Taxes up. Services down.
It doesn't have to be this way.

A city that calls you back, respects your tax dollar, and invests in what you count on.

The next four years will decide what your ward feels like in 2030. More than seven thousand new student beds are in the housing pipeline. The tree bylaw has to work in practice, not just on paper. And tax bills are running well ahead of wages.

Jon Christensen grew up going to school in Ward 5. Every school he attended sits inside it: University Village PS, College Avenue PS, Centennial CVI (Go Spartans), and the University of Guelph. This is the ward he knows best, and the neighbours he wants to go to work for.

He's running to do the careful operational work those decisions need, and to keep Guelph's rising costs from squeezing your family.

Why Jon's running Get involved

Jon Christensen, candidate for Ward 5 on Guelph City Council

What Ward 5 needs

Where the work starts

Ward 5 is unlike any other ward in Guelph: the University, the historic Old University neighbourhood, Stone Road Mall, Hanlon Creek, Village by the Arboretum, Campus Estates, and Mayfield Park, all at once. The next councillor will sit on years of decisions about how our community changes, and how it stays the same.

Accountability: a city that calls you back

One resident waited about ten years for a sidewalk repair. 142 more are still waiting. Jon's office replies within two business days, and every request gets an answer, a timeline, and a follow-up.

Respect for your tax dollar

Before a dollar is spent: what it's for, how it's measured, and when someone reports back. Nothing gets a pass. Jon won't promise a zero increase, because nobody honest can.

Invest in what matters

Snow on a schedule. Sidewalks fixed, not painted. Trail crossings paid for by the City's own railway. Housing on the main roads, not in established neighbourhoods.

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Background

The work behind the candidate

Twenty years of operations work: running restaurants at scale, a Guelph-based technology company, a Guelph-Wellington social-services board he chairs, a downtown small business he and his wife run. All of it has been the same job, basically: figuring out how complicated systems can serve the people inside them.

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Jon Christensen and his wife Jaime, who run a small business together in downtown Guelph

Co-founder

Bidmii: a Guelph-based technology company

In 2020, Jon co-founded Bidmii, a marketplace and platform for home renovation. Homeowners' payments are held in trust and released milestone by milestone as work is completed. That's the model that quietly puts scam artists out of work. A major funding round was led by Scott McGillivray (HGTV, U of G alum). The company graduated Google for Startups Accelerator Canada in 2023, and the same year Jon was named Most Philanthropic CEO at the Tech4Giving Awards, the recognition by Tech for SickKids. Because it holds funds in trust, Bidmii is also regulated by the Bank of Canada as a registered Payment Service Provider.

Five-plus years on the board, three as chair

Hopewell Support Services

Hopewell supports children, youth, and adults with developmental disabilities, plus their families, across Guelph-Wellington. Over five years on the board, the last three as chair, Jon and his fellow directors learned the funding system inside and out, threaded the needle inside an existing provincial bureaucracy to put the organization on sustainable footing, and today it's growing: a new home opened in Ward 5 this April, more in the pipeline alongside the City of Guelph and County of Wellington, and people actively coming off the waitlist.

Small business owners

Firehouse Subs, then The Ten Spot

Jon and his wife opened a Firehouse Subs in Guelph's south end before the pandemic. When things got hard, they kept the doors open because their employees were breadwinners for their families. They sold the business on a high note and now own The Ten Spot downtown. They know what running a business in this city takes, and how municipal decisions like tearing up the downtown for years on end land on the small businesses that pay the rent.

On the ground