Profile: Gilbert wants to keep giving back

Whether it’s running a university or a provincial campaign, Fred Gilbert says it all comes down to dealing with people.

The 70-year-old rookie politician retired as the president of Lakehead University in July 2010, a post he held for 12 years. He later became the candidate for the Ontario Progressive Conservative party for the Thunder Bay- Atikokan riding.

Gilbert, who has been married to his wife Diana for 30 years and has three children, said he made the shift into politics because he still wanted to give back to his community.
Gilbert has worked at universities across North American, from British Columbia to Washington, D.C., and said that has helped shape him.

“This community has been good to me and I still feel that I have something to give,” Gilbert said.

“You get to know how things operate. Political systems may vary a little bit but the end result is how you deal with people, how you represent people and how you get things accomplished. I think I’ve had pretty good objective lessons from everywhere I’ve been.”

When he took on the role as the PC candidate, he said he wanted to ensure the north had a strong, semi-independent voice in order to deal with issues that impact this region.

“Northern Ontario has a lot of issues that are fundamentally different from Southern Ontario,” he said.

“I think this has been recognized by the PCs. Part of the reason why I’m running is that they recognized that you have to develop policies that reflect and respond to northern issues. A voice is as simple as being heard. I think we have not been heard very well in the last few years.”

Gilbert made sure his voice was heard when he decided to remove Lakehead University’s Wi-Fi over health concerns.

He said there was data that suggested a potential health risk and he decided the best option was to play it safe.

“Here we are in 2011 and the World Health Organization has just come out and said the same thing,” he said. “They classified it as a potential carcinogen. My sense is if you go through life without saying what’s important to you and what you think is important to others then you have missed an opportunity. You may be wrong but at least you have brought it to the attention of people and gave them something they should think about.”

During his campaign, he said he’s discovered there’s more than just a single issue on people’s mind heading into this election. Many people continue to be almost equally concerned about health care, the economy, job creation, safety and taxation.

The PC candidate said his party would be able to give quick and immediate solutions to some of those issues such as removing the Harmonized Sales Tax from hydro and heating.