THUNDER BAY – Twelve years ago, Jim Gamble was runner-up in the mayor’s race, fishing a distant second to popular incumbent Lynn Peterson.
This time around, the ballot is a little more crowded.
Instead of a two-candidate race, there are 11 people vying for the mayor’s chair.
Once again, Gamble is hoping he’s the choice of Thunder Bay voters, determined to bring his brand of change to city hall.
“We’re on the verge of major problems,” the 63-year-old said, speculating Bombardier, facing challenges meeting its Toronto streetcar contract deadlines, could lose the deal and subsequently pull out of Thunder Bay altogether.
“We better hope and pray that Bombardier doesn’t up and leave. Then what? You’re a 1,000 jobs short and then all the families and the offshoot jobs that you lose. That’s a serious issue.”
Gamble, well-known for being critical of the city and many of the decisions made around the council table, said Thunder Bay has changed dramatically over the past two decades, as industry shifted, saying the province has killed the pulp and paper industry and caused electricity prices to skyrocket.
“(We) tried to warn the politicians, saying you’re going to kill a good thing. But none of them listened,” Gamble said.
Gamble travels the city on his mountain bike, saying he knows Thunder Bay like the back of his hand. There’s no place in the city he hasn’t been.
“I’ll ride down a back alley at three o’clock in the morning just to see what’s going on, as crazy as that might sound,” he said. “But it’s the only way you get to know what’s going on.”
The path to moving the city forward to success starts and ends with reducing crime and everything associated with crime, including addictions, overdoses.
Fighting those root causes will have a ripple effect elsewhere, including helping to reduce gridlock at local hospitals and free up police and paramedics to concentrate on more important assignments. More police on patrol, for example, means less crime happening, fewer break-ins and less drugs on the streets.
“There’s vast savings in addressing crime,” said Gamble a father-of-three, who lists himself as an agent and advocate with his company, Solutions and cites antique cars and music from the 1950s and 1960s among his interests.
The municipal election is on Oct. 22.
