Sudbury - Election - Miranda Rocca-Circelli for Mayor: Accountability, Community & a New Direction

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Hello, everyone. It's Eric here from Love the North. And this coming October is a municipal election across, I believe it's most of Ontario.

And here we are in studio with Miranda Rocca Circelli, who's running for mayor. Miranda. Good to see you. Good to see you. Thanks for having me. Okay. Let's get right into it here. Looking on your website, your platform, you've got a six point accountability platform. The first one is, and there's going to be so much to talk about and we're going to get, go on some off-ramps, I'm sure.

restoring the office of the auditor general for the regular folk like me, what does that even mean? That's a great question. So let me define the auditor general is,(...) it's even provincially,(...) has provincial jurisdiction. So the auditor general is responsible to have the oversight and the overview of, and it's not just money, it's processes, it's policies, it's bylaws, it's behavioral. So the auditor general is the one place that as a citizen, if you allege wrongdoing or you're questioning something,(...) you would go to that office, which would usually have, an accessible phone number and email address. And so you would report your wrongdoing as a citizen or whatever you're requesting to be investigated or reviewed. The auditor general would then take that and they're a third party of the city. So as much as they're employed by the city, they don't report directly to any of the staff,

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which is a beautiful thing because as a third party, their job is to be incredibly unbiased in their investigations, right? Now because it has a provincial jurisdiction, the auditor general has access to what you would normally have to go through as a freedom of information request to access publicly accessible documentation. The auditor general does not. So they are, they have an arm to the clerk's office where they can access information. So the whole premise is that their third party, they perform investigations on the city as a third party.

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And so we don't have that. They were removed as of December of 2025. Who removed them? So my understanding is that there was a decision made unanimously, or not unanimously, majority by council to reduce the cost. Therefore that meant to remove the auditor general to save on costs. Is that it?

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That, and again, that is my understanding. And then the CAO removed the auditor general along with six other positions at the city. Okay. And so the auditor general was actually in the process. I can't speak to other processes, but the auditor was in the process and I had been communicating with him(...) investigating two of my cases that I had brought to him, some alleged wrongdoing and without being able to complete those cases, they were removed. And so when I, you know, inquired about that,(...) there is no more oversight. There is nowhere to go. If you need to inquire about wrongdoing or anything, it's just gone.(...) So can you, you know, for, for the regular folk out there like me, can you give me an example? Like what's a real life working example?

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I mean, I can give an example even from my own personal, because it's easier to speak to that. So(...) I had a situation where I had to inquire with the fire department about a fire suppression system that was exposed that I wasn't really sure what it was or what it was doing. And so I went to the fire department and I spoke to people, not people, I had fire service prevention officers come and investigate and take a look at it(...) based on how they handled it. Yeah. And in my opinion, there was a lack of due process and due diligence. I reported that behavior and that lack of process to the auditor general to investigate.(...) So those are the types of things. Also another thing that you can inquire about is, you know, if you're, for example, people could inquire about the event center, you know, so if people allege that, you know, the cost, there isn't enough evidence to support what is being said by city council and the mayor and the admin, then they can challenge that. And they would go to the auditor general and say, I would like to investigate, you know, such and such and such and such. And usually, you know, if you can provide evidence and substance to your allegation, it helps the process. Right. And then the auditor general would determine(...) if they're going to investigate that or how, you know, the depth of that. And then the report from that usually goes to council. So it's complete transparency without any, any internal hands touching it, which is what you need. When people are making decisions with taxpayer dollars, you have to involve the taxpayer or at least create an area or a branch that has that oversight to hold people accountable. Right. Because right now, again, no one can hold, there's no one being held accountable for anything. So if you disagree with something or you're saying, or they're telling you, this is the this is what we approve, and we're saying, well, can we see that in writing, we need the documentation, and they're saying, well, we they're not providing it, it ends there. So who benefits from that? Well, that's the real question. Who does benefit from that? Not the citizens. Okay.

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On to the next item here on your platform, you have restore meaningful local decision making in every ward. To me, it sounds good.(...) What does it mean? In reality? Yeah, no, that's a great question. So, I mean, I've been here my whole life, born and raised, and raised my three children here. And, you know, it's interesting because several is made up of(...) several communities were a community of communities. Yeah. Okay. And in 2001,(...) we were amalgamated, which meant they took basically everything we had in the city of Greater Sudbury from Beaver Lake all the way out to, you know, one like from end to end, they took everything they threw it in a bucket. They didn't succession plan. They didn't, you know, anticipate how they were going to manage this. So that's why we have so much stuff. And that's why we have so many facilities. Like my understanding is over 600 facilities that we own and operate. Okay, which is a lot. The roads, the infrastructure, everything got thrown in together. So since that time, what has happened is that a lot of the towns and the wards have lost their voice, not because they're not being loved, but because they're not being heard. And so services, bylaw changes,(...) I mean, the list goes on and they seem to be less and less and less. And yet their taxes are going up and up and up, but they're losing more and more services. And so as outlined communities who are once in a, you know, you look at Capriall, you can move to Capriall and never leave Capriall. You've got everything you need there. You've got the grocery store, the hardware store, the pharmacy, like everything is there. You could live your best life depending on your lifestyle. Like you could be very happy there.(...) And when these types of communities, and that's economic development, like letting a place, like creating a space where a place like Capriall can thrive. Like think of the people that would want to come visit there, even during, you know, the summer months, if it was set up properly. Like this is where we can grow when we create opportunities for each of these wards and towns to thrive again, because right now they are just being dissolved. And so what this looks like is, and here's my plan. My plan is to create advisory councils in each of the wards. And it's kind of like a mini council, but it's comprised of all the citizens. And because there's a lot of people who care, they want to share their voice. So it's comprised of citizens and the councilor's role in that is to be the moderator and to help facilitate those conversations and advocate for the citizens' needs. And to bring the issues that are brought up there to council for, you know, decisions from, by everybody at council. The other piece to that is eventually I would like to reallocate, and again, these aren't new, new, they're new roles, but they're not new positions of the city. And to reallocate two positions to each of the wards. That way they can start to make autonomous decisions for their wards and have the admin capacity to actually make things happen. And eventually as we progress with this model, budgets. So each ward would have its own autonomous budget that they can make decisions on as their own mini council. They have their now, their management and their administrator to help implement them. And they can start to, you know, if they want to update a park, there's always going to be, you know, certain criteria for that kind of investment. But ultimately, they can make the decisions, what roads get repaired, they can make the decisions, what parks are getting repaired or what projects they want in their community.(...) Again, it sounds good because they're taking ownership and they know what's best because they're basically on the front line. That's it. They're the ones who live there. And they're the ones who know, like, again, if you ask anyone about the streets in their own community, they will tell they probably even have the potholes mapped out. They know where they are. They go right down to the millimeter, right? And if you're and if you're a motorcycler, you really know where they are. Yeah, you really know. And then if you go down to City Hall, they may have no idea about the culture, the lifestyle, the landscape, the demographics in those towns. So why not let the people who live there run it? And I mean, big decisions, obviously, you know, if someone wants to build a whole new infrastructure, well, there's a criteria where certain major decisions have to come to the but for the most part, they don't they can make those decisions themselves. And that is empowerment. And the thing is, when you start to let when you start to create a space for each of these wards to thrive on their own, what happens is the ripple effect, everything constructively thrives together. Is there the budget to do this? Or you know what? This is a thing this year was that they found something like 27 million dollars that was, you know, hiding. Yeah, I was hiding in the budget somewhere where they said it was because they had a really good CFO and they were able to find what ended up happening. They found the money. So, for example, when they close out projects, you're supposed to do a whole close out of that budget, right?

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And what seems to happen is so there was money, for example, in some of the budget lines for six years, there's two million dollars sitting in one particular account.(...) And it's just, you know, as a business owner, it's really interesting because they don't operate with a zero line by line or zero based budgeting. Yeah. So those things can go,(...) you know, I guess they can slip through the cracks when you have two million dollars sitting somewhere for six years and then also, hey, we found money.(...) I couldn't imagine operating. Can you imagine operating your business like this? Like it's just unheard of. It's almost like getting your pair of pants that you put away in a bin and then you find a hundred bucks in them. Right. Which is like bonus. Yeah. But I mean, it makes no sense in many ways. So we have to kind of go back and look at how do we make sense of engaging different communities and allow them to have the autonomy to make those choices? Because ultimately, again, that's what's going to help us thrive collectively. If we keep looking at the core of our city and we focus on the core, like the core of the core of the core, by the time those ripples reach the outlying areas, it's too late. The waves are not that big anymore. No. And even we do that literally with snow removal. So I grew up in the town of Walden and I can't say this specifically. There might be hearsay of hearsay. However, Frank Falsetta used to be the one who would call out the snowplows.

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I mean, it seems like Frank is an infamous name and because there's the Frank Mazzuca in the in Cambridge. These are the people that knew the town, but they weren't afraid to say, hold on a second. No, no, no, no. This is how you need to do it to make it work here. And people listened because they respected that level of knowledge and expertise. We've lost that culturally. Right. We have it, but it's been so ignored and so(...) contained that people...(...) Like, it's interesting. People are incredibly angry right now and they have every reason to be. People are almost hostile and in some cases even volatile because they're so... They're futile. They're so upset that 20 years, 30 years have gone by and they still are not being heard. And like I said, now infrastructure is going away. And we're not just talking roads. We're talking what's underneath the roads. We're talking about buildings. We're talking about water.(...) We won't even get into what's happening with our drinking water. So there's so many things. What is happening with the drinking water? I mean, it's getting to the point, we feed out of Ramsey Lake. Well, it's getting to the point that it's getting to a max capacity. Right. And a lake can only hold so much pollutants before you can properly filter it for drinking purposes. Right. So these are things that are all kind of happening at once. And so it's a lot in our city right now and things that have been let go for 30, 40 years. And so now they're at the point where everything's rearing its head(...) and everything needs to be fixed, maintained. It's a lot.(...) Infrastructure.(...) It(...) seems like it's crumbling. It is. Every winter there's(...) water main breaks and Kingsway might be shut down heading westward, like it was last year, I think. Oh wow. Anyways, without getting into specifics,(...) let's move on to... It is the next pillar. It is the next pillar. Roads and aging infrastructure. So the funds can't be redirected unless publicly voted on. That's what you have in your(...) platform.

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So I wondered, how are you going to get... And again, it sounds good, but practically, how are you going to get the input from the citizens? What's the most efficient way to do that? Because half the citizens may participate, the other half may not. What's your approach? I think first, transparency also means clear communication. I find what's happening in our city often is people become almost disenfranchised where they're not being given the whole story or the facts or the numbers. And so everybody has to make decisions(...) based on what they can collate online. It was available to them, right? And often, again, you can... You'll mix up numbers, you'll make mistakes, and it's not intentional. But again, there is a lot of transparency in communication. So I think communicating to our citizens exactly the state of everything in our city, from the roads to(...) the pipes under the... Everything to the infrastructure and the buildings. Get an actual... Tell people the truth of what's happening and what state we're in. Because when people see the truth, then they'll say, "Oh, wow. Okay. Now it's serious. We have to pay attention because it's that bad." Right? I think the other part is, so we need to protect the 1.6% levy. That money should always be available in the event that we do need to do some major infrastructure work.(...) What is the 1.6% levy?

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So that is money that is always in a reserve that is used for roads. In a piggy bank? Basically. Yeah. So it collects interest and stuff, my understanding, right? It's to always have that 1.5% or 1.6%(...) not touched for anything but roads ensures that(...) we have the money to repair the roads. Because again, things happen. Like you said, water main breaks. Well, where does that money come from? Well, if we're taking money out of that levy to use towards other things, other projects that aren't immediate or critical, well, when we need the money, it's just like anything. You save up money, you want to buy something, and then a friend says, "Hey, can I borrow some money? I need something." Then also in your car breaks down, you're like, "Oh, no, but now I need a new car."(...) Prioritize the money. So if you keep the money in the levy and you use it for the infrastructure, then you know when you need it, it's there. But when you take it and you move it around and use it for other things, that becomes problematic. So I think we need to make sure that we preserve that money and safeguard it and make sure that it is always available for what we need it for, which is infrastructure roads and the stuff that is falling apart and it's going to continue to fall apart. Yeah, that seems to happen in some other places. I can't pinpoint it, but they move stuff around, and then when they need it, it's not there. And then what do you do, right? And then you got to go borrow money, and we're talking about like millions of dollars. So you're not like the interest, it's not like boring, few thousand dollars. This is a lot of money, right? So this is important. And again,(...) since the amalgamation, things have not been maintained. So you have almost 4,000 stretch of kilometer.(...) Of roads? Of roads, yeah. They have not been properly maintained for how many years? Yeah, it's a big problem. So who's been kicked? So the cans been kicked down the roads by who?

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You know what? Until I, to be honest, I remember reading about that. I think I'm not sure if it's a municipal decision. I think it is, but again, don't quote me on that. It is something that is being phased out. And the thing is, whether it's,(...) you know, provincial or municipal, and I remember reading an article that they're canning the cans what if they were saying. And, you know, again, this is where you need sound leadership who understands the value of having citizens voices heard. Because at the end of the day, you can always advocate and lobby. There are things that you can do. And if, if, happy again, for me, it's proposing, well, if we're getting rid of the cans, then we bring in advisory councils. Right? So no, absolutely not. We will always have a spot for citizens voices to be heard. But that is because that's the type of leader I am. If you don't have that leadership, then yeah, things like can can disappear. And citizens voices can disappear. And they can sit comfortably in their chair and be happy about it. I am not the type of person to be able to sleep at night, not creating safe spaces for people to be heard. So it's the type of leadership you get. And that's the type of leadership I plan on bringing.

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The next item on your platform is transition city owned facilities to community hands. Can you elaborate? So I'll tell you what, well, no, I'm not gonna tell you what I think about it. But what it sounds like is, well, let's have you tell us. And then we'll see if it's a lines up. If it lines up. You were saying, yeah. So this is goes back to the amalgamation. When we amalgamated, we took on over 600. And again, the numbers are accurate because the process to get transparent numbers is really hard. And even through in this city, even through an FOI process, which I've gone through several, which are only supposed to take, you know, 30 days, that's still a long time, nine months. And then things have to get escalated to even higher levels, because you don't always get the information and the data you're requesting. So the FOI request, is that because of the city process is too slow? Or what's the holdup? I wish I knew what the holdup was. The holdup was, I can only speak to my particular situation. And my understanding is things were withheld. So I had to keep going back and re-asking. And then every time I get different things. Would you change that if you became there? Absolutely. That's, again, part of the transparency. If there is a process and a policy, and I think a lot of processes and policies have to be reviewed because they were developed, you know, 20, 30 years ago. But if there's a policy and a process that says, okay, this is our policy, you put in an FOI, this is the request, you have 30 days, then you get the responses to that request. And then this and this and this, right? But if people aren't following that process,(...) then that's something that I have to look into. That's problematic. Even 30 days seem, I know nothing about the FOI process, but even 30 days seems a long time. Why can't it be done within 14? What's the holdup? I guess it's a standard to give. So what happens is when you go through, and the clerk's office has been great, I'll be honest. They're probably, in my experience, the clerk's office was sound in doing their job. And so when you put in that request, then they have to go to the department and then make that request and ask for any of the content that you're requesting, right? So it takes time because depending how many people are involved. So I understand that. But that's the difference between having an auditor general. They don't have to wait 30 days. They get the data(...) when they want it, right? It's very different. But even in that, so again, I couldn't get accurate numbers. So let's say for lack of my understanding, 600 facilities that we own and operate since the amalgamation, okay? So(...) the whole idea of lowering taxes happens when we start to increase the tax base. We have not been increasing our tax base enough to lower taxes. So what happens is we end up paying for, we, the current citizens, end up paying for these facilities that are falling apart and that are aging or that we don't have the capacity to maintain. Our tax dollars are the ones that are going to pay for just about every service and thing that we need because we're not growing our tax base. So in a situation like this, my first, my plan is to get a database, a catalog of all these facilities with the overhead, with the operating costs, how many staff, like the whole assessment of each of these facilities,(...) their valuation, all of that, right?(...) Market, you know, pricing, all of it. And then to, the idea is to now transition a lot of these, these facilities to the residents and to the communities and to the nonprofits and the social enterprises. So some have already done that. So for example, Beaver Lake, they own their community center. Okay, so I was, that's one of the side of the highway. It, well, it's kind of in, yeah, you do turn off the highway, but it's got a skating rink.

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Yes, it does. Okay. So they, they, but they acquired their own community center. So they use it as a little micro economic development where they have conferences, like they use it to, to host and to, to, to, Mother's, Mother's day, uh,(...) breakfast brunch. Okay. Yeah. Mother's day brunch, I think is out there. Yeah. So they do stuff like that, right? And it's, the thing is the community comes together and they take pride in it. And that's the part that we are losing are those, again, the communities of the communities who come together and they, they, they take care of things. They take care of the arenas. They take care of all these things, right? So the idea is, you know, we have, what is it?

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Now I can't remember the number. Is it seven or more arenas? So we have, there's either, there's between 12 and 14 arenas in Sudbury. In the greater city of Sudbury. Yeah. So things like that, when you look at what the, if you go to the arena in Cape raw, for example, it is cold, it's falling apart is what it is. Right. And the hard thing is, is because, you know, and when you talk to the residents, because the city isn't, we're not able to maintain the level of facilities we have. But when you start to transition them, give it to the community at Cape raw. Okay. Give it to them. They will take it and they will start to fix it up. Absolutely. Maintain it and they're going to love it. Right. Look at the hockey associations.(...) Give an arena to a hockey association. I mean, I know when I founded my basketball organization, the first thing I was looking for was a place that we could call home and have an indoor basketball court. Right. We'll try to find that. The closest I got was the old St. Ray fields that was bought by the separate Christian Academy. Is that the facility? Yeah. So they had bought the whole school and so they had, you know, the gym in it. And so we created a partnership where I was able to use the gym. But I thought like we don't have an indoor facility like they do when you go down South. There's like, and they're all privately owned down. Oh yeah. So even the arenas, they're all privately owned. Right. So I said, you know, why don't we start to transition the facilities to the communities that have the capacity? And if they don't, this is going to be very much like a one on one thing. Right. There's not going to be a general formula of this is our each situation will be unique depending on the nonprofit or the social enterprise that we would have to, you know, determine are you able to get the capacity? And maybe this looks like grants or things that can help set them up at the beginning, whether it's to help them with the permit process or to give them, you know, like we do for developers and we kind of give them the easement of you don't have to, $20,000 in permit fees to help you set up. Right. So the idea is to help(...) create these autonomous and independent communities that are going to come together and thrive. Would they still report to the(...) counselor as the counselor being the overseer of that area? Well, it depends. So again, like, for example, if a nonprofit hockey association decides they come forward and they're like, we would like to take this arena over because we're transitioning it. Yeah. Well, that has nothing to do. In essence, like it does involve the community, but it's a hockey, it's a nonprofit that's going to acquire that arena and run it within the scope of their nonprofit. Right. And which will contribute to the community. But ultimately, it's about giving it to the nonprofits and the social enterprises in the communities who are already running things and doing a great job. Let them like build it. They're the boots on the ground. That's it. And they're the ones are passionate because your kids are in it. You're like, you know, I if I would have found a facility, I was looking at building one at one point because you're in it, you're passionate and you know, it's a need. So these are things that we have, we have the capacity, we have the people, we have the nonprofits, so give them, give them the opportunity. So this is the thing. Let's say we lessen that list to 400. Okay. 450 facilities. Say we start with 600. We're down to 450. That is how you will lower the taxes or freeze or or like slow down the tax hike because now you're not paying the overhead and the staffing for 150 facilities that you have(...) and better that are falling apart and dilapidated and require so much work that we're never going to put into it because the city clearly is not paying attention to these facilities because they're falling apart. So if we lessen that by that much, we would impact our taxes. Yeah, that's a 25% reduction just in that one area. Right. And then and then those communities are going to start to grow and thrive and bring tournaments locally and they're going to build that. So that's economic development where it starts to give back to the communities. Right. And so that's what we need to start to build. So if you look at all the online communities and if we gave facilities, we transition facilities to all these, like I said, 100, 150 facilities.(...) Do you know how much we're going to thrive in doing this? Right. And so now we don't have to pay the overhead. Like I said, the staffing,(...) we were never collecting taxes from those facilities because they were under the city's ownership. So they're running and they're running at a loss. Are they not? They are. They are all and that's the thing when we look at the operating costs of of any arena, any arena, even services, you got to look at that because it does add up and people think it doesn't, but it costs money to hold a building. Even the heating, the coal, like our climate, it's going to require overhead, but give it to the communities. Let them take it on. They can do that. They can fundraise and then they have access to funding that's federal and provincial.(...) That's outside the municipality, which is beautiful because again, that's bringing money to the community.

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Can you mean does does the municipality probably going off on a tangent here, but

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to help fund that does the municipality already get money from the feds in the province?

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You'd have to look at each one right now. My understanding, depending on the facility. No, right. So I know as a nonprofit, when I founded a nonprofit, I never went to the municipality for any kind of support for funding. I always went to the province and the feds because there are tons of programs that support nonprofits. You have to look for the money sometime, but I was able to hire summer students. I was able to, um, there were programs that helped me access funding for the equipment. So I never once came to the municipality with my nonprofit, even though I was local and I was running locally, I went to the feds and the province. So that is the other benefit with empowering the nonprofits. There is funding available outside the municipality. If you're a nonprofit, your first place to go for funding, if you're looking for grants and government funding is the feds and the province. That's where you go as a nonprofit. Okay. Yeah. The next item, people housing and social infrastructure. You know, we've got homelessness, we've got housing, we've got seniors, community services that are not soft issues. Tell us more about what you're, well, where are you taking the ship? Where are you sailing? So this is a huge one. And the thing here is again, language, right? And we hear a lot of talk of affordable housing(...) and that's wonderful. The thing is(...) I find our cities really good at, um, confusing people and throwing everything into a bucket. So affordable housing, there's different umbrellas for that. Affordable housing is also a program that not everybody qualifies for. Okay. Because most people who go into affordable housing have an income of sorts. It's a fixed income, whether it's OSDP or they're a senior or they're on, again, other means of fixed income. Okay. So it's for pensions. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So it's people who have this fixed income and they can't afford to pay more than what they receive. Okay. So they apply to these programs and then they go through a vetting process and then it's determined whether or not they qualify for the program or not. So some people don't do not qualify, but this doesn't answer the situation when we're dealing with homeless people and we're dealing with(...) a different demographic. So affordable housing is one particular demographic and within the affordable housing, there's different programs. So there's co-op housing. Yeah. Okay. So that's a different one. And here's the piece kind of tying back into the other pieces. I actually had a meeting with the organization, the nonprofit that runs the co-op, a lot of the co-op policy in our city. Okay. And they have about, I can't remember, like we're a dozen units and about seven or nine of them(...) are coming up for mortgage renewal.(...) The co-op itself is coming up for a mortgage renewal? Yeah. So the facility, like the buildings that they have, right? Where people are, they have, I think about a dozen individual co-ops. Yeah. So seven or nine of them, I can't remember the number, are coming up for renewal. Okay. Is the rent going to go up? Well, it's coming up for renewal. So they have to determine that, right? But right now what has happened is that since the amalgamation, so the city had all the towns had reserves in the bank. Okay.(...) They had money. They raised money independently. Valley East was incredibly abundant. Like they worked hard. They got, they're all the towns. So even these places like these co-op housing had money in their levies, in their capital, like that they can use for infrastructure repairs, that they could use for times where the mortgage is renewed and the rent does go up so that they can keep that fixed, the people in the fixed incomes, rental rate fixed and it doesn't go up. Okay.

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Well, the issue is, is not only are these houses coming up for mortgage renewals right now, but also they're all, the infrastructure is falling apart on them. So not only do they need now funding for mortgage renewals, but also for infrastructure repairs. Okay. So every single(...) sector, every single town, every single, everyone is dealing with the same issue of being literally not heard and ignored. And now things are falling apart in every aspect of the city. So that's an example of, for example, they have co-op housing and that helps with people who are on fixed income because the tenants make up the board and they come to collective decisions. They vote on the decisions. Okay. So right, right increase. They have to vote on that.(...) Then there's other housing programs through the city and the city has units in many buildings. They don't, the city doesn't own the buildings, but what they do is they have partnerships with the landlords. And so they have like, you know, example, five units that they use for subsidized housing. So the city will top up people who go through the program, who meet the criteria, the city will top up their rent for them. And then they have those in, in so many places. Okay. So there's different types. And now the, the mayor keeps talking about they're building affordable housing. There was one post with, with panorama properties saying that they're building,

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again, it's, it's clarity around the language. It's not always affordable housing that we're talking about. Sometimes it's housing for regular people who are not on fixed income. That's not affordable housing. Even if you put the rents low, they're subject to increases and there's no,(...) you can't, you can't guarantee that something's going to stay at a fixed level. Okay.(...) Now the other pieces then we have, you know, and I say there's, there's kind of three camps of homelessness that we're dealing with. We have people who are homeless who are hard on their luck. It happens. Regular people. And an energy court that are we going there? And some of them stay there. Yeah. So there's, there's homeless people again that are, that are regular people that were hard on their luck. They lost their jobs. They weren't able to pay their bills. Those are families. They could be any demographic. Okay. Then you have people who are homeless who are also suffering with mental health and addiction. Okay. Then you have people who are homeless that might be potentially committing crimes. Okay. So you have different camps of homeless people. And so(...) again, there's not a one size fits all. When we talk about affordable housing, we're not talking about,(...) you know, the solutions that can help homeless people or people with mental health and addiction or that's a different thing. And transitional housing is also a different thing. Okay. Transitional housing is where, so when, when people are homeless and they, they,(...) they get to the point where they are able to start living more independently. So transitional housing is basically a place that guides them through that process that gets them to a place where they can be independent and live on their own. It's kind of like a school and you kind of go through the steps and you graduate from it. And then you're able to live independently.(...) And again, that's a different thing too. So there are all these different types of housing opportunities and they need to be clearly communicated with the public because the public just sees, oh, affordable housing. What does that mean? Who's that for? And you need to create language around it. So in the immediate shelters are how we can create solutions because we do not have enough shelters. I don't even say that we have shelters because we have, I think two for men, which is, I think they have like a dozen beds each, maybe like 20. There's not many for women and children. I think there's about a dozen beds.

(...)

And then there's,(...) there's not enough. We do have Lotus, which is a rehabilitation facility, but it's not enough. I think it only has so many like spots for people.

(...)

What we need to do is we need to partner with the nonprofits. We are not in the business of, you know, there are people who are experts in this and they do a great job. So again, provide them with the infrastructure,(...) create a streamlined process so they can set up shop. They can set up a shelter, let the nonprofits run it, let the nonprofits, and again, within, there are always going to be certain parameters. You know, you need to have a board of directors. There need to be certain bylaws. Like there are things that have to be in place to run something successfully. And I think historically when I talk to people, they, oh, we've done that. And I ask questions. Okay, well, how was it done? What were the policies, procedures, and then you find that's where the issues were. So it's making sure that things are done(...) due process, you know, and if you're a nonprofit, you need a board of directors. You have to have certain transparency there. So what I'm hearing is this, it should be the city's job to facilitate, basically,

(...)

offer the flower box for the flowers to grow. Absolutely. Okay. That's it. That's an easy one to wrap your head around. Well, and I mean, and again, like, you know, offer them the facility. And then if there are, you know, grants and support that can be reached upon to get them set up, then absolutely, like where you can help, but the city needs to focus on serving its citizens and it needs to focus on services that are going to help our citizens. Right.(...) We have experts in this realm, in social work that do this and they're good at it. So set them up for success, get out of the way and create shelters. So once we have shelters in place, then people have a safe place to go.(...) I also think we need to follow that same methodology and partner with nonprofits and get rehab facilities established here because we are,(...) we're one of the biggest on earth and we don't have a rehabilitation facility that can accommodate different needs of rehabilitation. That's a problem because people come here for that and they realize we don't have it. Okay. So that's a problem. Okay. So those are the parts that I think we'll start to clean up our city.

(...)

And those are options that we have not yet explored. So before we jump into anything else, I think these are the options that are feasible. And we have to do this because we're now in September. Mm hmm. So as much as the city, you know, we,(...) what happened last winter, there were, there were deaths.

(...)

I think there was even a homicide. Like there was things that were happening and everyone swore that this would not be the case coming the next winter. Well here we are in September. Has anything changed? We don't have shelters.(...) We don't have a rehab facility.

(...)

There's more people(...) living in the encampments. I think the number is between 400 and 500. Again, I don't, it's hard to find accurate numbers because those are the numbers that are usually reported as well. There's a lot of unreported numbers, right?

(...)

And again, we're in September. So what are we going to do this winter?

(...)

And it's scary because again, those are people.(...) And if we had places that were safe,(...) then maybe they would go to places that were safer. So it's just really sad because again, here we are in September and I don't see our city have changed, they haven't changed anything. And the situation has just gotten worse. But then you see them virtually signaling, you know, these photo ops and these opportunities to tell the public that everything's great. We're open for business.

(...)

And there is not one thing in the city that can actually speak to that. To support it? To support that we're open for business and that we're safe and we're vibrant are the words that keep getting used. I don't know anyone who will go downtown or go to parts of the city, even the outlying areas and drive through them and say, wow, we're vibrant here. Wow, we're open for business here. Like go drive through every downtown in the city I'm talking about, not just our current urban downtown, go to all the downtowns in all the towns in all the cities and tell me if we're vibrant and we're open for business. Well, I think from a business point of view, you can look at any of the retail spaces that are open, occupied or not occupied. That would signal just to get it's a little indication. And my understanding from people who are on the streets, again, boots on the ground have said that the downtown is probably more than 40% vacant.

(...)

Our downtown? Our main downtown, yeah. The one, yeah. And that is, and again, that's just the downtown here. Again, I've gone to Capriole, I've gone to Zildep, I've gone to Chelmsford.

(...)

Actually, many of those places are thriving more than our downtowns are. But they're on the verge and are currently also being deprived and collapsing. Right? But again, drive through any part of the city and tell me(...) what is vibrant, how are we open for business? This is a huge part, the socioeconomic piece is everything. If people don't feel safe, if people are struggling, that impacts the economic development of a community as well. And it seems like the people who are in charge aren't seeing the connection. They're not able to connect the dots. We can thrive economically, and we can also thrive socially, socioeconomically. But I don't think that you, again, you have the right people in the right positions with the right expertise who understand this and how it actually works. They seem to be very much like it's this or that. But there's a lot we could be doing here to help our people.

(...)

Good point.

(...)

Let's move on to the final point in your plan here. The community resilience and emergency preparedness. What does that mean? And I see that there is an example of flooding that happened just this past year. Yeah, so this was based on the flooding that had just occurred. Where? It happened mostly in the outlying towns, but everybody got hit a little bit. Oh, is this from the spring runoff? Yeah, it was. Well, of course it started with the snow. I mean, we got a historic crazy amount of snow. I was stranded for five days. I could not leave where I live. And I live rural, much like you. I couldn't leave for five days, which was crazy to me. I thought, what if there's, of course, an emergency? You're thinking all these crazy things. You're snowed in. You're snowed in. And it wasn't just snow. There was a foot of ice. And then it was crazy. I thought, wow, I felt taller that day when I went for a walk. I'll tell you that. I was walking on a foot of ice. But so this stemmed from that. And this is the thing.

(...)

So I have expertise in emergency preparedness. Many years ago, I was a senior instructional designer. I built the curriculum for life-saving programs with the Canadian Red Cross. And those included everything from your basic standard first aid training to emergency preparedness for medical professionals. So(...) we worked a lot with the preparedness piece and then the immediate(...) acute response. So(...) what I saw happened,(...) it was alarming.

(...)

And then so it started with the snow. And again, as a citizen, you're observing.(...) I'm trying to observe from the lens of a citizen who's paying taxes. And then I'm observing it from the lens of being, you know, having expertise in developing curriculum in this realm. So(...) it was interesting because there were a lot of things that could have been done differently. Absolutely. And I hope that they take this as a learning experience. But when I saw the report that they requested to be completed at the end of-- it was not too long ago.(...) It missed the markers. It missed(...) the assessment of actually looking at how things could be done differently and where the challenges were.

(...)

And I know it sucks to look at where sometimes we make mistakes. But ultimately, mistakes are there to teach us and guide us, right? So it started with the snow, which then came into the spring runoff. So they were connected in many ways. If there was, you know, preparedness for the snow and snow removal. What I found is our emergency preparedness plan is very subjective.

(...)

There are things in there that say, well, like-- and I don't have the exact wording, but, you know, we'll consult internally. You can't-- that's not a marker. That's not a benchmark. We're going to consult internally. What does that mean? Who is consulting internally? How many people-- like quantify it. Is it that, OK, we're going to consult with five out of 10 people. And if five-- like quantify it, you need trigger points, right? This is an emergency preparedness plan. Has to be incredibly objective. And so I'm reading through this. And then what I also realize is that--(...) so the topography of each of these towns is very different in each of these words, right? So you have Beaver Lake, right? So you have people who are living in areas that are(...) lower. And so they don't even--(...) they can't get insurance for flooding because they live in an area that's predominantly lower. And so they're susceptible to flooding. So that's kind of the risk you take when you live in these areas sometimes, right? But ultimately, that doesn't mean that if something happens, you don't get services, that you don't get help, right? So what I found is that there was no emergency. First of all, there were objective triggers missing. So I compared it to other places. And I wasn't comparing(...) the size of the town. I was comparing the process, OK? And the process had objective triggers of, OK, the snow-- in this area, if the snow reaches quantifiably-- arbitrary number here-- you know, five centimeters. And in this area of the city, if it reaches, you know, nine centimeters-- so they had trigger points. It's like if it reached that in that area, then that would trigger us to then deploy X number of snow removal trucks or whatever it was, right? So they had a trigger point and then a process, OK? We do not have that extensiveness. And because we're so unique and we have all these boards and towns, we almost need an emergency preparedness plan that for each town. Individually. Yes, because, again, the geography and the topography is very different in each of these places, where some are susceptible to things that some aren't susceptible to, right? So when you have one size fits all for a Northeastern community, like we-- you know, that goes into Northeastern-- like we need unique bylaws because we are rule-- 94% rule, 6% urban.

(...)

That is major. So our rules, our services should be aligned. Our emergency preparedness should be aligned with 94% rule. So that means there needs to be plans for the seniors who are isolated in the rural places. How do we get to the seniors? How do we get-- we don't have that. And it's this day and age to see what's happening in the world. Things are changing.(...) And we saw what happens when you're not prepared.(...) People called me(...) who were losing their homes. Flooding? Flooding. Losing their homes. There was one lady-- and again, I'm not-- I don't-- you know, I have the details, but I'm not going to share them. But an elderly lady that was selling her house(...) while it was flooded because she didn't have the means and the insurance-- there was no insurance. The city was ignoring them. And I know this because, again, I-- countless people reached out to me.(...) The mayor was not getting back to them.

(...)

So what happened was the city did put in(...) an application to access the emergency funds that are available to municipalities when they have emergency situations. Ottawa did the same thing. They were approved for these emergency funds within two weeks of their application going in.

(...)

Cyber East application sat there for three months. And I'm not saying that, you know, there wasn't work happening behind the scenes, maybe there was lobbying, whatever it is. But to me, that is unreasonable, especially from, you know, a mayor that,(...) you know, went off the platform of being, you know, a federal MP and having those connections. And so things would move faster and seamlessly because he had all these connections because he came from the fence.

(...)

Well, how does our application sit then on, you know, the provincial desk for three months while people literally calling me crying? They are they were losing their homes and there was nothing they could do. There was no insurance. There was no funding. They literally were like, we're at the point where we literally have written off our lives because we don't like devastating. How could you ignore people in those in that? And again, maybe it's having,(...) you know, leaders who are out of touch with what it's like to be a regular folk and to go through life and to potentially lose everything you've ever worked for. That's scary. So the minute people started reaching out to me, I did the only thing I could do, which was to make a little bit of noise to to put it into the public because people didn't know that thousands of people were dealing with this. Okay, it wasn't just a little bit. It was a lot. And so I made a little noise and literally the next day(...) or two days after that, the application went through and people were able to apply for provincial funding.(...) So, you know, and people were like, oh, you're taking the, yes, absolutely, because it doesn't take three months. And then I go on and make a lot of noise. And I mean, I was people were telling the next when that funding went through the two days there, people called me and thanked me and said, you know, we finally heard back from the mayor today who finally answered our email.

(...)

And they said, you know, thank you for what you did, whether it worked or not. Here we are. And now we can access funding and we're getting responses and we're being listened to. That's not leadership.(...) When people are ignored and are about to lose their house because of the ill preparedness of not having an emergency plan(...) and not being able to mitigate risks,(...) that is not leadership and is a problem. So are you going to look at the overall plan and revamp it or set? I mean, it took two seconds and I've already started to look at how. So the plan is you need, you know, and we're going to follow the same methodology that I used in my work when I was developing curricula for a life saving, a national, you know, global company. And that is you bring together committees of frontline workers and experts who are the ones who are going to go out there and save lives and who are doing that. You bring together the experts who know how to save lives and you put together an emergency preparedness plan and you touch on, again, the geography of every town, every square footed of this city needs to be looked at and say, do we need a unique plan here? Do we need a unique because we see the way the world's going. Emergencies are going to continue to happen. We need to make sure that we know what to do. Like back in the day, do you remember when they used to sound the INCO alarm? One o'clock on Monday. Yeah. And it was like, hey, get in the house, close the, close the, he closed the air, shut the windows and you practice in case there's an emergency. Why aren't we doing that?(...) The kids do it in school. They do a lockdown, lockdown, lockdown. Yeah. And they do that. So why aren't we doing that(...) locally? So if there's ever an emergency, like the difference between being prepared is life saving, right? Yeah. It could, it could be night and day, depending on the situation. So it's like, why don't we get ourselves as prepared as possible for things? Winter's coming. So where's the emergency plan for this winter? Where is the plan? You know, where are the changes that they got from the consultant to review what we did? Where are the changes and the communication of, okay, guys, winter's coming this year. This is how we're going to do things. You said the C word consultants. Yeah.

(...)

Consultants.(...) I'm not against consultants. I think there are,(...) I don't have an opinion, but is it possible that

there are sometimes a waste of money? So

again, it's, it's looking at the how, how are they being engaged?(...) And what are they being engaged for?(...) The problem is, so I work as a consultant, right? And it's really hard for me because, you know, even stepping back and seeing how the city's operated,

(...)

it's, it's again, the wrong people in the wrong positions. If you're not qualified and you're hiring a consultant, obviously that consultant's not going to be qualified or do the right job. And I've seen the reports and they're not asking the right questions. Even the emergency preparedness when they had a consultant take, they did not actually do a proper investigation of what occurred. They reported on what was done right, not what was done wrong. And so that's a big problem. You need to look at all of it. And yeah, it takes a little bit of humility to say, hey, I made a mistake or we didn't know or, or we should have did things differently. But it's like parenting. You need to be able to build that accountability. So consultants are great.

(...)

But again, there needs to be the right people who are, who are hiring them for the right reasons and they know what to ask. It's just like using your computer. It's as smart as the prompt you're putting in it. If you don't know how to prompt your computer, it's only going to give you whatever you're asking for. So the issue with the consultants, yes, they're overused, but I think unfortunately the wrong people have been hiring the wrong consultants. And I think with experts, and here's the other piece.(...) What if we had the experts at City Hall? What if we had all the experts? So for example, there was the military defense(...) piece that had come up. And I believe my parent had put in a motion to have the city research, do a feasibility study of sorts. On, I guess, building military equipment locally here. There's granting and money. Here's my issue. What's your issue? Who qualified at the city to do this research? Who is qualified in that specific sector and expertise to provide a concise, comprehensive report that can actually educate people in making a decision?

(...)

I don't know if we have the experts, and I know personally, a lot of qualified people have left the city.(...) And so now more and more you have less and less qualified people

(...)

who are potentially doing a job. So if we actually created a place where people were qualified and doing their job and they were the experts, we wouldn't have to hire consultants the way we do. Because we would have the expertise locally. And I bet you we have the expertise locally. That's the other thing. When we go to consultants, we always go out of town, which, okay, there's a time, a place, but when you're hiring consultants out of London, UK,(...) to tell us where we need to put our fire service department. How do they know? They use Google Maps. It's a problem.

(...)

That's what gives hiring consultants a bad name when that happens. And it does happen. So again, we have expertise here. We have resources.

(...)

Look locally. But again, you need to have the right qualified people who are hiring the qualified people. Because if you don't have qualified people hiring qualified people, you're not getting any qualifications anywhere.(...) And that's what I think historically has happened with the consulting situation.

(...)

To approach the wrap up. Why?(...) Why should people vote for you?

(...)

Because(...) we need change.(...) It's imminent. It's a course that we're headed in.

(...)

It's grim.(...) And much like you, we're raising our kids here. My oldest is at the School of Art and Catwalk now. She stayed here, which is beautiful. But(...) if we don't create opportunities for our children,(...) I want to stay here. It's beautiful here. How could anyone want to leave here? Right? Sometimes it gets cold in the winter. I question it. You get older. Or you get snowed in. You have no choice but to stay. But I mean, ultimately, if people actually want to start living better lives, I am the option. Because the thing is, you know if you vote the same, you're going to get the same. So anyone who is looking around and saying,(...) "Things need to change."

(...)

I hope I can earn their vote. Because I will immediately, just being in the role, create change.(...) Because I'm not like, "What is there?" And so, and for me, in that statement, is I care. I deeply care. This is something that I want to do because I want to stay here forever. And I want my family to be here forever. But I also want to be successful here. And we can't do that if our economy is not successful. So(...) I want to see our city be what it was meant to be, which I think is a beautiful place that is resourceful, that has a global footprint for environment, mining, tech, you name it. We have it all here.(...) We need a leader now that brings us to that place. Because we're 20, 30 years behind times. And so I think if people want, I know if people want change, they want to have our city represent their voice, then I'm their only option this time.(...)

(Music)

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