Saturday, July 25, 2026

First-term Ward 10 Councillor Jeff Beattie is still a candidate, but now in a different election.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario (PCPO) announced on Friday that Beattie is the party’s candidate in the upcoming Hamilton East–Stoney Creek byelection.

If elected, Beattie will serve out the remainder of the term following the retirement announcement by Progressive Conservative Member of Provincial Parliament Neil Lumsden.

The day prior to the PCPO announcement, the Ontario Liberal Party appointed Heino Doessing as their candidate.

Lumsden’s retirement was expected within political circles. Doessing has been door knocking during the past few months in preparation for the byelection.

The byelection voting day is expected to be Thursday, September 3, 2026.

Also on Friday, Beattie officially withdrew his nomination filing for the Ward 10 council seat. The municipal nomination deadline is August 21, meaning if Beattie does not win his MPP bid, he cannot jump back into the city council race.

The City of Hamilton has issued notice that City Council will hold a special Planning Committee meeting on Tuesday August 25, 2026, to render a decision an Official Plan Amendment application filed by the Elfrida Community Builders Group Inc to establish a Secondary Plan for the 2,897 acres area of Upper Stoney Creek which they hope to add to Hamilton’s urban boundary.

Immediately following the Planning Committee meeting, there will be a Special City Council meeting to ratify the committee decision. It is expected that City Council will deny the Secondary Plan application. Following this, the Elfrida group is expected to file an appeal to the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT).

The group’s privately initiated urban boundary expansion application is before the OLT with the Phase II hearings scheduled to begin on January 18, 2027. This provides time for the OLT to merge an expected Secondary Plan appeal into this hearing.

Phase I of the hearing was a separate hearing for the OLT to hear evidence from proponents of urban boundary expansions regarding why they believe the OLT should overturn Hamilton’s urban boundary freeze. The Phase I hearing ran for two weeks beginning on April 13, 2026.

The decision has not yet been issued.