Written by Kieran Delamont, Associate Editor, London Inc.

To the left, to the left...

Voters went with four more years of Josh on Monday night, re-electing the incumbent mayor by a comfortable margin over primary challenger Susan Stevenson. The election mostly returned a status quo council, with ten incumbents returning (including Morgan) and only one councillor, Ward 3’s Peter Cuddy, failing to win his seat back. “For me, it’s like — year five is starting, and we can’t slow down,” Morgan said, speaking to The London Free Press after the election results came in. “People continue to want to see action on homelessness and … people are looking for more affordability in our city.” In the waning days of the campaign, Morgan made a downtown-focused campaign promise to use $1 million each year from London’s hotel tax fund to help pay for a new $10-million fund to implement the city’s new downtown plan approved earlier this year. “We need to do more in our downtown,” he said before election day. “That’s why we supported the downtown plan, that’s why we’re committed to funding it and that’s why this is a really important step forward for the future of downtown in the city.”

The upshot: As in many other major cities in Ontario, voters opted mostly for the status quo, or put another way, to give the councils they elected back in 2022 another four years of time to implement their agendas. Many of these councils elected in 2022 have sought to tackle large structural problems that were identified in the post-Covid era — housing being the biggest, but also trying to think about transit, infrastructure, industrial planning and growth more generally. Downtown London is kind of a perfect example: councillors and city staff spent years working on a new downtown plan that sought to rethink how to govern downtown in an era of hybrid work, high housing costs and relationships with a provincial government that has been lukewarm at times. All of which is to say, there’s not a huge reason to believe Morgan’s focus and approach with council in his next term will be all that different from what we saw over the last term. What will be interesting to watch unfold are the political and business leanings of rookie councillors Tom Cull, Ben Durham, Jason King and Jonathan Sher. With the mostly pro-business and pro-development stances of Susan Stevenson, Peter Cuddy, Steve Hillier and Jerry Pribil now gone, we may see the right/left balance on council shift somewhat. 

Read more: CBC News London | London Free Press

London still without a deal to cut development charges

While cities across Ontario have been announcing deals with upper levels of government to cut development charges, London is still working out the terms of its own, according to a new report from CTV News London. The money is set to come from an $8.8-billion federal-provincial program that pays cities that agree to cut development charges (the fees on new construction that cover roads, sewers and so on) by 30 to 50 per cent for at least three years. Mayor Josh Morgan said city hall recently had to send in part of its application again. “We’ve gotten some feedback,” Morgan said. “We need to do a resubmission of some part of [the application]. I can’t talk about the details because that’s a confidential discussion with the [provincial] government, but we’re ready to participate in the program. We’ve just got to work out the terms.” Builders would like to know when. “It’s something our industry [and] our members are asking about on a weekly basis, wondering when is the development charge reduction program going to happen in London?” said Jared Zaifman, CEO of the London Home Builders’ Association. “We were obviously very supportive of the city putting forward a submission to that program and we are constantly trying to speak with both the province and the city to say, where’s this at?”

The upshot: London’s not as far behind as the news would make it sound, and Morgan noted in the CTV article that no actual payment transfer agreements have been signed with some of the other cities (St. Thomas included) that have struck deals to slash DCs. That said, the opaque nature of the negotiations — much of them done in-camera at city hall — leaves the public without much sense of what the hold up is. One former councillor, Sandy Levin, speculated the delay might come down to which infrastructure projects the city proposed behind closed doors and what the upper levels of government came back with. “The hard thing to figure out is what’s on the table? This was presented in-camera, which was really interesting because the original proposal was very public,” Levin said. “So it seems likely that London didn’t get what it asked for, and that has required some additional negotiations.”

Read more: CTV News London

Best Places to Work 2026

London’s Best Places to Work for 2026 have been announced. This annual ranking, produced by London Inc. and Ahria Consulting, shines the spotlight on 12 local organizations whose employees rate them as exceptional.

The Best Places to Work are broken in three different employer size categories: Small Business (10 to 19 employees); Medium Business (20 to 80 employees); and Large Business (greater than 80 employees).

The 2026 Best Places to Work roster mirrors the city’s diverse economic landscape. Organizations hail from a range of industries, including professional services, technology, law, marketing and non-profit. But they are all tied together by a common value: They create supportive, collegial and empowering workplaces.

Click here to view the Best Places to Work 2026

Downtown game store Mana Lounge to expand

The owner of downtown game store on Dundas Street has purchased a neighbouring building and is gutting it as he prepares to expand. Jeff Evans, owner of Mana Lounge and Mana Pinball (a separate business), bought the building at 250 Dundas Street earlier in the year and is now in full renovation mode, with plans to expand Mana Lounge (a store he calls a “one-stop shop for nerd stuff”) to nearly 4,500 square feet of space, once the two units are combined. “We routinely sell out on our big game nights,” Evans told CBC News London, noting they have a particularly strong turnout for Magic: The Gathering nights. “We’ve really been wanting to expand. My vision for the Mana Lounge is to make it the place in Ontario to play Magic: The Gathering.” The building at 250 Dundas has been empty since Charminar, an Indian restaurant, closed in 2024. Evans said he tentatively expects the new space to be open by late November. Evans also operates a second Mana Lounge in Strathroy.

The upshot: With a lot of election attention paid to asking what politicians will or won’t do to revitalize downtown, ultimately it does come down to entrepreneurs like Evans and businesses like Mana Lounge to actually turn things around. “Downtown London has so much potential,” Evans said. “The work we’ve done at Dundas Street, it’s beautiful. Long-term, it’s definitely going to be an amazing spot.” He said that with ongoing downtown intensification in terms of housing projects, it’s an opportunity for retail and recreation businesses to offer core residents something to do. “You see all the buildings popping up all over, those people will need things to go out and do. Offering something where people can come out and play, meet other people, build a community — I think that’s a great thing for downtown.” While Evans didn’t mention them specifically, the city has been offering a number of incentive programs, including a vacant commercial space grant and a façade improvement loan program, that are meant to support small businesses making better use of vacant downtown commercial space. 

Read more: CBC News London

Western starts training physician assistants

Twenty-eight students have started studying at Western’s new master of physician assistant studies (MPAS) program, a new graduate program announced earlier this year. Western says the two-year program is the first graduate-level physician’s assistant program in Ontario. The first year covers medical foundations and clinical skills, while the second year covers clinical rotations around London and Southwestern Ontario. Jack Strong, one of the incoming students, worked in patient management at an Ontario hospital and said that’s what got him interested. “You see how many people are waiting for care and the pressure that puts on healthcare teams,” he said. “It reinforced my interest in a career where I can work directly with patients and help make a difference.” As the incoming students received their stethoscope, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry dean Dr. John Yoo proffered a bit of wisdom: “The stethoscope is a relatively simple instrument, but I believe it is one of the most powerful symbols in medicine. It requires you to listen. Not just to heartbeats or breath sounds, but to the human story behind every patient you care for.”

The upshot: Western announced the launch of this new program earlier in the year, noting that physician assistants, commonly known as PAs, are in high demand across Canada, with a number of healthcare organizations pitching them as a solution to help the strained system. “Across our region, hospitals and clinics are trying to recruit physician assistants, but there simply aren’t enough graduates to meet the demand,” said Western’s Dr. Josee Paradis when the school announced the program. In recent years, groups like the Ontario College of Family Physicians have called on governments to boost the training resources available for PAs, arguing they would help ease some of the burden on primary care physicians. “In a study evaluating the efficacy of PA utilization in Canada, around 95 per cent of physicians working with PAs said that having a PA in their clinic allowed them to increase the number of patients seen per day and improve clinic efficiency overall,” reads a 2024 article by PA Leora Goldreich. “Despite their proven value, PAs continue to face barriers, including limited recognition, regulatory challenges and sustainable funding models.” 

Read more: Western News

U.S.-based Lynden Door breaks ground on new Aylmer plant

A U.S. door manufacturing company, Lynden Door, broke ground on a new residential door plant in Aylmer last week. The new plant is expected to bring 60 to 100 new jobs to the area, according to Aylmer chief administrative officer Andy Grozelle, who added the jobs might be “phased in over several years.” The company already has a presence in the region, having opened an Alliance Door Products distribution branch in St. Thomas back in 2022. “This investment is about more than manufacturing. It is about people. We are not simply building a facility in Aylmer. We want to become part of Aylmer,” said John Ridder, president of Alliance Door Products Canada, at a recent groundbreaking event. “Our goal is to have this new facility operational in the fall of 2027, manufacturing residential door products for customers throughout Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada. It will complement our existing manufacturing and distribution operations throughout Western Canada and the Prairies.” No dollar figure has been put on the plant, although CTV News London reported in August that Lynden Door had paid more than $4 million for the land in Aylmer’s AIM Industrial Park.

The upshot: Lynden Door has had expansion plans in the region for a while, according to a report in the Aylmer Express. Ridder told the publication the company has been seeing growing demand in central and eastern Canada and had been eyeing a number of other municipalities, including Woodstock, Ingersoll, Tillsonburg and Brantford, initially looking for an existing plant to buy before settling on a plan to build a new factory in Aylmer. “We appreciated meeting with the economic development directors/managers in each municipality to learn more about each community,” he sa8d. “It stood out to us that Aylmer and Elgin County had done some real research to what the community needs going forward including attracting new businesses as well as providing appropriate housing stock to support community growth.” 

Read more: St. Thomas Today | Aylmer Express

Dispatch: October 30, 2026

A summary of recent business appointments and announcements, plus event listings for the upcoming week.

View listings here

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