held Thursday, September 17, 2026, Mary JL Black Library
Candidates attending: André Gagné, Syed Kabir, John Ongaro.
Format
The question list was shared with all candidates in advance. Candidates did not know which question they would be asked. Each candidate answered one question per round, with two minutes per answer. Answers below are transcribed from the recording of the event and are presented as spoken, lightly edited for readability: obvious transcription errors are corrected, and repeated words and false starts have been removed. No words have been added and no answer has been shortened or reordered beyond that. Where a word could not be made out on the recording it is marked [unclear].
Opening statements
André Gagné
My name is André Gagné. I'm a young father. I'm a lifelong resident of Thunder Bay, and I have a degree in economics from Lakehead University. I work for my family's business at the waterfront. It's a logistics terminal called Midcontinent Terminal. And earlier this year, we tore down about 135 meters of an iron ore trestle on our site. And because we did that, we got a contract for seven ships to unload these massive wind turbine components, and if we hadn't done that, those ships would have had to go to the U.S. because we didn't have the regional capacity. So I want to help align the city with the reality of growth, not the political pageantry of growth. And I think that without growth, you either have to raise taxes, lower service levels, defer maintenance, or just accept deterioration, so it's really important that we get that right. I also think we went in the wrong direction on homelessness. Hopefully, I get that question because I have five seconds left. Thank you.
Syed Kabir
Hi, my name is Syed Kabir. I'm currently working as a district manager at the H&R Block, and I also did my master's in business administration from Lakehead University. I have over 15 years of experience in leadership and financial management. Over the years, I've also spent countless hours volunteering for the communities in Thunder Bay, Northwood is my home, and I'm raising my two kids here. When I talk to people in Northwood, one concern that comes again and again is how we are spending their tax dollars. I believe we need smart spending and strong fiscal responsibility. That means setting up clear priorities, and so that the people can see the value of the dollar amounts. With the financial and leadership background, I understand how to read the numbers and manage budgets and the priorities. So that's what I'm bringing in the table for Northwood and for my ward and for the people in Thunder Bay. Thank you.
John Ongaro
Well, good evening. This is a great turnout, and thank you to the Thunder Bay Public Library for doing this. I know that there are a lot of options for candidates to go to and to go and watch, but to have one for Northwood is great. My name is John Ongaro. I grew up on Edward Street. I moved off of Edward Street and I moved on to Edward Street, and then I moved off of Edward Street and back onto Edward Street. I have been in Northwood for 50 years. I've left only twice, and once was to pursue my career on the East Coast for a short time, and then came back to Northwood. A lot of the discussions that are happening now, especially on social media and in a lot of the campaigns, don't talk enough about the ward, and I'm going to tell you that a lot of the questions tonight, actually all of the questions tonight, have little or anything to do with the ward. So I'm going to apologize in advance because we need to talk about Northwood first, and how councilors are going to work together to make Thunder Bay better. Thank you.
Candidate Questions
Question 1: Affordable housing is increasingly out of reach for many Thunder Bay workers. What specific tools would you use as a councillor to increase the supply of affordable rental and ownership housing?
André Gagné
So the main thing to keep in mind for affordability is nothing new is ever going to be affordable. Ultimately, it's constrained by the building cost, which is a market determined force, right? So the dynamic that actually gets to affordability is increasing the total supply, and Thunder Bay has been a leader and been recognized by federal and provincial programs in putting up housing, because when you see the new units going online, right, the people moving into that unit, even if it's not affordable, they're moving out of somewhere else, and there's a cascading effect down the housing supply, and you're just better allocating the total supply. So that's why it's so important to focus on building housing. And Thunder Bay has been a leader, like I said, in that approach, and that is my answer. Thank you.
Question 2: Many parents struggle to secure spots in child care facilities, which prevents them from returning to the workforce. Would you endorse an increase in the City's child care programs, and how would you deal with the cost of raising a child for Thunder Bay parents?
Syed Kabir
First of all, I have been to that place. I have two kids, and I know what the struggle is actually in Thunder Bay 10 years ago. So this is very important for the families because it's not only affecting our families, also affecting the economy for Thunder Bay. Think about someone, a nurse or a worker who can’t go back to work after they deliver the baby, so I think we have to figure out where exactly is the most need for child care, and also we need to invest at the same time. We have to make sure that we are not expending the administration cost, and we have to work with the social communities, and also we can promote home-based daycare as well. Depending on, we have to follow the rules and guidelines. So that's also that a lot of people they don't know, but they don't. They do have the ability and homes. So this is something that we can also talk about. We do have some home-based daycares, but in terms of the affordability, a lot of child care and all that. These are provincial and federal funding, and so from Thunder Bay, what we can do is we can provide the land, we can provide the facilities to parents or the daycares. So yeah, that's my answer. Thank you.
Question 3: Thunder Bay is projected to have a labour shortage in the near future, and many businesses complain about getting the skilled labour they need to grow. What is your plan to attract the labour force we need to Thunder Bay?
John Ongaro
That's a difficult question. Retention is just as important as recruitment is, in my opinion. And over my lifetime, with grown children, have seen countless people leave for work elsewhere. I think the goal should be retention first, and keeping young people here to make sure that we don't have that labor shortage. There's also work that can be done, especially with the CEDC, educational institutions, university and college, to help promote the trades and help promote those industries that are lacking. What's the city's role in that? Well, it's difficult because to solve the shortage is not just a recruitment campaign. It's actually getting people to want to stay here and want to stay in their community, and I think that needs to be the focus. And I think that the labor shortage will take care of itself if we can make sure that people aren't leaving to find better pasture somewhere else. I think we're doing that, and I think we're getting there, but I think our goal and the city's goal needs to be about attracting people to stay instead of asking them what's out there for them and finding something here. But I think the collaboration with the university, the college, and with a lot of the other industries in town to help that recruitment will make a difference. We have a great place to live. It's a beautiful place to live, and so encouraging them to stay is part of a retention issue before it becomes a labor issue.
Question 4: Small businesses employ about two thirds of the Canadian workforce and are a critical part of our neighbourhoods and communities. How would you use City resources to support the local small business community?
André Gagné
Well, the best way is honestly having a tightly run ship where we're not constantly stressing the tax levy and kind of putting that tax pressure on businesses. And also having predictable planning processes, zoning changes, not very disruptive construction programs where we properly inform them and we stick to schedule. One area where I am concerned is some of our construction projects; they tend to go over schedule. And one thing to keep in mind is if it's the contractor's fault, they have to pay liquidated damages to the city, right? But if there's some problem with the plan or it has to be reopened, then it's the city's fault, right? So that kind of thing, I think I could kind of bring that discipline on the council side to kind of assess these projects and hopefully get them in a tighter timeline and just get the city to get its ducks in a row. In that sense, that would support small businesses by kind of improving the overall value proposition of what the city provides in support of small businesses, but yeah, that's it.
Question 5: The City has adopted a target-based approach to tax increases. The aim is for the rate of tax increases to roughly match the pace of inflation. Do you agree with this approach, and under what circumstances should Council approve higher tax rates?
Syed Kabir
Well, the tax increase, as per the inflation, is just a guardrail. But we cannot guarantee that this will solve all our problems. Most importantly, when we do our budget, we have to make sure that we are prioritizing our needs, where to spend the money, and we have been. When I talk to a lot of people, their first concern is that we don't know where, why, and how our tax dollars are being spent. So there are a lot of projects, the City of Thunder Bay spending money, investing money, where we have our infrastructure needs to be taken care of. There, $30 million gap or infrastructure gap every year, so we can manage that money to take care of our infrastructure. So our budget should be based on our needs and also what the people really wants the priorities, rather than we have we have a set target that okay this is what should be our budget. So we have to prioritize what our what our needs, what our expense was, and what's the expenditure and all that. So when we're working on the budget, we have to make sure that our basics are being taken care of at first, and then we can invest on some other projects. Also, sometimes what we do is the city intend to get into a lot of projects because we get funding. But if the project is not really a priority for our city of Thunder Bay, just for the getting of funding, we should not get into those projects because at the end of the day, when we get the funding, we have the projects. But if there is a shortfall, then the city will have to subsidize those, right? And if they can't, they say, okay, we have, we can bring in like $2 million of revenue every year. But what happens? We cannot bring that revenue, right? At the end of the day, the city will have to subsidize. So we have to be very careful when we're doing the budget. Thank you.
Question 6: The City's temporary shelter village and encampment response plan are intended to help address homelessness in Thunder Bay. Do you support the current approach, and what long-term strategy would you pursue to address the crisis?
John Ongaro
I'm going to be careful, in case we've never met. For the last 10 or 12 years of my life, I've been reporting on City Council, and I've watched every meeting, including the ones that were eight hours long. And I'm going to be quite frank with you: the response to the temporary village and the homeless situation in this last term of Council was embarrassing to me, and the reason it was embarrassing. Thank you. I only have two minutes. The reason it was embarrassing was not for any particular vote, not for any particular discussion. It was because it seemed to me that the councilors could not get together, and there were split votes on every location and on every situation, that to me was a mistake, and I think that that collaboration is really important. We are talking about people, and my gut, my heart tells me that when it gets to politics, we're losing sight on the fact that people need help, and we need to think about the people and not the politics. And I think the politics got in the way. I also think that the temporary shelter was a great solution for now, but it is not a solution forever. We have a housing issue, but we need to stop talking like it's just a Thunder Bay problem. It isn't. It's a worldwide problem. We just live in it like everybody else, but we needed to get on top of that sooner. The fact that we went through six, eight notices of motion to change our mind on locations of the temporary village was embarrassing to me, because of that, people are still not in those shelters, and they should have been by now, because the winter is coming, and that's where we lost sight of people. So to me, the approach was right. The 10-point plan that the city put forward was right, and thinking about people was the most important part. And I think you can do better with that.
Question 7: City Council appoints the majority of the Police Service Board, and councillors actively serve on the Police Board as well. There have been concerns raised in the community about police accountability and public trust, and many Indigenous community leaders have been advocating for systemic change for years. What governance or operational changes would you advocate for at the Police Service Board to address both crime reduction and increasing public trust in our local police service?
André Gagné
Okay, so that is quite the question. So, I think we are a regional hub for Indigenous surrounding communities, and it is important that they have confidence when they're in town to access our police services. And there's been some instability on the police board, to put it mildly. We had a provincial administrator take over the board and make recommendations, and a lot of that work is ongoing. But there have been changes, and I think we really get there by aligning ourselves with good police ethics now, and because we have community needs, ongoing community needs in policing that we can't just ignore, and so the board hasn't done nothing. And council selects who's on the board, and then the board selects the chief, right? And the chief has been constantly attending community events. He's putting himself to slings and arrows, answering questions, and that's kind of how you communicate. That's how you open the lines of communication to make sure you're getting that feedback, and you can better align with good police principles. But yeah, I would have loved the homeless question.
Question 8: There have been criticisms of many new subdivisions as being effectively gated communities consisting of high-end homes with little affordable housing. Do you perceive this as a problem, and how would you address those concerned about these types of developments?
Syed Kabir
I don't see it as a problem as long as it's not disconnected from our community, right? So we have to think that every kilometer of roads and pipes and all that it costs us money. So if someone has money, they want to build their homes, house, big houses. That's fine. But also at the same time, we have to very careful about zoning, right? And because it's not about for one kilometer of street that we are building for that house, we have to think about what's the maintenance cost for the next 30 years. It's a decades of expenses for the city to carry the pipes, the sidewalk, and everything. And also, we should encourage like smaller lots, townhouses, secondary units, to promote in Thunder Bay. And we have to think about our tax base, and so I'm not opposed to that as long as it's not costing us money. We have to think about that. Okay, when we do the zoning, make sure that it's not costing us money down the road in 30 years. Thank you.
Question 9: The Thunder Bay Public Library has adopted a social procurement policy, which sets spending targets for purchasing from local businesses and Indigenous-owned businesses. The Chamber of Commerce is now advocating for similar buy-local policies for the City. Would you support the City adopting buy-local programs that aim to support local businesses, even if it may mean paying higher prices?
John Ongaro
You lost me at higher prices. I am a strong local business supporter. My campaign signs were local. Everything is local, but at what cost? When I saw this question, I actually had to do some really hard thinking on this because supporting local business is one thing, but seeing the amount of business that is leaving our city or contractors from outside of our city that are doing the work is also concerning. But to the first question, if there's a shortage, there's a shortage. So how do we do that? Well, we should look at ways contracts are put together from the city. Sometimes a very large contract shuts local companies out. Is there a way to separate those contracts so that local businesses can be part of it? That's where I would start. Again, we are surrounded by experts in administration and on council that know this far better than I do, sitting in this chair. But there has to be ways to include local businesses more, especially in the huge projects that we have. So structure and contracts, so local firms can realistically compete. The indigenous participation and the life cycle of the procurement process is important. There are strong indigenous companies in our community that get shut out by the bigger companies. They need the equal shot, and at the same time, the size of a lot of those contracts are far too big for just them. So, the answer, short answer, is looking at ways to separate those contracts so that there is more capacity for local businesses to be a part of that, we need those local businesses working. We need those local businesses participating, and we need those workers to stay in Thunder Bay. And I think that's the first way to start.
Question 10: Thunder Bay has a widely publicized infrastructure gap of over $30 million annually, meaning that every year we fall $30 million further behind in maintaining our assets. How would you seek to close that gap and ensure the community has well-maintained, high-quality infrastructure?
André Gagné
So yeah, this is what I'm really focused on in my campaign. I think we really do need to address the infrastructure gap. We have an asset management plan now, which the province forced us to formally produce, and that's a good step because we can use that to align the budget to meeting our infrastructure needs. And of that 30 million yearly deficit, 5 million of that is the roads, pavement rehabilitation, and I would love to do a more aggressive road program because I mean James Street was a nightmare. A capital program can help the roads because in the spring new dollars don't convert to better roads. If it's wet the cold mix doesn't work. The hot mix doesn't work. But a capital program improves the overall network. So when you're hitting that spring, you have less to restore. So when weather permits, you can allocate your crews more efficiently and kind of restore that level of stable road conditions quicker. Because this past spring, like I don't have to tell you guys, it was a nightmare, and I'm not interested in these legacy projects. I'm interested in our infrastructure needs being met. I get excited thinking of people driving down the roads, not thinking about the city at all. That brings me joy. I would love that. So the other thing is we have facilities that need to be looked after, and yeah. I think there's some promising signs, and growth helps us get there without pushing this tax levy. And I support the current financial plan, the 3% target, and I also support the 80/20 split, 80% on existing infrastructure, 20% new infrastructure. So those are financial plans developed by our excellent financial team at the city, who've been nationally recognized two years in a row for bringing clarity to municipal finance. So that's the kind of thing that I like. [time called]
Question 11: The CEDC reports that Indigenous economic activity contributes almost $700 million to our local GDP and has a $1.55 billion economic impact. At the same time, our city has a reputation for racism and discrimination. How would you support Indigenous residents and attract Indigenous business to Thunder Bay?
Syed Kabir
So first of all, I think the Indigenous community and the First Nations, they are not our stakeholders. They are the future of Thunder Bay's economy because all the activities and the business transactions with the indigenous community-they-they're almost $600 million, which is a huge part of our GDP, and that brings a lot of revenue for the city. So I think to begin with, the city should have a reconciliation policy in place, and also at the same time anti-racism policy as well, and also the CEDC and all other organization. We should work together with several indigenous organization so that it's not only businesses, but also the vendors and the supporters, and we can bring in revenue in every industry like housing, mining, and so. So the bottom line is that we have to make sure that they feel welcomed, and there are a lot of things that the city of Thunder Bay can do in terms of partnerships with indigenous communities. So to begin with, I think we should have also some investments for the projects and make sure that they're welcoming to the city and even from CEDC, and also from several boards, we can actually have a person representing the First Nations. So that would really encourage the collaboration between the city of Thunder Bay and also the Indigenous community feel safe. Thank you.
Question 12: Thunder Bay Police have been vocal that we cannot police our way out of crime and social disorder. Rather, we need upstream investments, community-building initiatives, and pro-social infrastructure like libraries to address root causes. Can you describe in some detail what that looks like to you, and your vision for proactive upstream investments that the municipality can undertake?
John Ongaro
That's a good one, a tough one. When the police say that they cannot police their way out of social disorder, I think we should listen to them. They're the experts, and they come to us every year with a budget that says we need more money to do more things. When we start to look at some of the changes in the community for helping those that are in need of recreation, of social, more social skills, supportive housing, there are all kinds of pieces that will help the police do their job when we have less people in need on the street. When they ask for money, we don't say no. I don't think we say no. The libraries are a perfect example because they're really one of the few places left in our community that you don't have to spend any money to come to, that you can come to learn, that you have social connections. There's after-school opportunities. There's all kinds of opportunities in a library. Fund them. Give people places to go. It also means that designing spaces is also important. When I look at the changes that were made on Red River Road and how bright it is, and how wide the sidewalks are, and how welcoming it is. There's not a lot of neighborhoods in our community that look like that feel that safe. Why is it just there? Well, good news, Fort William is getting there, and we too will have a brighter place and a more safe and feeling more safe area to go to. But how do we get to that? Well, supportive housing outreach programs and the city working with those partners to make things better early, so we don't get into that situation down the line. To make the police job easier, it's not going to be easier. But I can't stress enough this isn't a Thunder Bay problem. This is a problem everywhere, and we need to take care of people earlier so that we have less concerns with them later. I have 20 seconds left, and I'm going to use that time to talk about James Street because André brought it up. It's awful, but I want to tell you, in case you didn't know, and this comes from years of following, and I'm not going to plug my website. James Street is about to go through a traffic calming project, and if you think it's bad now, wait till there's two lanes and a Costco around.
Question 13: The Smart Growth Action Plan and other City documents actively promote infill and densification as part of the growth strategy. Do you believe the City is on the right track with its approach, and how would you like to see development occur in Thunder Bay?
André Gagné
So densification is the right approach. The smart growth action plan is actually a very promising plan in aligning the city with growth, but it takes diligence. It's not good enough just to develop a plan. They draw on a wide pool of expertise across the city to kind of develop this plan, and it really helps align things in that sense. And in terms of density, that is how we reach our targets. That's how we improve the economics per square kilometer across the city. Thinking of Northwood, and specifically Northwood, according to the 2021 census, has about 2000 people per square kilometer. The city average is about 340. So Northwood's already very dense. We already have the good economics. We need the rest of the city to pick up. So my role as councilor is to kind of make sure we're developing across the city, densifying, and pushing those projects so that Northwood can realize some of the good economics that it already has, right? So, and the smart growth is one avenue to get there, and but it's not the only thing because you look at our tax ratio policies. We had an excellent report in 2023. It was it was unanimously approved. It was excellent. It was detailed. It explained a new adjustment to kind of attract new businesses. Everyone agreed, and then the next year the council immediately defected. And I don't know what changed from one year to the other. It was a long-range plan, and so that's the kind of thing that needs diligence that fits in with the smart growth action plan, and I think I could bring that discipline. Thank you.
Question 14: Some see a tension between supporting downtown revitalization and championing local business on the one hand, while at the same time encouraging the growth of big box stores and suburban sprawl. How would you address those concerns, and where do you think City resources should be focused when planning for growth?
Syed Kabir
So I strongly believe that there should be a balance because we need big box stores coming into the city because they're bringing a lot of jobs for us. At the same time, local economy also depended more on the local business as well. There are several steps we can do. The CEDC can help even the school and college students to start their business and also supporting the local businesses where they have the safe and procurement and all the logistics. They're getting all the support from the city. At the same time, we should also have the zoning and the facility so that the big businesses can come into our city. And if you think about the Costco or some other businesses, there it's a really healthy competition, I would say, for the local economy, bringing a lot of jobs. And also, what I think is, I fully support local. I do have a business I own locally in Thunder Bay. So, but at the same time, if, let's say, a local business is actually selling a T-shirt for like $100, but a competition, a big box store, is selling only for $30. So, how many people can afford a T-shirt for like $100, where they can buy from a big box store a T-shirt for just $20? Right. The reason I'm giving you that example is that it has to be a very healthy competition, right? We have to support the local businesses, and if we have the big boxes, that big box stores in Thunder Bay, it creates a really good competition, right? And also, it's not always about bringing in investment from outside, but also supporting the local businesses so that they can thrive in the economy, and also CEDC can provide as the businesses because there are a lot of small businesses to go to CEDC. I went to CEDC, so they need to figure out how many businesses are starting every year, and how many businesses surviving, and how many businesses are really can hiring people, right? So when we say talk about the labor shortage, that's also a part of it, right? So if we have a labor shortage and if we have big businesses [unclear]. So my time's over. Thank you.
Question 15: Would you support a mayor using strong mayor powers, authority that lets a mayor push through certain decisions without needing full Council approval, and if so, under what conditions?
John Ongaro
The answer to the question is absolutely not, never. The last time I checked, there are no kings. Any idea for a mayor or a candidate for mayor to even suggest the word maybe is terrifying to me, and I'll tell you why. If you had children and you went into the kitchen one day and the cookie jar was open and you asked, "Did you steal a cookie? and the kid said maybe, when you ask a candidate if they're going to use the strong mayor's powers, and they say maybe you need to be concerned. Period. There are 13 people in the room to make a decision. The Ford government made a terrible choice putting that in place. It is extremely dangerous, and it is a complete destruction of democracy. If I'm running for this seat, and somebody thinks that they're going to use the strong mayor power. Why did I put myself through this campaign? Because you don't need me. They'll make the decisions. You need to be informed of what it is, how it works, and what the repercussions of them are. Because the candidates that are running for mayor right now, and I will go out on a limb, and I will. I probably shouldn't do this, but Councillor Giertuga is here, and I would like to congratulate him for being the only one to have the guts to say he won't use it. You need to be informed. It is terrifying, and it is one of the reasons why, when this idea, this ridiculous idea that I had to run for Northwood came into play. It was the first thing that came to my mind. We should have nobody in that room that has more power than anybody else. It's why you vote. It's why we've showed up, and nobody should be making those decisions. There are no experts. There are no kings. It needs to be a group effort to make things happen.
Question 16: Indigenous residents of Thunder Bay are an important part of our future. They represent a major source of new entrepreneurs, business owners, and workers, as well as bringing valuable cultural and social benefits to our community. How would you ensure that Thunder Bay becomes a major hub for Indigenous-led economic growth?
André Gagné
Well, like I said in my other question, we are a regional hub for Indigenous, so Indigenous businesses are already here, right? So aligning the city with improved business dynamics and it helps Indigenous as well, so I think we're already doing that work. I think I can contribute to the city moving in that direction, given my experience. And yeah, and since I have so much time left, I'm going to talk either about strong mayor or homelessness. So I'm gonna go strong mayor, and I'm gonna say something that changed my view of strong mayor was a decision last year on the Hillyard site where it was reconsidered for a vote. It was a motion from Councillor Zussino, and it lost. It was a majority decision that lost eight votes to four. Four votes decided that site was going forward. Okay, how many votes do you need for a strong mayor power decision? You need five. Okay, so my limited support strong mayor powers is to undo that decision because I see it as functionally the same thing. And if that's just, I'll be honest, right? And if that's a deal breaker, fair enough. I'd rather be honest than tell people what they want to hear. And I don’t approve of the things the City has done with homelessness. I think we stepped into a mandate that wasn't ours, and the DSSAB is the leader on providing social housing, and why would we do that? It's like the library asking us for funding, and we're like, oh, that's a good thing. Let's build a library department in Administration. Why would we ever do that? But that's exactly what we did. I have some grace for council and administration because it was a confusing legal situation, given the 2023 Waterloo decision, but I still think it was the complete wrong direction. [time called]
Question 17: Public safety affects everyone, and local business is most sensitive to crime and disorder. What strategies or funding would you create to help address safety in our downtown areas?
Syed Kabir
It's not a one person or one organization job. We have to get the police department involved, bylaws, transit outreach, BIA, and public other organizations. So this is very important for Thunder Bay, for any district to have their downtown flourishing, so the businesses and safety is very important. So some things that we can do are regular policing in the downtown area, and also some security grant that we can have a policy to offer to those businesses, and we can invest in technologies, some cameras, so businesses feel comfortable to run their business, so that when they come in next day to see that their windows are crushed or broken, it's very important that they feel safe. I heard actually for some businesses when they came up the next morning, someone broke into their business. So this is a barrier if someone wants to do a business, right? You can be scared to do business in Thunder Bay, right? So, as I said, with the bylaws, the police department, we have to work together with everyone, and I think we should have clear policy. And also, we have to make sure that the bylaws and all the organizations are working together, the community partners, and also some other organizations in Thunder Bay. So this runs our local economy, which is very important for Thunder Bay. Thank you.
Question 18: Studies show that walkable neighbourhoods are better for small local businesses, but many new developments in Thunder Bay have favoured big box stores with large parking lots instead. Would you support redesigning City planning rules to encourage smaller, locally owned businesses over large corporate chains?
John Ongaro
There's a Costco joke coming, just so you know. If you watch council, because you have nothing else to do on Tuesday night, you would have seen on Tuesday night the decision that council made unanimously to build a new neighborhood in the Central Avenue area, and I was very proud to watch that. Not only is there retail space and mixed housing opportunities, but it's in a space that's underutilized. It's a smart thing to do. At the same time, there are neighborhoods popping up everywhere with apartment complexes everywhere, and small neighborhoods that are starting to get reestablished all over the place. These are all good things. Does it mean that the big box store is not welcome? Your call. But I'm going to drive past it to go to George's Market to get my chicken, and it's going to be twice as much, and it's going to cost me $10 in fuel to get there because it's George's Market. So the neighborhoods that support these small businesses, like in Current River, like we'll see in Central Avenue, I think are extremely important. And so, encouraging these mixed-use neighborhoods in a way that they have done and council did this week with Central Avenue is absolutely the way to go. It is a wonderful thing to see a brand new neighborhood showing up in the center of town, starting from scratch. That's going to support local businesses around it. So redeveloping older commercial areas and looking at spaces that are inside the city. I bring you to Park Avenue, where the old government building is now turning into lofts and apartments, probably that I can't afford. But the fact that building is becoming a place to live is a good thing. We're going in the right direction. So again, finding those locations are important. We're in Northwood. If anybody wants to talk about Thornloe and not being a parkette, sign me up. I will hold the signs outside of City Hall with you. Parkettes are off the table. Find infill opportunities first. Leave the parks alone.
Question 19: Many community groups have called on the City to invest in an ever-increasing list of services, including new sports facilities, entertainment venues, arts and culture opportunities, and more. These often come with large price tags and debt obligations that the City may bear for years. What responsibility does municipal government have in improving quality of life beyond delivering basic municipal services?
André Gagné
So I'm glad I got this question. I really like infrastructure. I think we just had the [unclear] multiplex. That was a great thing, and now we can focus on roads. We focus on our infrastructure, and then in the future, council can consider these projects a case by case basis. But hopefully, trending towards showing some restraint and catching up on our infrastructure needs. Because while these things are nice to have, and there's all these romantic notions of these beautiful structures and approaches we can do and plans and legacy projects. I get excited by good roads, by good sewers, and oh, Northwood. I was going to say this earlier. Northwood is between 40 and 60 years old. A lot of it, and a lot of those infrastructure needs are coming due now. So the city focusing on infrastructure, it kind of helps us get our needs met, and I think that's a really important thing to do.
Question 20: Many in the community believe that taxes are too high, and historically the rate of tax increases has outpaced inflation. Can you articulate a strategy for how the City should spend and invest that recognizes the increasing cost of taxes as a barrier to living and doing business in Thunder Bay?
Syed Kabir
Okay, so I love this question. So taxes will go up, and we understand that because of expenses and all that, inflation and all that. But when I talk to people, the only question they ask is: are we getting the value for the money that we're spending, right? So at the end of the day, infrastructure we use them every single day, right? So that's very important, and the community services and the services that we use every single day. That's my top priority when I talk about my campaign. So we need to have a smart spending strategy, and we have to be very careful about our fiscal responsibility. So when we have the money, we spend the money or invest the money in the projects that justify every dollar that we spend on them. We're not spending millions of dollars on a project that we don't even know if you guys want. There are a lot of projects in here in Thunder Bay. The City of Thunder Bay has invested money. I'm sure 90% of you here will say, okay, no, I don't support that project. Then why we are spending money on that project, right? At the same time, when you walk in Northwood, I see that there are a lot of potholes there. There's still we have a lot of infrastructure that needs to be taken care of. We have $30 million, $30 million infrastructure gap. I'm not in the city council, but my common sense, if I use it, I can bring in 30 million dollar to maintain that gap. There are several projects that if I look into those projects, the city invested millions of dollars. If I can pull that $2 million, $1 million, I can see that not 30 million, but at least I can accommodate 20 million dollars. So this is basic, very simple math. So this is very important for everyone that the tax will go up. I understand that, but at the same time, we expect the service, the quality of service, also goes up with that. Our daily services, the roads that we use to bring our kids to school, the roads that we use to go to our work, so that needs to be taken care of first. Thank you.
Closing statements
John Ongaro
Sports facilities, entertainment venues, art and culture opportunities. Think of how many things we could have fixed. Think of how many roads we could have fixed. Think of how many people we could have taken off the street. Look at the money that's been spent. I am all for shiny things. I absolutely am, but I am not going to be on city council to have my name on the side of a building because it's shiny, because there's a lot of things we need before we want, and we're in a state right now where taxes are higher. It's way more expensive to cross town. It's difficult, and it's hard to look at all these new builds for a small portion of the population when the rest of us are paying the bills that we are. That's all I have for that.
Syed Kabir
So my top priority for my campaign is fiscal responsibility. As I always talk about, all our problems can be solved if we have enough money to invest in this, and we have the right people, the right policymakers, right? So, when we are working on a budget, on making the policies, we have to, we need to understand that we are representing Thunder Bay, the Northwood, all the district of Thunder Bay. It's not politics. It's actually the taxpayers' money that we are spending on, so this is very important for any of us to whoever gets into the office. We need to work together, and we have to think about what's not only for us. Think about what the most of the people in Thunder Bay would want to invest the money on a daily infrastructure, daily services that we use, or an $80 million project that not a lot of people are a big fan of for now, and definitely we need art and culture. The city is not about potholes and pipes. We need library. We need a lot of cultural organizations.
André Gagné
So one thing I want to really focus on is to keep the city out of crowding in on the mandate of other orders of government like the DSSAB. We've never provided low access shelters before. Why are we doing that? I want to get us out of there yesterday. I want us to focus. We talked about upstream preventions. We can use like why didn't we just make a transfer? If we identified this need in low barrier shelter, we could have made a transfer payment to the DSSAB, continued to focus on our priorities, done an investment in the library and anywhere else. But instead of doing that, we decided to create a new department within the city, and we're continuously adding while we have a floundering bylaw office with management issues with high turnover. People come here, they work a few years, and they go back to Southern Ontario. And we've all felt the impacts of our floundering bylaw office. So I want to rebuild that office. I think why we ended up in this nightmare is because we had a weak enforcement perspective at the high level decision making, and I have more to say.