By Derek Vanderlee
NIAGARA FALLS, Ont. — Voters across Niagara Region go to the polls Monday in municipal elections shaped by summer flooding, rising costs and rapid growth, and in Niagara Falls a longtime mayor is asking for one more term to finish what he started.
Five candidates are running for mayor of Niagara Falls: incumbent Jim Diodati, two-term councillor Lori Lococo, entrepreneur and former police officer Paul Manning, Michael Lucid and Kevin Martineau, CHCH News reported.
‘This last term’
Diodati, in office for 16 years, says a fifth term would be his last. “I need this last term to finish all the things that I have started,” he said, pointing to the new hospital, which still needs $25 million in local fundraising, and GO train service he wants expanded from three trains a day to hourly.
On public safety, he said, “I don’t support decriminalizing street drugs, I don’t support safe injection sites or needle exchanges. I believe you need treatment.”
Lococo said she would rebuild the budget from the ground up and press Queen’s Park on the cost of tourism growth. “If we are going to be expanding another 12 million visitors to come here, the questions are, who is going to pay for that infrastructure, who is going to pay for the roads and the sewers?” she said.
Manning called for “a full audit of city finances — find out where the money is going.”
What voters say
An informal CBC Niagara survey of 230 residents found municipal infrastructure was the most-cited issue, followed by cost of living, property taxes and city budgets, homelessness and encampments, and housing affordability, CBC reported. CBC described the survey as non-scientific.
In St. Catharines, millwright Rodrigo Bocardo said drug use and homelessness downtown have made the area feel less safe. “The safety of the most vulnerable should be a priority,” he said.
Michael Frainman, who moved to Niagara Falls in 2019 after being priced out of Toronto and because his family wanted to be closer to the border, said the downtown near the GO station needs more density. “It’s been a very rough spell where businesses are lucky to stick around longer than a year on that strip,” he said.
Why Buffalo is watching
Niagara Falls, Ont., and its American twin share a river, a tourism economy and the Rainbow Bridge. Plans to draw millions more visitors to the Canadian side will shape traffic at the crossings and competition for the tourists who split their time between the two cities.
Advance voting at Niagara Falls City Hall ran through Friday. Polls open Monday, Oct. 26.
Results will be posted on the city’s website, niagarafalls.ca. “Anyone going to the website at 8:00pm when the polls close on October 26th will be taken directly to the election results page,” City Clerk Bill Matson said in an email to The Buffalo Chronicle.
“Advance Polls will start coming in shortly after 8:00pm. The remaining polls will start coming in shortly thereafter. All of the unofficial results will likely be known by 10:00pm on Election Night,” Matson said. “As the City Clerk and Returning Officer, I will likely be able to certify the results of the election by Tuesday October 27, 2026.”
The Buffalo Chronicle has requested comment from the Diodati and Lococo campaigns on cross-border tourism and bridge traffic.
Updated October 24, 2026: This story was updated to include comment from Niagara Falls City Clerk Bill Matson.
Leave a Reply