Stephen Gallant

I served in the Canadian Armed Forces Reserves for nine years as an Infantry Officer, with eight of those nine years spent in full time service. During that time, I gained a breadth of experience, from leading an expedition in the artic to working for Foreign Liaison, where I organized visits from diplomats and high-ranking military officials of both allied and hostile nations. I left the military at the rank of Captain.

The Army taught me how to lead, be efficient, and operate at the highest level of diplomacy and professionalism.

My career in the financial services industry has spanned almost 30 years, giving me the opportunity to leverage my education in economics and talent for operations. Through hard work, I earned my way to the executive level, spending the majority of my career managing large teams of talented people while directing budgets in the tens of millions of dollars. 

Through my experiences working for some of Canada's largest banks and financial institutions, I've learned how to balance large budgets and how important fiscal responsibility is.

For nearly 9 years, I spent my time at the epicentre of London's homeless epidemic as a volunteer at the Ark Aid Street Mission. After several years of serving free meals to our city's most vulnerable, I joined the board as chairman.

While in this role, and in partnership with now-retired Ark Aid Executive Director Douglas Whitelaw, I aided the London Food Coalition in developing a program to redirect fresh food from grocery stores otherwise destined for the landfill to supply food agencies across the city. For these efforts, the London Food Coalition received the Pillar Award for Community Innovation.

Some people look at our city’s most vulnerable and see an opportunity to exploit them for personal gain. To denigrate them and use negative stereotypes and language that robs them of their most basic humanity.

My experience has show me that compassion, not condemnation, is what we need, and I care deeply about real and lasting solutions — not rhetoric.