This week was a whirlwind - from speaking with students at St Lawrence College, and the Chamber of Commerce Election night on Wednesday, to the Cornwall and District Labour Council’s candidate debate on Thursday night, our whole roster of candidates had a full schedule to say the least.

Thursday’s debate was special for me because it marked my being endorsed by the Labour Council as a candidate in the upcoming election. To celebrate being recognized in this way by an organization I think so highly of, I wanted to share my answers to the questions they asked by email that led to this endorsement so that everyone can see where I’m coming from.

  1. Please describe initiatives that you have been involved with that resulted in positive change for our community.

I have focused largely on small projects to date locally. As a participant I’ve come out for marches like Black Lives Matter, and as an organizer I’ve helped to run initiatives like the Cornwall Goslings, a reading and writing contest for Cornwall and area children.

  1. If elected, will you call on the municipal, provincial and federal governments to work towards adequately funding the Cornwall Hospital?

While Ontario keeps most power for health care out of municipal hands, the Cornwall Hospital is a priority not only for our direct community but for the whole county. There is a lot we can do in terms of advocacy to push for both better funding and cooperation with initiatives similar to the success seen in BC’s fast track to encourage our closest neighbours to the south to consider a new home in Cornwall.

  1. What do you believe are the most important issues facing our community?

Cost of living - especially around housing - has understandably come up time and again. Beyond that, I believe that we need to come together as a community to build a real foundation, a proper vision for what Cornwall could be in twenty or fifty years. Creating this “north star” for our community will help guide everything from cost of living to infrastructure and beyond.

  1. What infrastructure projects and municipal services do you think should be top priorities for the municipal government?

Looking again at foundational work, one of the most important things we can and should do is give attention to our zoning requirements in a way that encourages denser and easier construction for inexpensive but long-term residential housing. Beyond that, we need to ensure that the people who live here are able to move, both in cars and through other means like bikes, transit, and the many mobility scooters our population use, in safer ways than they currently need to.

  1. What is your position on the contracting-out and privatization of public services, including public-private partnerships?

I strongly support public (union-led!) services. We have seen a number of public-private partnerships in the last 30 years that have ended up costing more for worse outcomes; while the short-term numbers always look good, longer-term adding a profit incentive ends up hurting the city.

  1. How will you support long-term, smart economic growth and good jobs for Cornwall?

Cornwall has an incredible opportunity to be a hub city for our region. This could mean not only the jobs that come with growth and logistics, including the many highly skilled labour and trade roles that come with those, but also an emphasis on remote work and the huge economic growth that comes with that.

  1. How will you address housing needs and affordability in our community?

Housing needs and affordability are a huge gap across Canada in general, and Cornwall is of course feeling it hard. I’d like to see reconsiderations on zoning to encourage accessory dwelling units (ADUs), tax incentives for lower-than-market rental properties, and a push towards city-led initiatives for key affordability measures like grocery options: we live in a vibrant farming community and should be working with our neighbours to have a local-first option for shopping that cuts the many costs involved with shipping food across Canada or its borders.

  1. Do you support a made-in-Canada purchasing policy for municipal governments and school boards?

Strongly and without reservation. While there will always be things we have to purchase from outside of Canada (like a lot of technology), anything that can be reasonably sourced within Canada should be, with preference made to more local and union-organized options. This is something we should not only do, but we should do well and publicly enough to brag about - we need to support our community directly.

  1. How will you promote the purchase of unionized goods and services (where available)?

100% of the time I would like to see unionized goods and services used over the alternative. We should be leveraging the size and volume of municipal purchasing power to encourage more providers to be union-friendly, full stop.

  1. What initiatives and policies would you advocate to address climate change?

As with many larger societal issues, municipal power is limited for the “big swings” that we see so often, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have an impact. As one key example, Cornwall’s place as a hub can and should extend to being friendly to the rapidly increasing number of electric vehicles on our streets and the 401. 

  1. Do you support adopting a living wage policy for our municipality?

It should be seen as a shame to our community that we do not already have an explicit living wage policy for municipal roles. This is absolutely something we should be implementing.

  1. The CDLC favors a CARE system where the youth, seniors, and low-income groups would have free or lower cost fares for Cornwall Transit. Would you consider supporting this system?

Note: I answered thi question on the phone, as I missed it in my initial reply, so this is my recollection of my answer.

Not only do I support this system, as a person who grew up both transit-dependent and low-income, but I support heavy investment and expansion of our transit system as a whole. Our recent change to add Sunday service is a great start, but working with our neighbouring regions to connect us more firmly ane increasing our service frequency can all work together to increase ridership which both helps traffic and increases our provincial budget allotment for further investment: a virtuous cycle we can help to create.