “There are certain places that we are contemplating taller buildings, but there are a lot of areas where we are not. I think we’ve got that balance right.”
Doctors & hospitals
Health care is another topic that dominated the business of the mayor and his council in 2025, both in time and money.
He said a $4 million municipal investment to recruit family doctors has paid off.
Taxpayer money should not be used to lure doctors to the city, but with more than 30,000 people on a waiting list for primary care a few years ago, council was forced to act, he added.
“It’s really unfortunate that, as a city, we had to step in and deal with this issue, because it’s a provincial health-care issue primarily. But when it gets to a crisis point like that, you just can’t look away,” Paterson expressed.
He said Kingston’s 30,000-plus waiting list for a doctor will soon be all but eliminated, and he blasted the province for pitting communities against each other in such a way that whichever municipality has the most incentive money is winning the doctor recruitment battle.
“It’s terrible. It’s absolutely ridiculous, and then you end up with communities having to outbid each other,” the mayor emphasized.
“This is a public health-care system. It blows my mind.”
Paterson called on the province to “carry the ball” the rest of the way to ensure residents have access to primary care.
He is also championing a new hospital complex to replace the aging Kingston General Hospital (KGH) and Hotel Dieu Hospital, with a bombshell plan announced in July to allocate up to 95 acres of land in the City-owned Clogg’s Road Business Park near the northwest corner of Gardiners Road and Creekford Road — about four times the size of Parliament Hill’s main grounds — for a future health complex to serve Kingston Health Sciences Centre (KHSC), which will be subject, of course, to future provincial support and funding.
Taxing year ahead
Looking ahead to the new year, Council will tackle the final budget of its term, now dubbed the Mayor’s Budget based on ‘Strong Mayor Powers’ given to Kingston.
To the likely chagrin of taxpayers struggling with daily life affordability, Paterson said he will propose a 2026 budget that will include a property tax increase, but stressed the hike won’t be as high as what other like-sized municipalities may impose.
“My commitment as mayor has been that in Kingston we would have one of the lowest property tax increases among similar-sized cities Ontario, and we’re going to hold to that again this year,” he said.
Paterson agreed cost of living is top of mind for residents, and was coy about what size of increase homeowners are facing: “I won’t give you the number yet. Stay tuned.”
He suggested the looming tax hike would be in the three-to-five per cent range, reflecting municipal cost pressures for public safety plus new investments in transitional housing, homelessness, and to embark on a much larger push to improve Kingston’s roads, a perennial sore point for drivers.
“Some of the roads have long needed some repair,” the mayor admitted.
Without identifying which streets will get a makeover in 2026, he added: “I am a commuter, too. We are going to see along the lines of what we did with Brock and Johnson Streets this summer.”
Capital spending on a new aquatics centre is also part of the mayor’s half-billion dollar operating budget, plus the separate capital budget, with three nights set aside in mid-January to discuss the tax-and-spend financial blueprint.
Planes, Trains, and…
Some of the mayor’s other priorities for the new year include finalizing plans for a conference centre across from Slush Puppie Place, approving a new Official Plan that looks to expand urban boundaries to allow for new housing growth, and improving Kingston’s air and rail transportation links.
He called it a “positive step” to recently launch a Kingston-to-Toronto shuttle bus for air travellers as a prelude to landing a long-awaited regional airline passenger service for YKG Airport.
“That’s how you build the business case back up to restoring air services,” Paterson said.
The Kingston to Toronto airport shuttle bus. Photo by Bill Hutchins/Kingstonist.
The mayor said meetings are also ongoing with VIA Rail to ensure Kingston’s rail service will improve, instead of the prospect of reduced service if VIA launches Montreal-Toronto express trains.
He also pointed to the City’s recent public survey that showed residents would take advantage of a late evening train service from Toronto to Kingston, and plans to lobby VIA to add that service based on the local survey results.
“It was tremendously positive. I think there’s a real opportunity there,” Paterson said.
Political ambitions?
No other mayor in Kingston’s history has served longer than Paterson, who has won four consecutive elections dating back to one term as councillor in 2010 followed by three consecutive terms as mayor starting in 2014.
Kingston’s first mayor, John Counter, won a total of eight elections, far more than Paterson, but the terms back in the mid-1800s lasted just one year. Now, they’re four years.
Last spring, Paterson took a five-week unpaid leave of absence from City Hall to run as a Conservative Party candidate in the spring federal election, touting “I know what it takes to win.”
Kingston Mayor Bryan Paterson addresses the crowd at the conservative rally in Kingston, before welcoming Pierre and Anaida Poilievre to speak. Photo by Pheonix Giroux/Kingstonist.
But the so-called ‘Battle of the Mayors’ marked Paterson’s first electoral defeat, as voters handily re-elected incumbent Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) and former Kingston mayor Mark Gerretsen.
Paterson, who turns 49 this coming year, is not ready to tip his hand about future political ambitions, including another run for higher office in Ottawa or Queen’s Park.
“I am not going to rule anything out at this point,” he said, adding: “You consider any opportunity that’s before you, and think about what’s best for the community.”
However, Paterson indicated civic politics would be his preference in the future: “My heart is very much at the municipal level.”
He also offered kind words for his Council colleagues, calling them the best group he’s ever worked with.
“Putting decisions about my own future aside, I hope the majority of councillors sitting at the table will put their names forward, because it’s been a great group to work with,” Paterson expressed.
Some of those councillors are rumoured to have their own sights on the mayor’s chair in 2026.
Mayor Bryan Paterson puts the mayoral Chain of Office on again on May 6, 2025, as he returned to Council Chamber for a meeting following a five-week leave of absence from his position while he ran in the federal election. Photos via Mayor Paterson’s Facebook page.