Shumail Javed for Township Council

Because I’ve watched my own neighbourhood grow faster than the plan meant to support it. Five years in Willoughby has meant navigating sidewalks that stop halfway down a street, dealing with traffic that backs up at the same intersections every day, and infrastructure and bylaw enforcement that cannot keep pace with the number of people who now live here.

Those are more than daily frustrations. Each one tells a resident that nobody was thinking about them when the decision got made, and that is how trust wears away. I’m running to be a practical, forward-thinking voice at the table, and to help build a positive future for this Township, not only for this generation but for the ones that follow.

Willoughby is home, and it is where I chose to build my life. Over five years here I’ve come to know this community the way most people do: the businesses on the corner, the schools filling up, the events where you end up talking to a neighbour an hour longer than you meant to.

Most of my involvement has come through service. I’m a member of the Langley Sunrise Rotary Club, I fundraise for Langley Meals on Wheels and the Langley Hospital Foundation, and I sponsor mentorship programs for local children through Big Brothers Big Sisters of Langley. That work has taken me into a lot of corners of this Township, and it is where I learned what residents are actually dealing with.

So when a development comes forward two streets over, I’m not reading about a place on a map. I’m reading about the road my neighbours drive every morning.

Seven things I’ll push for at the Council table:

• Smart growth, properly planned. Development sequenced alongside the roads, sidewalks, utilities, parks and services it depends on, so neighbourhoods get finished rather than left waiting.
• Infrastructure that catches up to the population. A funded plan to close the gaps residents live with today, starting with the sidewalks, intersections and congestion points people raise most often.
• Responsible spending and open numbers. Clear reporting on debt and on what a project costs to operate once it opens, with every dollar tested against what households here are already paying.
• Genuine engagement with residents. Real consultation with enough time and plain information to respond, meetings scheduled when working people can attend, and an open account afterward of how that input shaped the decision.
• Transparent, accountable governance. Decisions made in the open, reports released before the vote instead of after it, and a Council that can explain its reasoning to anyone who asks.
• Bylaw and municipal services that keep pace. Enforcement and front-line services resourced for the size this Township has actually become, so residents get a response rather than a wait.
• Investment in youth and community life. Mentorship, recreation and community programs that give young people somewhere to belong, because that is what makes a fast-growing place feel like a community.

My experience is centered on technology, business and service.

As a technology executive, I have spent more than a decade making sure complex systems worked as expected, including leading test automation initiatives for the City of Burnaby. Burnaby is where I learned how a local government actually functions day to day: how a service reaches a resident, how procurement and delivery really work, and how a project that looks sound on paper runs into trouble in practice.

I’m now the founder of MaxQA Testing, a quality assurance and software testing consultancy serving clients in banking, telecommunications and the public sector. Running my own company taught me what running a business teaches everyone: every dollar comes from somewhere, and a plan you cannot pay for is not a plan.

I hold an MBA from Simon Fraser University’s Beedie School of Business, I completed a strategy program at INSEAD, and my first degree is a Bachelor of Science in computer science.

As for service. I’m a Rotarian and a member of the Langley Chamber of Commerce, and I’ve spent years fundraising and volunteering for organizations across this Township.

More than people expect, and I’ve already seen it from inside a municipality.

A local government this size runs on systems: permitting, procurement, infrastructure delivery, service requests, and budgets that have to hold up over years. My whole career, including at the City of Burnaby, has been about making sure large, complicated systems did what they were supposed to do, on time and within budget, and finding the weak point before it became a public problem.

The other half of my work is quality assurance in the plain sense of the phrase. Somebody has to ask whether the thing we built actually does what we told residents it would do, and what it will cost to run once it opens. That question gets asked too rarely, and I intend to be the person who asks it.

Because working alongside people who share the same commitments is more effective than working alone. This team agrees on the fundamentals: fiscal responsibility, transparent governance, orderly growth, and a stable future for our community.

What does not change is how I vote. Every member of this team keeps their own judgment on every item. I’ll read the full report, ask the uncomfortable question, and vote the way I believe serves residents.

Because the skills this job needs are the ones I use daily. Managing budgets and timelines, working with people who want different outcomes from the same decision, and being accountable when something does not go to plan. I’ve done that professionally for more than a decade, including for organizations where the public is the end user.

I’d also rather bring a fresh set of questions than a set of assumptions. I know what it is like to be the resident on the other side of a decision that was already made, because that has been my experience in Willoughby. That perspective isn’t a gap in my resume. It is a large part of why I’m running.

It is the simplest description of why I do any of this. Being a Rotarian is not about attending meetings. It is a commitment to show up for the community you live in, consistently, whether or not anyone is watching.

In practice that has meant raising the second-highest amount of funds at last year’s Grand Parade for Langley Meals on Wheels, supporting the Giving Hearts Gala for the Langley Hospital Foundation, championing the Immigrant Women Initiative, and sponsoring the 75 Doors Campaign, which creates mentorship pathways for children through Big Brothers Big Sisters of Langley. I want the same standard at Township Hall. Public office is service, not status.

It starts before the decision rather than after it. Every resident deserves to be heard before decisions are made, not once they are already settled. That means information written so a person can understand it, enough notice to form a view, meetings held at times working people and young families can attend, and a straight account afterward of what residents said and what changed because of it.

Residents can handle an answer they don’t like. What they cannot accept is being asked for input on something that was clearly decided already. That is the quickest way to lose a community’s trust and the slowest thing in the world to earn back.

I’ve watched growth happen from my own street, so I’ll say plainly that growth itself is not the problem. Growth without the plan to support it is.

Smart growth means the sidewalk, the road, the park and the service capacity are sequenced with the homes instead of promised for later. It means asking what a development will cost the Township to service for the next thirty years, not only what it delivers on the day it opens. And it means the people already living there get a real say in how their neighbourhood changes.

Reach out anyway, and bring the question. My commitment to you are open ears and a real conversation.

A good share of this job is simply making sure the important questions get asked out loud, in public, before the vote. If a resident took the time to raise something, the least Council can do is take the time to answer it properly.

Community work takes up a good share of it, and I’ve never thought of that as an obligation. Rotary, fundraisers, Chamber events and the mentorship programs I support are where I’ve met most of the people I know in Langley.

The rest is the ordinary business of living here: eating at the local restaurants, shopping at the businesses down the road, and turning up to community events, which is where you hear what people really think. My parents live with me and so, I see firsthand the needs and challenges our seniors face. Langley is the place I chose, and I’d like it to still be a place people can choose twenty years from now.