About Evan Silva.

The Wilderness Years

For over a decade, Evan Silva worked as a wilderness guide across Ontario's lakes and forests. Leading groups through demanding backcountry terrain demands a specific kind of leadership: calm, honest, decisive. You read the conditions, you manage real risk, and you get everyone home safe. That instinct for clear-eyed decision-making doesn't disappear when you come back to the city.

In the Classroom

As a teacher, Evan sees the stakes of local policy every day — in the condition of the school buildings his students learn in, in the pressures on families who can't keep up with rising costs, in the young people growing up in Ward 1 who deserve a city that invests in their future. Good governance isn't abstract. It shows up in whether parks are safe and well-lit, whether families can afford to stay in the neighbourhood, and whether the green spaces that make Guelph worth living in are protected for the next generation.

Why Ward 1, Why Now

When Evan moved to Ward 1 and learned that 32 acres of prime York Road land had sat empty since the provincial correctional facility closed in 2013, he started asking questions. What he found — years of inaction, no serious acquisition plan, no community vision — convinced him that Ward 1 needed new representation. The 2022 election was decided by 171 votes. That margin says everything about what's possible in October 2026.

Running for office for the first time, Evan brings the perspective of a generation that has watched Ward 1's challenges grow while waiting for change that hasn't come. Fresh leadership isn't a talking point. It's the whole reason he's running.