Meet the Five Candidates Running for Mayor of Oakville

Oakville picks a mayor on Monday, October 26, and five names sit on that line of the ballot: Rob Burton, Arvind Choudhary, Julia Hanna, Jeff Knoll and Sean O'Meara. All five answered the same set of questions for Inside Halton, in their own words, covering who they are, how long they have lived here and what they would do first.

Burton is the incumbent, with 20 years as mayor and 32 years living in Oakville, across Glen Abbey, Eastlake and College Park. He wants tax increases kept in line with inflation, another community centre in north Oakville, the Bronte waterfront and the Bronte and Kerr Village streetscapes finished, and the Province's 38 storey Midtown proposal brought to council to accept or reject.

Knoll has held elected office since 2000, represents Ward 5 and has chaired the Halton Police Board since 2020. He founded Film.Ca Entertainment in 1998, and his platform is about matching growth with the infrastructure, transit, schools and parks that come with it, plus a broader business tax base so residential taxes are not the only lever. O'Meara was first elected in Ward 1 in 2014 and chaired the town's budget committee. He opposes strong mayor powers and the Midtown proposal, and wants a lobbyist registry and a moratorium on AI data centres.

Hanna owns the restaurant Ritorno and founded the food education non profit HealthyFam, and this is her third run. In 2022 she finished 886 votes behind the incumbent, taking 19,063 votes, or 47.06 per cent. She would start with a review of the proposed 2027 budget, put infrastructure ahead of growth and oppose large AI data centres. Choudhary is the one candidate who has never held elected office. He is an executive at a Canadian credit bureau, has lived in Glen Abbey for seven years, and is promising a freeze on the town share of property taxes for 2027, a pause on high density permits in Midtown, and 5,000 jobs in medical, tech and clean tech instead of data centres.

Midtown and data centres turn up in all five platforms. Inside Halton ran the same questionnaire for candidates in each of Oakville's seven wards and for school board trustees.