Ganesh for Ward 21
Uthish Ganesh for City Council

A New Scarborough Centre

A teacher who grew up here and is running to bring jobs, homes, safety and responsible transit to Ward 21.

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Uthish Ganesh
Homes for All Jobs in Scarborough Bring Back the Lane Homes for All Jobs in Scarborough Bring Back the Lane
Who he is

One of us,
fully focused on delivering.

Uthish Ganesh grew up in Scarborough Centre, in community housing, studied at the University of Toronto and Oxford University — then came back. Now he teaches History and English at a high school in the ward, coaches basketball, and has spent years running food programs and town halls for the people of Scarborough Centre.

He is running because the people here deserve a councillor who is one of them and fully focused on delivering the things they actually need.

Meet Uthish →
The platform

What your vote fights for.

Homes are not affordable. Ganesh will take on bad landlords, money-hungry developers, and fix how TCHC treats its tenants.

Homes for All

At the Golden Mile, roughly 35,000 new units are coming — and only 712 are called “affordable.” Many of those are 400 square feet for half a million dollars. That’s not affordable, and it’s not for us. Development in Scarborough has to put community at the centre — or it doesn’t get built.

See the plan
  • Rent-to-own, guaranteed: a share of every new development must be rent-to-own homes — we’re fighting for 4,000+ across the ward, so families can stay and own here.
  • Hire local: 30–40% of the workforce on every build — construction, security, maintenance — hired from within 3–5 km of the site. The dollar stays in Scarborough.
  • Train our future: every development mentors 5–10 high school co-op students every semester.
  • Build for the community: every project must deliver a real community benefit — a park, a pool, a playground, a gathering space. Check every box, or the answer is no.
  • Livable TCHC homes: every TCHC resident deserves livable conditions — we’ll enforce routine inspections and follow-up assessments so repairs actually happen.

Jobs in Scarborough

Scarborough is 25% of this city, but we don’t get our fair share — projects get greenlit everywhere but here, and our people commute out for work that should exist at home. More than a job: get paid, get skilled, get ahead — in Scarborough.

See the plan
  • 150 youth hired in the first 100 days: with real tracking of where they land next.
  • 1,000 youth jobs every summer while in office: a costed plan (about $1.16 million a year), modelled on Chicago’s youth employment program, subsidizing wages so local employers can hire local young people.
  • Local hiring rules in every development through Homes for All: Scarborough residents get priority in hiring for every role — security, construction, and maintenance.

Bring Back the Lane

After losing our transit line, Scarborough got painted red lanes as a “replacement.” That’s a slap in the face. A trip of less than five kilometres — Eglinton to Ellesmere — can now take half an hour, while the red lane sits empty beside you.

See the plan
  • Remove the Kennedy Road red bus lane: it’s the ward’s only artery to the 401, and it’s creating gridlock for drivers and riders alike.
  • Smarter existing lanes: remaining bus lanes will convert to carpool lanes during rush hours (6–10 a.m. and 3–6 p.m.) and open to everyone the rest of the day.
  • Express buses stay: they already skip stops — they don’t need their own painted lane to be fast.
See the full platform
Know your ward

Ward 21 is home to 111,560 people.

Three quarters of us are racialized. More than six in ten of us were born outside Canada. We speak Tamil, Arabic, Tagalog, Cantonese, Mandarin, Bengali, and Urdu at our kitchen tables.

In the last municipal election, roughly one in four of us voted.

That is a big problem — but also a big opportunity.

See who we are
The ask

This campaign is neighbour-funded.

Every dollar knocks on another door.

Eligible donors get up to 75% back from the City of Toronto, so your real cost is far lower than the amount you give.

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