Kincardine Mayor Kenneth Craig in his official photo, wearing the Chain of Office. (Photo via the Municipality of Kincardine)
Kincardine’s mayor is looking forward to the new year with hope for upcoming projects and the potential for community growth.
Kenneth Craig said that one highlight of 2025 came thanks to council’s direction, to improve how the Municipality of Kincardine is working toward better communication with residents through improved information sessions, akin to small-scale town hall meetings, called Municipal Matters.
“There was a lot of discussion how in this day and age to improve the way and the manner and the timeliness that we communicate,” he explained in a phone interview with Bayshore News. “Council adopted a really comprehensive set of standards for timely information sharing and… how to make sure our community, our public has great opportunity to engage in the conversation. Governments these days are always trying to be as transparent and professional as we can be.”
He also said that looking back, he’s proud of the commitment made to the much-needed renovations to local community facilities, including the Tiverton Sports Centre, the Whitney Crawford Arena, and the Davidson Centre.
“Certainly in the 2025 budget, we had proposed some significant investment in our recreation facilities. So the Tiverton Sports Centre, for instance, there was… around a million dollars invested in it this summer, upgrading the boards, and the glass, and all the safety aspects of the arena itself just to ensure that it’s a safe [facility] and it’s a facility that will last a significant time into the future,” he said, adding, “Kincardine’s Davidson Centre celebrated it’s 50th anniversary this year… we hosted the Toronto Maple Leaf alumni in September, and we had a great celebration with the foresight of our previous councils. Fifty years ago, they said that it was something we need, and it’s by far the busiest facility in our municipality over the year, absolutely.”
A challenge that came up for municipalities over 2025 is mainly focused on changes the Blue Box program, and many are wondering what it means for residential users.
“There’s some great opportunities for residential users of the Blue Box program to include much, much more into their curbside collection schedule,” he said.
But he added that the lack of service for commercial and institutional organizations is the cause for some concern going forward.
“It is unfortunate that the provincial government didn’t think through that just a little bit, but certainly Kincardine is working hard to provide options so that we recycle as effectively as we can, and save our landfill at the same time.”
As for what is on the horizon for 2026, Craig said that he’s looking forward to growth opportunities, particularly centred around the proposed expansion for Bruce Power. The project would not only expand production for the energy company, but would also come with and increased workforce, and therefore, the potential for an increase in the municipality’s population.
“As the proud host community of Bruce Power, we are still heavily involved in the pre-planning for any proposed construction or expansion. We are very hopeful that the provincial government will deem this as a great site. We believe it is, and so we are supportive and working cooperatively. We’re glad to do the work, but it takes a lot of work for a host community to be prepared for an expansion like this. We work in cooperation with Bruce County and our neighbouring communities as well. It’s not just us that’s affected, it’s the broader region, but there are some specific responsibilities that the host community has, so we are preparing as best we can.”
Those preparations, he added, are not only to plan for the future, but to preserve the past and not lose sight of what makes the Municipality of Kincardine unique.
“As a community grows and expands, you have to be careful that you preserve things that made it great to begin with. And that’s what we’re working on. We’re working on the past, and the present and the future all at one time.”