A neighbour who has been doing the math.
For the last few years Mike Parker has been digging into Langley budgets, capital plans, and development files — publishing what he finds so residents can see it too.
I'm Mike Parker. I live in the Township of Langley with my family and, like a lot of you, I've watched the cost of living here march steadily upward while the things that make a community livable haven't kept up.
I write the Mike Parker Substack and contribute to Strong Towns Langley, focused on local governance, housing, and infrastructure. My focus is on incentives, fiscal sustainability, and how well-intended decisions create long-term risks.
That work uncovered things residents deserve to know: a $120-million off-balance-sheet loan that helped kill the Willoughby rec centre, $177M in borrowing folded into the 2026 capital budget, and a pattern of cutting corners on development that ends up costing new buyers more, not less.
I'm not running because I want a title. I'm running because somebody on council needs to read the footnotes, ask the hard questions, and tell residents the truth about what their tax dollars are actually buying.