Subject: A Working-Class Reality: From the Heart of a Worker to the Guelph Labour Council
To the Executive Board and Affiliated Members of the Guelph and District Labour Council (GDLC),
I am writing this open letter to you today not because I am seeking your official political endorsement, nor because I want to check a box on a campaign questionnaire. I am writing this simply to state the facts, worker-to-worker, straight from my heart.
Many candidates will stand before you this month making calculated political promises to win your backing. But as union members, you know that true solidarity isn’t built on slick campaign rhetoric designed to win an election—it is forged through shared experience on the shop floor and real action on the ground.
I am not a career bureaucrat, a corporate professional, or an establishment insider trying to speak your language. I am an actual, lifelong member of the working class, and I want you to know exactly where I stand.
1. Living the Working-Class Reality
My opponents read about labour struggles in textbooks, academic papers, and council agendas. I lived them. I spent years performing grueling, heavy-industrial labour shifts in steel mills and foundries. Today, I work on the front lines of our local economy as an overnight night auditor and block security guard on Carden and Macdonell streets. I know exactly what it means to work a grueling night shift, to deal with public safety crises firsthand on the pavement, and to watch a paycheck stretch thinner every single month as costs skyrocket.
2. A Lifetime of Action and Volunteer Service
My commitment to the people of Guelph didn’t start when I registered to run for office. For decades, my life has been defined by grassroots service, showing up where our community needs it most:
- On the Front Lines of Poverty: Volunteering directly at the Royal City Mission, working hand-in-hand with our unhoused and most vulnerable neighbours.
- Serving on numerous Board of Directors; including tri-Pride and FM 98.5 CKWR community and multicultural radio station.
- Supporting Healthcare: Participating in the Tour de Guelph to raise critical funds for our local hospital.
- Building Community and Culture: Giving my time to the Guelph Jazz Festival to support the arts, and volunteering at Ribfest to generate essential resources for local community groups and the Chalmers Community Services Centre.
- International Solidarity: Leading and participating in international humanitarian trips to Southeast Asia and Central America, working alongside working-class families globally to build infrastructure and support community health.
3. Solidarity Through Personal Sacrifice
We have all watched in frustration as sitting politicians attempted voting to grant themselves a massive 33% salary increase, even while telling front-line workers and ordinary citizens to tighten their belts. I refuse to profit off public service while working-class families in Ward 2 line up at food banks just to eat.
That is why I have made a binding commitment: I will transfer the vast majority of my City Council salary directly to local food banks like The SEED and Chalmers Community Services. True working-class leadership means standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the community, not enriching oneself at the taxpayers’ expense.
4. Independence from Corporate and Developer Influence
To truly represent workers, a leader must be completely independent of corporate influence. While other candidates in this race accept hundreds or thousands of dollars from wealthy landowners, corporate executives, and big-money developers, I have placed a strict $25 cap on all individual campaign donations. My campaign cannot be bought by the corporate interests driving up housing costs and squeezing Guelph’s working class. I answer strictly to ordinary citizens and rank-and-file workers.
5. Protecting Public Services and Front-line Dignity
As a professional auditor, my platform is built on cutting top-heavy management, eliminating bloated executive administration, and halting the use of expensive external private consultants. Every dollar saved by auditing the city’s books will be used to protect public services and ensure fair, negotiated wages for front-line union workers, including our underpaid paramedics and CUPE locals.
Furthermore, I am actively championing immediate municipal action to install public washrooms at Guelph Central Station. This is a fundamental health, safety, and dignity requirement for our transit workers and commuters alike, and it is a failure of the current establishment that it has not yet been resolved.
A Matter of Fact
Whether your Council chooses to endorse a candidate in this race or not does not change who I am or what I stand for. I am offering Ward 2 a historic alternative: a chance to elect an authentic, blue-collar worker who has the professional auditing skills to fix the city’s financial deficit without crushing the people who keep Guelph moving.
Alec Purves
Candidate for City Council, Ward 2 (St. George’s)
alecpurves2026.com