Candidate chatter

Minimum-wage jobs are not enough to keep the majority of Thunder Bay’s youth from looking elsewhere to find their fortune.

At least that seemed to be the belief of the city’s at large and mayoralty candidates, who on Wednesday met with a small gathering of the public at an open forum hosted by the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation.

Asked what they’d do if elected to encourage younger generations to stay, candidates had a mixed bag of answers.

Former CBC personality Gerald Graham, looking to win one of five at-large berths, said a new approach is needed, one that seeks out companies and opportunities that will provide a comfortable living out of school.

“What we need in the city are smart jobs,” Graham said. “We need employers who are going to come to this city and pay a living wage, a wage that they can have a pension plan on. We have to work with the economic development department. We need those jobs from the Ring of Fire. We need to consult with the First Nations to get them.”

For Norm Sponchia, success will only be realized when the city tackles its crime problem once and for all. Businesses won’t set up shop in a city where their owners and employees don’t feel safe, he said. Then the city must show a true desire to keep its youth, he said.

“One of the things we have to do to keep young people here, for one thing, is to make them feel welcome and engaged in this community,” Sponchia said. “We’re willing to work hard, and for not the biggest money in the world, if at least we feel part of the community.”

Cindy Crowe, who said Thunder Bay needs an Aboriginal voice on council, said her family has been directly affected by a lack of available work, with three of her sons working out west. She tied the city’s fortune to the multi-billion chromite deposit northeast of Thunder Bay, which could help replace the thousands of blue-collar forestry jobs lost when the industry collapsed.

“I’d really like to bring the Ring of Fire business to Thunder Bay,” Crowe said. “There are so many opportunities there. We really have to work at eliminating poverty here.”

Tyler Woods said there needs to be more reason for people to stay in the city.

“I think we need to complete the waterfront project, we need to get on with the whole notion of creating a (Multiplex) and doing things that are going to want (to make) people stay in Thunder Bay. Why should we have to go to Toronto to see concerts?”

Switching to taxes, a great number of the candidates not already on council said the city has to get its fiscal house in order.

Keith Hobbs, one of six people running for mayor, said taxes are way too high, especially when compared with the rest of the country.

“We have to look at our priorities and start taking care of people first. I think we’re too much into the niceties of life in Thunder Bay instead of the necessities. And I think our strategy has been all wrong in the last few years in that regard,” Hobbs said.

Coun. Aldo Ruberto said people have to understand  where taxes are being spent, underscoring that they’re being used to upgrade infrastructure, roads and facilities that are important for the city’s quality of life.

“If we don’t improve the quality of life for the individuals who live here, they’re going to leave. We’re not going to attract new people,” Ruberto said, pointing to the job-finding Community Economic Development Commission as an example of money well spent.

Darren Roberts, who hopes to help the city vastly reduce its expenses, said he’s already met nine couples who plan to leave the city in the next year, a trend he’d like to stop.

“We need to look at the budget, we need to start asking questions. Council has to start looking at the fact they are the custodians of the taxpayers’ money, not the spenders of the money. It should be done in a rational way. You should be looking at rate of return. You should be looking at how it’s going to affect the city and do we need it?”

Former mayor Ken Boshcoff, entered in the at-large race after seven years away from municipal poltics, said it’s a matter of being responsible and smart.

“You get tighter when you renew your budgets, then you go after the big bucks (from other levels of government,” said Boshcoff, hopeful the knowledge-based economy will spark new jobs and a higher tax base.

Mayoral candidate Frank Pullia said it’s obvious that continually raising taxes will not help anyone survive. He’s got a solution he says shouldn’t affect services.

“We need to provide tax relief. The debenture for the hospital has been paid, so I think we should give that money back to the people,” Pullia said.

Former Current River Coun. Dick Waddington said he was always a frugal public servant, but he’s watched spending get out of hand in recent years.

Councils can’t borrow themselves out of debt or spend themselves to prosperity, he said.

“I think that’s the wrong attitude to have. We’ve got to be more careful with the dollar making strategic investments that work, that do bring us the jobs that bring us more taxes,” Waddington said.

At large candidate Sydney Petit said he believes many of the city’s investments have paid off, and that the city should continue to support projects like the hospital, which has spawned hundreds of related jobs in medical research.

“We have to continue to work in this way to broaden the tax base and direct the taxes down to the little guy in the corner who can’t afford his utilities and even the telephone rate are going up,” he said. “We as the city should be bringing costs down, not raising them.”

Coun. Rebecca Johnson said it’s not easy finding ways to cut a municipal budget, but admitted the time has come to take a long hard look at it line by line.

I think we provide too many services,” Johnson said.

Mayor Lynn Peterson said the city has forged a long-range plan for infrastructure projects, which avoids heavy need periods and spreads out spending.

“We know what we’re doing for the next 20 years as far as our infrastructure. The other side of the coin is jobs and the economy. CEDC has put in a mining sector project manager absolutely committed to make this city a high-profile mining service centre,” Peterson said.

Coun. Iain Angus said relatively speaking, taxpayers give 94 cents of every tax dollar to the federal and provincial governments, and get a bargain for what they pay the municipality.

“Think about what you get for your six cents,” he said.

Norm Staal suggested it’s a lot of unnecessary items and that taxes need to be frozen for businesses and homeowners alike.

“We need to stop these unpopular capital projects ... and used that money to take crime (out) and bring business in. I believe administration has plenty of room to cut and council is rubber-stamping everything that administration says,” Staal said.

The municipal election is on Oct. 25.