Photo Credit: Richard Chicoine iCopyright 2010
"Always try to keep a patch of sky above your life." - Marcel Proust
Leadership Thunder Bay 's Candidate Questionnaire
This questionnaire was developed by the LTB class of 2010 - 2011,
as part of their Retreat experience.
The exercise was designed and facilitated by Lead Facilitator, Maggie Chicoine.
The class was divided into 4 "whole brain" small groups*, each with an election focus:
(1) Mayor (2) At Large (3) Ward (4) Education.
Each group was asked to use "Appreciative Inquiry"
to develop 5 questions for their category.
These questions were then circulated to each of the other small groups
for comment, editing and recommendations for top 2 priority.
Questions were then honed to the top 2 in each category by each small group.
From these, the final candidate questions were selected,
and ratified by the Board of Directors of Leadership Thunder Bay.
The responses from candidates are posted below, in alphabetical order, and
as received via email by Patricia Forrest at LTB Management Services.
Candidates who did not submit a response are indicated by N/A beside their name.
This questionnaire is being circulated via email to the current class, 150 Alumni, and the Board of Directors of Leadership Thunder Bay.
It is also posted on the unofficial blog at http://www.xowhat.blogspot.com/.
* Please feel free to circulate to your contacts.
VOTE
Thanks to all Candidates for your willingness to serve our community.
Election Thunder Bay 2010
Leadership Thunder Bay Questionnaire Responses
All Candidates:
1. What new strategies would you employ to engage and retain young talent in our community?
Mayor (1 to be elected)
What strategies will you use to ensure an accountable and cohesive City Council?
HOBBS, KEITH
Thank you for the questions.
1. I would like to engage the next generation and start a Youth Council that could give City Council input into the decisions that will impact them in the future. I think that perhaps when we are planning major capital projects like the Waterfront Development and the Windpark that we should speak with the generation that will end up paying the bills. Why should we not tap into the thoughts and desires of the new generation?
Thunder Bay needs to bring new jobs and industry to our city. The Community Economic Development Committee (CEDC) has to be enhanced, property taxes have to be competitive, and incentives have to be given to new business to not only attract them but keep them sustainable. We need to offer well paid jobs to our young people so that we can stop the exodus of our youth.
2. I would like to start a Central Registry for all complaints or concerns that Thunder Bay citizens have and assign them to councilors with diary dates. Much like when I was in charge of the detective unit at TBPolice I gave the detectives under my command specific dates to finish assignments or at the very least report any and all progress on a case. I have heard too many complaints from citizens as I go door to door, that councilors do not return calls or their concerns fall on deaf ears. My leadership skills as a Hostage Situation Commander, Watch Commander in Uniform Patrol, Unit Commander in the Intelligence Unit, and Unit Commander of the Criminal Investigation Unit have given me the necessary skill-sets to take charge of any situation and direct people to a common goal. I am more than adequately trained in dispute resolution and have mediation and arbitration experience second to none. These skills will be a huge asset in directing Councilors and Administration to achieve our collective goals.
I will question councilors on items of interest and resolutions etc. prior to city council meetings to ensure that all are prepared for meetings. Too often it is apparent that councilors haven't read their information packages before meetings.
Before resolutions are put forward I will ensure that all the necessary preparatory work is completed and the issue is researched properly. The Windfarm on the Norwesters in my humble opinion is a prime example of not researching a major project prior to the commencement of same.
I will have frequent meetings with City Administration and Council to make sure we are on the same page and I am going to institute monthly meetings with unions and city management where both parties can communicate concerns and develop strategies to move Thunder Bay forward.
I am going to walk-about Thunder Bay one day a week and keep in touch with the citizens of this community and I am going to encourage councilors to do the same. I will work six days a week to make up for the day spent on this initiative. I will ask for reports on findings from councilors as a result of this initiative.
With the input of Administration, Councilors, Management, Unions and the Public, I would like to see a long range strategic plan, coupled with a long range urban plan that extends far beyond our four year mandate. Working together we will instill a cohesive and cooperative attitude at city hall and have inclusion for all.
I hope that I have answered your questions satisfactorily.
Regards,
Keith Hobbs
Mayoral Candidate
IRWIN, JEFF - n/a
KWASNY, BRIAN - n/a
PETERSON, LYNN
What new strategies would you employ to engage and retain young
talent in our community?
You have used two key and closely related words in your question: retaining our youth depends very much on engaging them in all aspects of life – work, recreation, opportunity, community. Nurturing a growing and diversifying economy that creates jobs – good, challenging, rewarding jobs – in a variety of sectors is key to achieving this goal. We already have two excellent post-secondary institutions in Thunder Bay that offer a broad range of programs leading to qualifications for our talented young people. We are also working with significant success to grow and diversify our economy, particularly in the knowledge sectors of medical and bioforestry research, information technology, film and animation. Along with growing the economy, we want to continue to enhance the quality of life in our community, through a vibrant cultural scene and a range of amenities and activities that make this a place people of all ages will want to choose for their home. And I would encourage all our citizens, particularly our youth, to become engaged in one or more of the many local organizations that rely on volunteers.
I would just like to add that there is nothing wrong with young people seeking opportunities in the wider world. But I always want them to have more and better options here at home as well, and the option to return here as they pursue their career and family aspirations .
2. What strategies will you use to ensure an accountable and
cohesive City Council?
It is important for the mayor to recognize that she or he has only one vote of thirteen on council, so in that sense the mayor has no more actual power than any other member of council. It is through the wise use of highly developed leadership skills and consensus building that the mayor can have the greatest impact on the council and the community. I take great satisfaction in having led this council to agreement on our first ever strategic plan, with long term goals and timelines. We have had remarkable success in achieving those goals – witness the growth of our economy, the new industries that are choosing to locate here, the existing industries that are expanding into new markets, the renewal of our infrastructure, the transformation of waste into useful energy at the new waste management and recycling centre, our state of the art water and sewer treatment facilities, and so on. We are excited by the successes of Confederation College and Lakehead University in adding new programs, including the faculty of medicine that so perfectly complements our new hospital.
It is through consensus building, strategic planning, and information-based sound decision making that we are able to achieve this progress, and that success in itself helps build a cohesive council. All of us, of course, are directly accountable to the people who elect us - you the citizens of Thunder Bay.
PULLIA, FRANK
What new strategies would you employ to engage and retain young talent in our community?
Answer: There are many but the most important one is one of inclusion and communication. Communication is a two way street, and while I have my own ideas on how to move Thunder Bay forward and create opportunities for all, I believe that we also need to listen to our youth. They have specific needs and desires, as well as their own expectations about the future.
As Mayor I would coordinate the various youth organizations into a more dynamic and engaged group by involving them in specific projects dear to them, while providing the resources and support mechanisms to allow them to accomplish their goals. These projects would vary from beautification to environmental sustainability, to entrepreneurship, to making Thunder Bay a "Smart City" to mention a few. The future really belongs to our youth and allowing them to play a leadership role in creating that future will go a long way in fully engaging and retaining them.
2. What strategies will you use to ensure an accountable and cohesive City Council?
Accountability means being responsible for the achievement of goals and objectives established before and during a term of Council. As a mayoral candidate I have a vision to make Thunder Bay the most livable city in Canada within 10 years. This vision includes having one of the lowest crime rates in the country and increasing our population by 15,000 in ten years.
The introduction of a compelling vision with clear goals and objectives that would resonate with Council and our community, would ensure that all subsequent city policies, and practices would be aligned to these overall goals. Such a vision would be easy to understand, remember and put into practice. It would also be measurable, realistic and achievable.
As mayor, I would bring a grass-root style of leadership that would ensure consultation and participation from citizens on key projects that affect our community. Having our community participate fully in the creation of its own future would make for a better and more cohesive City Council, as it would create a true participatory democratic process and partnership with the community..
Councillors At Large (5 to be elected)
List your top 3 priority issues for Thunder Bay.
How will you deal with these issues?
ANGUS, IAIN
What new strategies would you employ to engage and retain young talent in our community?
The City’s work on creating a new medical innovation cluster in Thunder Bay will create employment and lifestyle options for our University and College graduates for years to come. The same can be said of our enhancement of employment opportunities through the Thunder Bay Metal Fabrication Association which brings work to Thunder Bay instead of attracting our workforce west. Our effort to develop Thunder Bay as a mining service centre will expand the opportunities for graduates to work and settle in Thunder Bay. I will continue to support this type of leadership in our community.
The question of engagement is more of a challenge. First of all, there is an assumption that our youth are interested in being ‘engaged’. The reality is they, like most people, are focused on their career and family of the moment – be it their education, their first full time job, raising a family and paying a mortgage. There has to be a reason for them to be engaged. One tool that the City can use is the bi-annual Citizens survey by redesigning it to ‘drill down’ beyond which projects or programs young people are supporting to determine what kind of community they want Thunder Bay to be and what their role in it should be.
2. List your top 3 priority issues for Thunder Bay. How will you deal with these issues?
1. Continue to actively recruit new business opportunities while supporting and growing the existing ones. (See paragraph 1 above)
2. Work towards more solutions to ongoing social issues through the creation of the citizen led crime prevention council.
3. Work towards a more inclusive community through our Aboriginal Liaison position and ensuring that the position has the resources to implement change
BOSHCOFF, KEN
1. Some dynamic new strategies are already under way and I commend the current talent pool of young people for driving some of these new initiatives.
I am personally inspired to see young people making superb cases for why Thunder Bay is a great place to live, work, create, and realize one's potential.
As a Member of Council I would inform my colleagues of the energy in our film/video industry using Westfort as only one example as there are many more in our community.
I would point out the Young Professionals Network as an example of young people infusing new ideas into our City and learning from each other.
The "I Heart Thunder Bay" movement is growing daily and I endorse young people making things happen.
My strategy thus is to take these ideas and help make them stronger so we can convince the entire City how fortunate we are to live here.
2. Priority Issues
i) Seizing the opportunities presenting themselves to us in mining, in medical and scientific research, in the return of the forest industry, in manufacturing at Bombardier to ensure the core concerns of worthy employment and tax minimization are addressed hand-in-hand.
ii) As we speak there is a huge wave of retirements occurring in numerous sectors-this will not provide new professional positions but opportunities for promotion and advancement. Our society needs to accelerate its succession plans and I would bring that to the table.
iii) People have been very disenchanted and disengaged with Council secrecy and lack of response to valid questioning. I will be very strong in restoring access to our elected representatives and ensuring that people are listened to and respectfully answered.
Respectfully submitted,
Ken Boshcoff
Founding Mayor of Leadership Thunder Bay
CROWE, CINDY
Good day!
I apologize for the late response. I hope you can appreciate how hectic our schedules have been.
1. What new strategies would you employ to engage and retain young talent in our community?
- voice for the youth (utilizing youth city council - already being developed through youthscape)
- promote anit-racism in schools; public sector and at city council level
- entrepreneurship training at the high school level so that the youth have a business sense
2. List your top 3 priority issues for Thunder Bay. How will you deal with these issues?
- jobs - invite the Ring of Fire communities (Matawa) to do business with the region of Thunder Bay to ensure that the youth have jobs!
- combat poverty and social issues - in order to educate and provide a skill set to disadvantaged citizens, encourage the city to sponsor capacity building activities; sponsor recreational activities for youth; care for our Seniors
- promote inclusion and partnerships - work together as a whole community; foster wholistic balance at city council level; bring an Aboriginal voice to the table
Further, I believe in speaking to the people and following their direction not arbitrarily making a decision that we think is a good idea! My stand will always be to work with the people of Thunder Bay to determine what it is that they want and need, ALL the people of Thunder Bay! As an example, were the citizens of Thunder Bay asked which renewable energy (such as solar power) they wanted to support?
Cindy Crowe Consulting 1306 Victoria Ave East Thunder Bay, ON P7C 1C2
Tele: (807) 473-9851 Toll Free: 1-888-852-5856 Cell: (807) 627-5768
Fax: (807) 939-2750 Email: crowe@tbaytel.net
Website: www.cindycroweconsulting.ca
HEBERT, LARRY
will do two things. Engage the youth wiyha youth forum with maybe three one day seminars in a row so we could get a maximum number of students involved.These would be sposored by the private sector and the educational sector and
only for youth. I would have Max Valiquette of Youthography do the sessions
along with a couple of other speakers. The young people would tell us being
the educational, business, labour and government sectors on a 4th day what
they need from us and then we should go out and make it happen given whatever
is in our resources capability. I would also start a School Council ( Shadow
Council) with two reps from each high school -one male and one female who are
not on their school governing councils. They would meet once a month either at
the Shaw Cable studio or at one of the high schools or even in Council
Chambers and have the meeting taped. They would deal with the same items City
Council deals with in public and with all of the appropriate background
material. They would not deal with confidential items until they had been on
the public portion of Council meetings. They in effect would roll 3 or 4 of
our meetings in a month into one. It would be broadcast at different times on
Shaw Cable. It would be interesting to see how differently they may deal with
an issue than Council did.
The three issues are jobs and the economy, crime and safety and the high cost
of government. For the first and third items we have to keep our taxes and
rates in line to attract businesses and keep people in their homes. We have to
encourage more manufacturing and resource industry to come here and open up
shop. Currently the health care and educational sectors are doing well and we
have to ensure that continues and that we attract more professionals. We also
have to work on the "blue collar" jobs as well in manufacturing such as
Bombardier and others and the Resource based industries of forest products,
grain and mining our biggest opportunity. On the second issue we need to get
this new Crime Prevention Committee going get more beds in the detox area
established and keep as many officers on the beat for as much time as we can.
If we attract more industry and jobs, the Crime rate will go down and our cost
of services will go down because it is spread out over a larger base. Thanks.
GRAHAM, GERALD
Thanks for the opportunity to get my message to the alumni of Leadership Thunder Bay.
1. One simple thing that councillors can do is publicly support businesses that young entrepreneurs have started in Thunder Bay. There are a number in the Bay Algoma area and other parts of the city as well. I think it's important that young business owners know they have support from city council and it's important for city councillors to urge others to support these business ventures.
I am sure there a number of talented young graduates of Leadership Thunder Bay that could be role models for others. I'd like to see them used as ambassadors in our community for keeping young people here.
City council and the Community Economic Development Commission need to continue the work of diversifying our economy. Smart jobs in medical research and communications will provide much needed jobs for young graduates. Planning now for the cities role in the Ring of Fire Development will mean more jobs in the future for young residents.
2. Economic development is my first priority. A vigorous local economy means more tax revenue for the city. More tax revenue means more money to renew city infrastructure and deal with social issues like poverty and crime. The city needs to attract more businesses like Superior Propane to set up here.
Working with our aboriginal residents and organizations should also be a priority for the city. I am encouraged by the Aboriginal Liaison
Office set up in Thunder Bay. There are many opportunities for the city and area First Nations to work together.
Enhancing our quality of life and following through with the establishment of the Thunder Bay Crime Prevention Council would be my third priority. We live in a city blessed with a wonderful natural environment. Council must continue it's work of revitalizing our waterfront and developing policies to promote active transportation. I like the holistic approach of crime prevention outlined by the new Crime Prevention Council and would like to see that move forward.
Thank you for this opportunity. Cheers Gerald Graham
JOHNSON, REBECCA
What new strategies would you employ to engage and retain young talent in our community?
First we have to determine that youth want to stay and be employed in our community. The horizon for young people in our world today goes beyond Thunder Bay and Northwestern Ontario. It is not only Thunder Bay that has challenges with retaining youth it is a world challenge. More and more people, not only youth, are moving to urban centres. We have to provide the leading edge jobs that they want and the environment that they are looking for. With this in mind Thunder Bay has created a new information sector with the Regional Hospital, the Research Institute, many IT businesses and the University/College. We have to sell our community and communicate it to the youth. We should be putting more energy into training entrepreneurs at the high school level. More co-op programs are required. Tax breaks on tuition for College and University if the student stays in Northwestern Ontario to work could be initiated. There needs to be more collaboration between high schools, the college and university re the transfer of credits.
Give young people a say in how best to make this happen. At the City, this could mean establishing a Youth Cabinet for instance. I know a few cities (including Toronto www.thetyc.ca) that have fairly successful and long running Youth Cabinets (ages 13 ~25) whose members play an advocacy and lobbying role for young people (i.e. attending City deputations, speaking to committees, meeting with City Councilors). The Council provides young people opportunities for leadership, capacity building and skills development and has had some success in influencing decisions at council and increasing youth voting patterns.
Younger people embrace the new technologies more readily and are more likely to get their information and engage in dialogue through social media like Facebook and Twitter. Engaging through those media would help.
I know a number of “younger” people who are fully engaged in our community supporting causes that they believe in. Specific people need to be targeted on specific issues in order to elevate their level of engagement.
2. List your top 3 priority issues for Thunder Bay. How will you deal with these issues?
Developing a long range strategic plan that includes communication with the community in its development and forges partnerships between the public and private sectors.
Attraction, retention and expansion and economic growth strategies to create jobs for the diverse community. Work with the Chamber of Commerce, the Entrepreneur Centre and other organizations including both Lakehead University and Confederation College to implement the recommendations of the Business Retention and Expansion Report and the Economic Development Commission’s strategic plan.
Dealing with the poverty issues that create other issues such as crime, drug abuse and other social issues. A solution is not easy but with recommendations coming from both the Drug Strategy and the Crime Prevention Council a direction will be provided that needs to be implemented by all community partners.
KHAN, IQBAL n/a
MCMENEMY, MARVIN ROBERT n/a
METZLER, BEATRICE
Prepared and Submitted by Beatrice Metzler, Candidate Councillor at Large
Question #1
What new strategies would you employ to engage and retain young talent in our community?
Response
I believe that Councillors should be more aware of the changing demographics in our community. As the economy shifts from resource based to technology/health services/research based, those whose careers are in the new economy tend to bring different expectations of quality of life, their work, family, values, etc. Our emerging new economy attracts more young professionals than that of our former economy.
Younger working people tend to be more environmentally conscious, value recreational pursuits that different than our previous generation, and for the most part see their careers as only one part of their life as opposed to all-encompassing.
Although the above commentary is deliberately brief, it speaks to the need for our City to engage young people in planning for the future. It’s a vital strategy if we hope to create a community environment that will include servicing their needs as well as the existing maturing population.
By engaging young people in planning for the future, we will help direct our financial resources in a way that creates the quality of life in Thunder Bay that will hopefully retain and also attract young talent. For example, instead of investing in more ice arenas, we would probably want to develop our soccer fields. Another example is to plan for more opportunities to access local food sources, rather than try to attract more fast food outlets. These are simple examples, but they speak to the type of re-thinking that needs to occur.
Question #2
List your top 3 priority issues for Thunder Bay. How will you deal with these issues?
1. A Vigorous Economy Spurs Job Creation One of my three priorities is the economic revival of our City. A vigorous economy propels the way for meaningful job opportunities today and for the next generation. I believe a local economy that embraces manufacturing, specialized small business, high-end technology, and health services is within our reach. Our City needs to get serious about moving forward with progressive actions. The movement should start with a vigorous, accountable City Council. I will work to set achievable, measurable benchmarks for an economic revival blueprint. 2. Lower Taxes Help Build an Affordable Community Residents and business owners share our municipal tax burden, and I believe both taxes are becoming prohibitive. This is especially noticeable as major employers in our area shed jobs. It should be City Council’s goal to help people stay in their own homes, help local entrepreneurs grow their businesses, and attract new business. To achieve this, we need a taxation framework that is affordable and fair for all.Transparency about our taxation system is also a key issue for me. Whether we pay higher tax bills, or instead pay higher hydro bills and water bills, the money is still coming out of taxpayers’ pockets. I will work toward a fair, affordable, transparent taxation framework. 3. A Safer Community Every resident has the right to walk our streets and feel that they are safe. We should not be prisoners in our own homes because we fear what may be outside our doors. Feeling safe is both what you see and what you don’t see.A safe city includes a whole range of issues. The troubling problems we experience in our City may have roots in early family life or stem from the judicial system, with enforcement somewhere in between. We need to work together on those issues where we have the power and resources to improve safety and reduce crime.I will realistically examine what drives both perception and reality regarding crime and safety in our community.
Once elected to Council, the opportunities to address all 3 priorities will be more readily apparent. At this point, it is not possible to identify resources available, time frames, etc.
Thank you for the opportunity to participate in the Leadership Thunder Bay Survey.
Beatrice Metzler, Candidate, Councillor at Larg
MOOREY, HOUSE RICHARD
What new strategies would you employ to engage and retain young talent in our community?
We have to start with engagement period! There is too much apathy when it comes to municipal affairs in our community and the responsibilty for this falls squarely on the shoulders of those that fill the chairs of council chambers. There is no communication, accountability and very little integrity right now among our municipal leaders. The politicians have shown us what they can do. Its time to let real people take the helm.
I am NOT a politican! I'm a hard working person just like you. I put in 70+ hours a week. I have a family and a life here. I am a man of principle and with a nickname like "HOUSE" you know I have the shoulders to knock down barriers and carry the city forward over the next several terms.
We have to create a municipality that is open and freely communicates. A community where people are regularly informed. A city where people feel engaged and involved. A Thunder Bay that participates and grows together. When people don't feel involved they don't participate, when they don't participate the system breaks down and right now the system is broken.
We need to bring street level politics back to our city. We have to stop obtaining all of the information we use to make decisions from the weekly paperwork issued to council and start getting back to where the ideas are real...in our businesses (big and small) our doctors and nurses, labourers and unions, with our white and blue collar workers our friends and neighbours and families.
By creating this type of community we can build business, expand employment, lower taxes, get a handle on crime and make this a city that has fufilled its potential making it a place where our youth have opportunity and reason to stay and build families of there own.
List your top 3 priority issues for Thunder Bay. How will you deal with these issues?
Communication --
1. Open communication
2. Fight to stop back room deals
3. Work to have departments communicate more smoothly to stop waste
4. Create an environment where open door is the rule and people have access to their council
5. Ensure that all questions are answered quickly and with honesty and integrity (a novel idea!)
6. Keep promises! Remember how many candidates supported the homes for the aged? Remember how many voted to axe them at the first opportunity? What about the promise to remove the hospital tax? It's not right!
Contracts that stick --
1. When we make a deal its done! All contracts and companies dealing with the city will be obligated to fufill their contracts for the price negotiated.
2. Choose the best company for the job (not the cheapest or the company that has friends in the old boys network)
3. By getting accountability and integrity from our contractors we can easily produce results that will allow us to save millions and get more out of every dollar.
Get a handle on crime --
1. We have had a problem that for the last few terms has been ignored and denied. Our citizens deserve more than a last minute rush to put together a "golden" crime committee that was slapped together to be a shining example of what we can accomplish when an election is less than a month away
2. We need to get together with real officers and members of the community to work together to reduce crime
3. More police getting back to neighbourhood and community policing
4. Block parents and neigbourhood watch back on the forefront
5. Help for crimestoppers
Thank You for this opportunity!
OSTBERG, SHARON n/a
PETTIT, SYDNEY n/a
ROBERTS, DARREN n/a
RUBERTO, ALDO
What new strategies would you employ to engage and retain young talent in our community?
I think we have the right strategy, right now. We are competing with the world when it comes to young talent so in order to retain and engage young people. We have to continue creating a city that invests in itself not only in infrastructure, things like great parks, trees, bike lanes, waterfront development, a multi-purpose facility, dog parks, libraries etc. But also areas of sport,s culture and art. Young people, talented people, and skilled people all want to enjoy their work but also enjoy their life. They want a city that they can be proud of.
We have to continue to promote Thunder Bay as a place where you can not only make money but save time. There is an old saying ,” You can make money anywhere but you can't make time “. We have to let people know that communing to work takes minutes, not hours. Accessing the outdoors minutes, not hours. Attending a show, sports event, it takes minutes to get there and back. This means you have time to coach your kids, watch their ball games,spend precious time doing the things you love to do. In Thunder Bay you can make both money and time...quality time. Proof.....we just recruited 25 new doctors this year so far. These people can live and work anywhere they chose Thunder Bay for good reasons.
Secondly we have to continue to invest in the Economic Development Corporation. They have done a great job of recruiting and expanding business in Thunder Bay .
2. List your top 3 priority issues for Thunder Bay. How will you deal with these issues?
The key issues in the community are jobs, safety and poverty .To solve these issues we have to look at the causes. I may be putting things very simplistically but it all boils down to parenting, good parenting. If parents would raise their children with love, respect and teach them to respect themselves as well as others we would eliminate 90 % of our problems. To get parents to do this we have to educate, train and support them in any way possible so they will be fit to raise their children in a respectful way. Our society already has many programs that provide support services but a lot more has to be strategically invested in order to get greater results. With supportive parenting, proper education, a city that supports programs to help families in need, the children will grow up to be responsible, good citizens. If we don’t address this issue first we will see an increase in poverty ,crime and lack of skilled employees.
SPONCHIA, NORMAN
Thanks for questions.
1. What new strategies would I employ to engage and retain young talent in our community.
The first thing I would like to say is that my experience as president of the Bay And Algoma Business Assoc. and my work with my son at the VillEdge Art gallery on Bay and then on Algoma has brought me very much in touch with a large section of our younger community. One of the things that struck me was that they are already staying more than they were a few years back and young people from other parts of Canada are coming and staying. So with that positive development in mind I would say that the first thing we must do is listen to them . We need to set up forums where young people can express their ideas for the kind of community they want to be engaged in. They have so many great ideas that are very well grounded and well founded. Young people are impressive as far as their ideas about a sustainable economy that takes into consideration , green technology , the environment , the development local produce , community gardens, and locale farmer markets and social justice. They are interested in being part of a new more dynamic economy and community that will allow them to support and engage in the type of future they see as the most intelligent and compassionate way to go. I am all for hearing what they have to say because to engage them is to secure our future and with what i have seen in our young adults i have great hope for our cities future. But they must not be left out of the mix when developing our cities future. We must have forums for them to express their views and we must support many of the wonderful initiatives that they are already engaged in. Now finally we have to find ways to bring good paying jobs to Thunder Bay so that they can stay here and raise their families , but I have much hope that this will happen and will be the kind of jobs that they can support and I also know that they are creating their own jobs.
2. My top 3 priorities, How will I deal with these issues.
I think that the main issues of our city are all linked to each other ,Crime, employment, and poverty. We need to start addressing the social issues of our community. I believe that a safe and secure community is the foundation of a prosperous and vibrant economy. Companies make decisions on where to locate based on a number of factors but one very important one is crime and how it will impact them and their bottom line. One of the ways I have been talking about to help our police service to be more effective in such a difficult situation is to free them up from the time and police budget they use up on dealing with public intoxication. As a member of the Thunder Bay Drug Strategy Committee I have heard presentations from the police department out lining the statistics around public intoxication. Thunder Bay has 3000 of these types of arrests a your with the next closes community of Timmins at 500 a year. It is over half of all arrests by police in Thunder Bay. It is costing us about a million dollars from the police budget per year. These arrests also only amount to about 150 to 200 people . so the same people are being arrested over and over. One of the helpful solutions that are being used in cities like Calgary is a thing called "Wet Houses". This is a service that helps take the burden off of the police and it also takes the arrested person out of the more expensive system of police station cells. It also gives the arrested person a more appropriate surrounding to try and deal with their problems and their medical and health issues. This is a much less expensive idea that I would support as your councillor at large.
Jobs for our citizens young and old is something we all have to work together on. we cant bring companies here that the community will not except as the kind of companies we want here. Young people are very solid on this point. They will not accept companies that are not willing to be players in a clean technology and sustainable environmental concerns. W e do not need the kind of companies that pay working poor type wages, nor do we need the kind of jobs where we are offered only part time so that there are no benefit required by the company. We have a lot to offer as a city and a life style that can exist here. We must sell that as a strength and not play the , we will take anything game,. We must always negotiate from our strengths when attracting jobs to out city not from a desperate and weak position.
Poverty in our city is huge. I for one will be focusing on this issue. I think we need higher levels of Gov. to start investing in affordable housing for our seniors , our handicapped and our less fortunate. We must find ways to help the children and women in poverty in this city, ways to bring them up to a decent level of living and making sure that our young citizens have access to recreational facilities at reduced or affordable levels. We must find places for the women and children in poverty to live , this a basic human right. I will lobby , fight , and find funding for these issues from our city and higher Gov. sources. I also would like to see the city help and support more youth programs that are being initiated by the community volunteers and heroes amongst us and I will be a voice for them when they come for support from the city. we need our young folks engaged in healthy activities to help prevent them in making poor life decisions , we must invest in preventative programs to keep our vulnerable population away from becoming involved in criminal activity and addictions.Prevention is the key to a better community and it is also so much cheaper and effective in the long run.
I thank you for this opportunity to address you all and I humbly ask for your vote on Oct. 25 so that I may be a voice for a prosperous and more intelligent and compassionate community.
STAAL, NORM
The new strategies I would employ are to create good paying jobs by creating a environment where business can flourish, thus creating jobs to keep young talent in this community. I would accomplish this by elimating red tape which stops businesses to expand and hire new employees. I would vote against any budget that includes a tax increase, I would fiscally responsible with tax payer money.
1. My top three priority issues for Thunder Bay are taxes, jobs and crime.
Taxes: I believe taxes in Thunder Bay are to high. I will vote against any budget that includes a tax increase. We can save the city money by managing large capital projects properly, example of this is constant use of consultants from southern ontario who aren't familiar with Thunder Bay. I would also try to streamline administration.
2.Jobs: I have outlined my job creation strategy in question one. I am a small business man with common sense. I plan to bring a common sense approach to council, I do not agree with voting on issues before public input. I believe in long term planning, not changing tenders because the price isn't right. These are a few examples I have for tax savings. Business is an area where Thunder Bay is lagging behind, business is the backbone of an sucessful economy. Our city council needs someone with business sense.
3. Crime: I admit I am not an expert on crime, I will support all reasonable initiatives to prevent and control crime. Owning a business in the downtown south core a realize crime is an issue. Our city should be safe for all, I believe a long term stragey is would help the crime issue.
TIMKO, LAWRENCE n/a
WADDINGTON, DICK
I do not have a new strategy to engage or retain young talent in our community.
The top three priority issues for Thunder Bay are:
a) Employment opportunities for our citizens;
b) Fiscal prudence by our government;
c) Health and safety of our citizens.
I would continue to support the efforts of our Economic Development Corporation including the funding of a staffer dedicated to increasing our involvement with the mining industry.
I would do all I could in order to reduce our taxation burden which is now deterring businesses from locating or expanding locally.
I would continue my efforts to ensure a safe, reliable source of water and sewage treatment for our citizens. I would also continue to argue in favour of community-based policing.
WOODS, TYLER n/a
_____________________________
Ward Candidates:
What value does a ward system bring to the community as a whole?
Would you be willing to challenge the status quo?
Please comment.
Current River (1 to be elected)
FOULDS, ANDREW
1.What new strategies would you employ to engage and retain young talent in our community?
I’m a guy who came back. After going away to university and spending a year in the Far North on Baffin Island, I had a job opportunity teaching in my home town. So jobs are Job #1in retaining our youth. Creating new job opportunities in mining, forestry, and the value-added jobs associated with the resource industry is a top priority. As is expanding our new knowledge-based industries associated with research at Confederation College, Lakehead University, the Medical School and the Regional Hospital.
But we also need to expand our entertainment and arts-based industries in music, fine arts, and writing. Turning the "Port Arthur" downtown core into genuine entertainment and restaurant district like Toronto’s "Distillery District" could be a start. Incorporating arts, entertainment, and sports in the Waterfront Development would help make it a genuinely "people place."
We also need to encourage young people to make presentations to city council while they are still in high school, college and university to give us new, fresh ideas. We should examine more closely the data from the City’s surveys of its citizens to see what the concerns of youth are. Establishing a council committee specifically concerned with youth issues and whose membership (except perhaps for the councillor(s) on the committee) would be under 30 could be another idea we explore.
Finally we need as a city council and administration to make better use of the social media to get more meaningful interaction with our youth.
2. What value does the ward system bring to the community as a whole? Would you be willing to challenge the status quo?
I am a strong supporter of the ward system. The councillor for each ward is not only responsible to his/her own constituents, but to the city as a whole. I believe my record shows that. For example, Boulevard, Centennial, and Trowbridge Parks – which are in Current River Ward – benefit the whole city and are used by citizens from all over the city. They are also major tourist draws. (As is Chippewa Park on the other side of town.) I have fought hard to improve the trails, tree planting, infrastructure and recycling in these parks, as well as taking a lead in greening our transit system.
The ward system allows new comers who are not well-known an opportunity to get elected to Council. You can go door-to-door in a ward in order to campaign and to get the voters’ opinions. You can’t do it adequately at large, because the whole city is too vast. So only those with a high profile from sports, business, etc. have a chance to get elected at large.
In fact, the smaller the area a councillor represents, the better he or she can represent it. I believe the current mixture of at large and ward councillors is a good one.
In Toronto where they have a pure ward system councillors like Howard Moscoe, Kyle Rae, Adam Giambrone, (and Mayor David Miller) have not only been concerned about their wards, but the city as a whole. They have even fought hard to get the TTC contracts for our plant in Thunder Bay. So they have shown ward councillors can show leadership for the whole province.
WOLFF, ANDY n/a
McIntyre (1 to be elected)
GIERTUGA, TREVOR n/a
KOMAR, MICHAEL n/a
TUCHENHAGEN, TRUDY n/a
WATKINS, CHRISTOPHER n/a
YAHN, TERRENCE A.
1. First of all, I believe that our young people have the opportunity to
travel anywhere in the world to enjoy life and advance in their chosen
careers. We must make sure that in trying to encourage them to stay, that we
do not restrict their ability to leave. Saying that, the city must be
socially and culturally attractive to youth - the availability to sports,
entertainment, recreation, education, affordable housing and good jobs (that
provide the opportunity for advancement).
What is available at our College and University and the programs that they
provide go a long way in retaining not only local students but also those
who come here to learn from throughout the district. Therefore programs that
meet the job needs of the community, where young people can see a future,
are very important. These institutions must present themselves as
educational destinations. Young people want to live and work in
"destination" cities and I believe that Thunder Bay is one of those
progressive communities.
2a. A Ward system allows for an additional level or dedicated connection,
with a specific Councillor, to city information and services. That
councillor may be better able to direct a constituent to a city department
that could best answer their specific issue or concern. Another role,
through Ward Meetings, is to keep residents of the Ward updated on Council
activities.
More importantly, when discussing new issues and projects, the Ward
Councillor must be able to determine if Council decisions have any direct
ramifications or impact on their Ward and share that information with
constituents. Also, the Ward Councillor should make sure that services,
maintenance, development, improvements are balanced throughout the city.
2b. Once a Ward system is in place it is difficult to remove it. Councillors
who run in a Ward and then want to change the system would be going against
the very reasons why they put their name forward in the first place. A
referendum would have every voter being asked to give up their ability to
put someone, with their issues at heart, into office. The Ward system brings
many more candidates, who are committed to good representation, into
Municipal politics. An At-Large system reduces the number of candidates and
name recognition plays a greater role on election night.
Can it be changed? - sure, if there was another system that randomly
assigned or appointed elected Councillors to have the additional
responsibilities to a specific area of the city to ensure that those lines
of communication remain open.
Respectfully submitted
Terrence A. Yahn Candidate for Councillor
McIntyre Ward
McKellar (1 to be elected)
NICHOLSON, DAVID
1. What new strategies would you employ to engage and retain young talent in our community?
We have to keep thinking about the future and try to be ahead of the curve. Are the programs offered at Confederation College and Lakehead University developing skills needed in Thunder Bay in sectors that are that are thriving, or expected to thrive, in the next five to ten or twenty years? If we educate and train them so they can leave, that does not help the city. Also, if we have emerging sectors that we are not training people for here, then that should be a priority. Are young people also being provided with entrepreneurial skills so they can work independently and create their own future? Skills and knowledge development has to be a priority. We have to offer future potential here to build careers, not simply jobs.
I left the city to work in Toronto in the 1990s to work at a national television network, since there were not opportunities to challenge and develop my skills here in Thunder Bay at that level. My priorities shifted after my daughter was born and I transitioned into a new career in research and moved back to Thunder Bay for the lifestyle. I now provide services to a global market from Thunder Bay.
We have to excel in all areas to make it attractive to want to be here. I do not want Thunder Bay to become labelled as a retirement town. We have to create recreational and cultural experiences that have a sense of adventure and challenge to them, and not always doing all the same events other cities are doing. We seem to be finally recognizing our “creative economy” of filmmakers, artisans, performers and musicians, and the vibrancy and enrichment they bring to the city. We are geographically isolated, which provides us with an opportunity to be unique and set a high standard for others to follow.
2. What value does a ward system bring to the community as a whole? Would you be willing to challenge the status quo? Please comment.
The value of the ward system is its connection to neighbourhoods and to the people. All of us have to have a sense of belonging to the city, the ward, the neighbourhood, our street. The ward system provides an opportunity to know a councillor, as they are likely much more involved with issues and events going on in the ward. I am not sure an entire at-large system is the best way to go, as councillors could be elected from one area of the city who do not have direct knowledge of other areas, which is not fair representation for city council.
Is it time we considered shrinking the size of city council? Perhaps work to include it in a strategic plan for five or ten years from now. I would favour maintaining a ward councillor system, but make the job of councillor a full-time position with council meetings during the day, instead of evening meetings that go until the early morning hours. This could also add new responsibilities to the role of councillor, which I feel would be a positive change, because we would attract people to the position who have the skills for public service and dedicated to making the city better.
PUGH, PAUL
Following are my replies to the two questions.
1. My strategy is to build on what we have in order to secure decent jobs in Thunder Bay. Our city has a skilled work force, and substantial economic potential in manufacturing, education and health care. Our region has forest an mineral resources, we have a favourable geographical location and good transportation facilities. As President of CAW Local 1075, I led our Local Union's very successful campaign to secure contracts for the Bombardier plant. During that 5 year campaign, I met with political, industry and labour leaders throughout the procince, I propose to make use of this experience in securing decent jobs for
Thunder Bay, and provide opportunities for young people. Besides my experience as a labour leader for many years, I hold an M.A. in Economics, and am singularly unimpressed by consultants promising miracles. The way forward will require cooperative efforts by representatives of existing sectors and sources of economic potential.
2. The ward system is essential to municipal democracy, in at least the following important ways: it is more affordable to run in a ward, allowing more citizens to participate meaningfully as candidates in elections, and it offers voters a realistic opportunity to replace a representative who hasn't performed up to expectations. Speaking from personal experience, I would not have been able to distribute a comparable amount of campaign information city-wide, as the costs would have been prohibitive, nor would I have had any hope of personally canvassing a comparable percentage of voters. McKellar ward voters may or may not elect me, but at least they have had an opportunity to hear from me. This would not have happened had I run city-wide, as I could not afford it. Likewise, if voters in McKellar are unsatisfied with the person elected in McKellar, they will be able to focus their electoral dissatisfaction much easier, than on at-large candidates.
I would be willing to change the status quo, if that means replacing the at-large positions with more ward positions. I do not believe the at-large system enhances municipal democracy, as it is biased towards candidates financially able to afford a city-wide campaign, eliminating voter choice of otherwise qualified candidates. Sincerely,
Paul Pugh
RICKARDS, ROBIN n/a
Neebing (1 to be elected)
RYDHOLM, LINDA n/a
SCOLLIE, BILL n/a
SHCHEPANIK, GARY - withdrew from election
SINCLAIR, DON n/a
WOJAK, HENRY n/a
Northwood (1 to be elected)
ARMIENTO, FRANK
BENTZ, MARK
Thank you for the opportunity to respond to the survey.
1. What new strategies would you employ to engage and retain young talent in our community?
In my opinion, young talent requires two things in order to want to live in a community. Most importantly, they require stimulating employment and opportunity. Secondly, they need to feel that they are living in a community that is progressive and moving forward. The two are very linked in that in order to have one, you need the other. My focus continues to be on economic development and attracting investment to Thunder Bay as I feel this is the primary way that we will be able to retain our youth and provide them with the opportunities they require to build a life. A strong and vibrant economy has numerous benefits: higher youth retention rates, lower unemployment, lower taxes and a safer community. All of these attributes work to attract and retain young talent that is critical to our future success.
2. What value does a ward system bring to the community as a whole? Would you be willing to challenge the status quo?
I believe that the ward system provides many benefits to our municipal democracy. First and foremost, it ensures that every area of the city is represented by a citizen that lives in that area and is accountable for representing it. This is important because different areas have different needs and having a representative that has first hand knowledge of those needs at the table is essential to good decision making. Secondly, the ward system makes entering politics more accessible and less costly to lesser known candidates thereby assisting interested citizens to become engaged in the democratic process. The more that citizens engage in our democracy, the better our democracy will be.
As the status quo has a majority of ward councillors, I do not feel that it is a priority to change the make up of Council at this time. When implemented, the system was designed to be a compromise to satisfy those who advocated for a full ward system and those who advocated for an full at large system.
At this time, the system appears to be working well and the feedback I am getting from the community indicates that it is not an issue that is at the top of voters' minds. Having said that, I would be prepared to advocate for a full ward system if the electorate identified it as a critical issue for our city.
Mark Bentz
Candidate, Northwood Ward
POLHILL, DAVID n/a
Red River (1 to be elected)
ALEXANDER, LAURY
What new strategies would you employ to engage and retain young talent in our community?
Changes in economic, social and environmental and sustainability adaptation methods are often led by City Hall. Effective adaptation requires input from all citizens to engage them further in a community that is in transition.
Council member decisions has significant impact to the youth who will inherit the merits and challenges of their decision during adult years. It is imperative that programming, education, quality of life audits are regularly performed to ensure we are not contributing to youth out-migrating and effectively solicit youth input into what will make them stay in their hometown community.
It's important to engage every citizen in sustainability efforts from principle to practice.
Thunder Bay is known to be a pioneer city and this trait often draws "pioneer-like" students to live and learn here.
I would encourage our youth to offer their input, you are natural change-makers.
You offer needed academic expertise, individual initiatives and insight that can significantly benefit this community as it diversifies.
2. What value does a ward system bring to the community as a whole? Would you be willing to challenge the status quo? Please comment.
Ward systems were introduced into communities when disproportionate representation was perceived to be hindering growth in one community area over another.
Thunder.
The at-large voting system at one time was seen to be supportive of a status quo at times could divide a city into ward-related disproportionate representation. Many Canadian and Ontario cities have recently reintroduced wards--often as part of a combined system that includes at-large and ward representation.
In the past four years, what were once considered ward issues has now spread equally to all areas of the city: increased spending and decreased revenues, public and neighbourhood safety, green energy, zoning by-law changes, brown field development, taxation, land planning and organized development.
I would be open to a city-wide plebscite and let voters decide. Factors such as population declines and migrating populations into other wards as well how service and representation could be best be served is best chose by voters.
Elect Laury Alexander
Candidate Red River Ward
356 Van Norman St. 626-9832
www.laury.ca
MCKINNON, BRIAN n/a
STAPLETON, JAY n/a
WOLFE, PAUL n/a
Westfort (1 to be elected)
POLHILL, JEFFREY JOHN
In order to train and keep our brightest and best young people, I would engage in the creation of a large cancer centre to train young oncologists, and also technicians for research and inovations.
Thunder Bay has one of the largest cancer rates in Canada and would be the natural place for a mega clinic/research facility. Twinned with our world class university, our world class colledge, and our world class hospital with it's DNA lab, cellular medicine lab, and native health clinic, we would create a cancer reseach jugernaut.
The ward system should be maintained and possibly expnded to ensure that the aldermen and women are more accountable to the people they represent.
I look forward to your opinions and would welcome your suggesstions.
Respectfully,
Jefrey John Polhill.
RADL, JOHN
Question #1
There really is not any new strategies to keep young here. As has been stated we need jobs (with good wages), we need more recreational areas and we need to improve safety of our neighbourhoods. If done this would keep more of our sons and daughters from leaving here.
Question #2
The ward system is important if you want all residents to have representation and assistance from a counsellor. If no ward system existed then small areas like Sandy Beach Road with small number of homes would be overlooked. Other places where people live and are not finically well off may not get service from counsellors. The larger areas with more votes, more money, more pull will benefit, others will be left hanging.
As for changing the status quo, yes I would be willing to challenge it, if and only if we could design a system that guarantees groups spoken about are looked after. Maybe a City ombudsman with some pull.
Thanks John R
VIRDIRAMO, JOE n/a
___________________________________
School Boards Candidates for All School Board Trustees:
1. How will you establish a higher level of literacy for graduating Grade 12 students?
2. What is your understanding of the root cause of bullying and what strategies would you implement to address them?
Trustees for only one (1) school board. You may vote for eight (8) trustees if you are an English-Public supporter, six (6) trustees if you are an English-Separate supporter, one (1) trustee if you are a French-Public supporter and four (4) trustees if you are a French-Separate supporter.
To be a supporter, you must meet the following criteria:
• English - Public: Anyone may support.
• English - Separate: You must be Roman Catholic.
• French - Public: You must have French Language Education Rights.
• French - Separate: You must be Roman Catholic - have French Language Education Rights.
Leadership Thunder Bay Questionnaire Responses
All Candidates:
1. What new strategies would you employ to engage and retain young talent in our community?
Mayor (1 to be elected)
What strategies will you use to ensure an accountable and cohesive City Council?
BURRIDGE, COLIN
Thank You for asking to hear my views and values.
My thoughts on how to keep young talent here and employed. Simple really Why are they leaving now??? Nothing to do and no good jobs. They want to go where things are happening and fun. Example Concerts have to go to Winnipeg, Toronto, and or Minneapolis to see what they want to see. Theatres WHY do we not have an IMAX theatre here, all new movies are made for that now, been leading up to this for the last 10 years. Location is the main factor in any venture. Here are some ideas thrown out for thought Rollerskating, Amusement Park, Convention Centre, Go-Karts, Waterparks, Paintball, Movies and plenty more. Yes some of these ideas have been tried but again location is the factor. Tourism would increase with any of these if not all. This city is 20 years behind the 8-ball in the the Tourism Industry and that is and always will be our gold mine.
This is the easy one Listen to the people who voted you in, No closed door sessions that affect all. Involve the citizens in the big projects fully not piece meal and be Honest. If I make a mistake I own up to it, I don't pass the buck. If I don't have the answer to a question asked of me then I will find out the answer and ensure you get it ASAP. Common Sense is the best way to ensure an accountable and cohesive City Council. Elected by the People For the People and the people are who have to be satisfied with what is done.
Keeping it short because otherwise I could write a book. My thoughts and ideas are based on growing up here but also from my travels. I was fortunate enough that I did get away and saw things that some never do. I have many many ideas to make Thunder Bay a prime place to live and visit more so than it is now.
Sincerely
Colin Burridge Candidate for Mayor
HOBBS, KEITH
Thank you for the questions.
1. I would like to engage the next generation and start a Youth Council that could give City Council input into the decisions that will impact them in the future. I think that perhaps when we are planning major capital projects like the Waterfront Development and the Windpark that we should speak with the generation that will end up paying the bills. Why should we not tap into the thoughts and desires of the new generation?
Thunder Bay needs to bring new jobs and industry to our city. The Community Economic Development Committee (CEDC) has to be enhanced, property taxes have to be competitive, and incentives have to be given to new business to not only attract them but keep them sustainable. We need to offer well paid jobs to our young people so that we can stop the exodus of our youth.
2. I would like to start a Central Registry for all complaints or concerns that Thunder Bay citizens have and assign them to councilors with diary dates. Much like when I was in charge of the detective unit at TBPolice I gave the detectives under my command specific dates to finish assignments or at the very least report any and all progress on a case. I have heard too many complaints from citizens as I go door to door, that councilors do not return calls or their concerns fall on deaf ears. My leadership skills as a Hostage Situation Commander, Watch Commander in Uniform Patrol, Unit Commander in the Intelligence Unit, and Unit Commander of the Criminal Investigation Unit have given me the necessary skill-sets to take charge of any situation and direct people to a common goal. I am more than adequately trained in dispute resolution and have mediation and arbitration experience second to none. These skills will be a huge asset in directing Councilors and Administration to achieve our collective goals.
I will question councilors on items of interest and resolutions etc. prior to city council meetings to ensure that all are prepared for meetings. Too often it is apparent that councilors haven't read their information packages before meetings.
Before resolutions are put forward I will ensure that all the necessary preparatory work is completed and the issue is researched properly. The Windfarm on the Norwesters in my humble opinion is a prime example of not researching a major project prior to the commencement of same.
I will have frequent meetings with City Administration and Council to make sure we are on the same page and I am going to institute monthly meetings with unions and city management where both parties can communicate concerns and develop strategies to move Thunder Bay forward.
I am going to walk-about Thunder Bay one day a week and keep in touch with the citizens of this community and I am going to encourage councilors to do the same. I will work six days a week to make up for the day spent on this initiative. I will ask for reports on findings from councilors as a result of this initiative.
With the input of Administration, Councilors, Management, Unions and the Public, I would like to see a long range strategic plan, coupled with a long range urban plan that extends far beyond our four year mandate. Working together we will instill a cohesive and cooperative attitude at city hall and have inclusion for all.
I hope that I have answered your questions satisfactorily.
Regards,
Keith Hobbs
Mayoral Candidate
IRWIN, JEFF - n/a
KWASNY, BRIAN - n/a
PETERSON, LYNN
What new strategies would you employ to engage and retain young
talent in our community?
You have used two key and closely related words in your question: retaining our youth depends very much on engaging them in all aspects of life – work, recreation, opportunity, community. Nurturing a growing and diversifying economy that creates jobs – good, challenging, rewarding jobs – in a variety of sectors is key to achieving this goal. We already have two excellent post-secondary institutions in Thunder Bay that offer a broad range of programs leading to qualifications for our talented young people. We are also working with significant success to grow and diversify our economy, particularly in the knowledge sectors of medical and bioforestry research, information technology, film and animation. Along with growing the economy, we want to continue to enhance the quality of life in our community, through a vibrant cultural scene and a range of amenities and activities that make this a place people of all ages will want to choose for their home. And I would encourage all our citizens, particularly our youth, to become engaged in one or more of the many local organizations that rely on volunteers.
I would just like to add that there is nothing wrong with young people seeking opportunities in the wider world. But I always want them to have more and better options here at home as well, and the option to return here as they pursue their career and family aspirations .
2. What strategies will you use to ensure an accountable and
cohesive City Council?
It is important for the mayor to recognize that she or he has only one vote of thirteen on council, so in that sense the mayor has no more actual power than any other member of council. It is through the wise use of highly developed leadership skills and consensus building that the mayor can have the greatest impact on the council and the community. I take great satisfaction in having led this council to agreement on our first ever strategic plan, with long term goals and timelines. We have had remarkable success in achieving those goals – witness the growth of our economy, the new industries that are choosing to locate here, the existing industries that are expanding into new markets, the renewal of our infrastructure, the transformation of waste into useful energy at the new waste management and recycling centre, our state of the art water and sewer treatment facilities, and so on. We are excited by the successes of Confederation College and Lakehead University in adding new programs, including the faculty of medicine that so perfectly complements our new hospital.
It is through consensus building, strategic planning, and information-based sound decision making that we are able to achieve this progress, and that success in itself helps build a cohesive council. All of us, of course, are directly accountable to the people who elect us - you the citizens of Thunder Bay.
PULLIA, FRANK
What new strategies would you employ to engage and retain young talent in our community?
Answer: There are many but the most important one is one of inclusion and communication. Communication is a two way street, and while I have my own ideas on how to move Thunder Bay forward and create opportunities for all, I believe that we also need to listen to our youth. They have specific needs and desires, as well as their own expectations about the future.
As Mayor I would coordinate the various youth organizations into a more dynamic and engaged group by involving them in specific projects dear to them, while providing the resources and support mechanisms to allow them to accomplish their goals. These projects would vary from beautification to environmental sustainability, to entrepreneurship, to making Thunder Bay a "Smart City" to mention a few. The future really belongs to our youth and allowing them to play a leadership role in creating that future will go a long way in fully engaging and retaining them.
2. What strategies will you use to ensure an accountable and cohesive City Council?
Accountability means being responsible for the achievement of goals and objectives established before and during a term of Council. As a mayoral candidate I have a vision to make Thunder Bay the most livable city in Canada within 10 years. This vision includes having one of the lowest crime rates in the country and increasing our population by 15,000 in ten years.
The introduction of a compelling vision with clear goals and objectives that would resonate with Council and our community, would ensure that all subsequent city policies, and practices would be aligned to these overall goals. Such a vision would be easy to understand, remember and put into practice. It would also be measurable, realistic and achievable.
As mayor, I would bring a grass-root style of leadership that would ensure consultation and participation from citizens on key projects that affect our community. Having our community participate fully in the creation of its own future would make for a better and more cohesive City Council, as it would create a true participatory democratic process and partnership with the community..
Thank you.
______________________________________________________
Councillors At Large (5 to be elected)
List your top 3 priority issues for Thunder Bay.
How will you deal with these issues?
ANGUS, IAIN
What new strategies would you employ to engage and retain young talent in our community?
The City’s work on creating a new medical innovation cluster in Thunder Bay will create employment and lifestyle options for our University and College graduates for years to come. The same can be said of our enhancement of employment opportunities through the Thunder Bay Metal Fabrication Association which brings work to Thunder Bay instead of attracting our workforce west. Our effort to develop Thunder Bay as a mining service centre will expand the opportunities for graduates to work and settle in Thunder Bay. I will continue to support this type of leadership in our community.
The question of engagement is more of a challenge. First of all, there is an assumption that our youth are interested in being ‘engaged’. The reality is they, like most people, are focused on their career and family of the moment – be it their education, their first full time job, raising a family and paying a mortgage. There has to be a reason for them to be engaged. One tool that the City can use is the bi-annual Citizens survey by redesigning it to ‘drill down’ beyond which projects or programs young people are supporting to determine what kind of community they want Thunder Bay to be and what their role in it should be.
2. List your top 3 priority issues for Thunder Bay. How will you deal with these issues?
1. Continue to actively recruit new business opportunities while supporting and growing the existing ones. (See paragraph 1 above)
2. Work towards more solutions to ongoing social issues through the creation of the citizen led crime prevention council.
3. Work towards a more inclusive community through our Aboriginal Liaison position and ensuring that the position has the resources to implement change
BOSHCOFF, KEN
1. Some dynamic new strategies are already under way and I commend the current talent pool of young people for driving some of these new initiatives.
I am personally inspired to see young people making superb cases for why Thunder Bay is a great place to live, work, create, and realize one's potential.
As a Member of Council I would inform my colleagues of the energy in our film/video industry using Westfort as only one example as there are many more in our community.
I would point out the Young Professionals Network as an example of young people infusing new ideas into our City and learning from each other.
The "I Heart Thunder Bay" movement is growing daily and I endorse young people making things happen.
My strategy thus is to take these ideas and help make them stronger so we can convince the entire City how fortunate we are to live here.
2. Priority Issues
i) Seizing the opportunities presenting themselves to us in mining, in medical and scientific research, in the return of the forest industry, in manufacturing at Bombardier to ensure the core concerns of worthy employment and tax minimization are addressed hand-in-hand.
ii) As we speak there is a huge wave of retirements occurring in numerous sectors-this will not provide new professional positions but opportunities for promotion and advancement. Our society needs to accelerate its succession plans and I would bring that to the table.
iii) People have been very disenchanted and disengaged with Council secrecy and lack of response to valid questioning. I will be very strong in restoring access to our elected representatives and ensuring that people are listened to and respectfully answered.
Respectfully submitted,
Ken Boshcoff
Founding Mayor of Leadership Thunder Bay
CROWE, CINDY
Good day!
I apologize for the late response. I hope you can appreciate how hectic our schedules have been.
1. What new strategies would you employ to engage and retain young talent in our community?
- voice for the youth (utilizing youth city council - already being developed through youthscape)
- promote anit-racism in schools; public sector and at city council level
- entrepreneurship training at the high school level so that the youth have a business sense
2. List your top 3 priority issues for Thunder Bay. How will you deal with these issues?
- jobs - invite the Ring of Fire communities (Matawa) to do business with the region of Thunder Bay to ensure that the youth have jobs!
- combat poverty and social issues - in order to educate and provide a skill set to disadvantaged citizens, encourage the city to sponsor capacity building activities; sponsor recreational activities for youth; care for our Seniors
- promote inclusion and partnerships - work together as a whole community; foster wholistic balance at city council level; bring an Aboriginal voice to the table
Further, I believe in speaking to the people and following their direction not arbitrarily making a decision that we think is a good idea! My stand will always be to work with the people of Thunder Bay to determine what it is that they want and need, ALL the people of Thunder Bay! As an example, were the citizens of Thunder Bay asked which renewable energy (such as solar power) they wanted to support?
Cindy Crowe Consulting 1306 Victoria Ave East Thunder Bay, ON P7C 1C2
Tele: (807) 473-9851 Toll Free: 1-888-852-5856 Cell: (807) 627-5768
Fax: (807) 939-2750 Email: crowe@tbaytel.net
Website: www.cindycroweconsulting.ca
HEBERT, LARRY
will do two things. Engage the youth wiyha youth forum with maybe three one day seminars in a row so we could get a maximum number of students involved.These would be sposored by the private sector and the educational sector and
only for youth. I would have Max Valiquette of Youthography do the sessions
along with a couple of other speakers. The young people would tell us being
the educational, business, labour and government sectors on a 4th day what
they need from us and then we should go out and make it happen given whatever
is in our resources capability. I would also start a School Council ( Shadow
Council) with two reps from each high school -one male and one female who are
not on their school governing councils. They would meet once a month either at
the Shaw Cable studio or at one of the high schools or even in Council
Chambers and have the meeting taped. They would deal with the same items City
Council deals with in public and with all of the appropriate background
material. They would not deal with confidential items until they had been on
the public portion of Council meetings. They in effect would roll 3 or 4 of
our meetings in a month into one. It would be broadcast at different times on
Shaw Cable. It would be interesting to see how differently they may deal with
an issue than Council did.
The three issues are jobs and the economy, crime and safety and the high cost
of government. For the first and third items we have to keep our taxes and
rates in line to attract businesses and keep people in their homes. We have to
encourage more manufacturing and resource industry to come here and open up
shop. Currently the health care and educational sectors are doing well and we
have to ensure that continues and that we attract more professionals. We also
have to work on the "blue collar" jobs as well in manufacturing such as
Bombardier and others and the Resource based industries of forest products,
grain and mining our biggest opportunity. On the second issue we need to get
this new Crime Prevention Committee going get more beds in the detox area
established and keep as many officers on the beat for as much time as we can.
If we attract more industry and jobs, the Crime rate will go down and our cost
of services will go down because it is spread out over a larger base. Thanks.
GRAHAM, GERALD
Thanks for the opportunity to get my message to the alumni of Leadership Thunder Bay.
1. One simple thing that councillors can do is publicly support businesses that young entrepreneurs have started in Thunder Bay. There are a number in the Bay Algoma area and other parts of the city as well. I think it's important that young business owners know they have support from city council and it's important for city councillors to urge others to support these business ventures.
I am sure there a number of talented young graduates of Leadership Thunder Bay that could be role models for others. I'd like to see them used as ambassadors in our community for keeping young people here.
City council and the Community Economic Development Commission need to continue the work of diversifying our economy. Smart jobs in medical research and communications will provide much needed jobs for young graduates. Planning now for the cities role in the Ring of Fire Development will mean more jobs in the future for young residents.
2. Economic development is my first priority. A vigorous local economy means more tax revenue for the city. More tax revenue means more money to renew city infrastructure and deal with social issues like poverty and crime. The city needs to attract more businesses like Superior Propane to set up here.
Working with our aboriginal residents and organizations should also be a priority for the city. I am encouraged by the Aboriginal Liaison
Office set up in Thunder Bay. There are many opportunities for the city and area First Nations to work together.
Enhancing our quality of life and following through with the establishment of the Thunder Bay Crime Prevention Council would be my third priority. We live in a city blessed with a wonderful natural environment. Council must continue it's work of revitalizing our waterfront and developing policies to promote active transportation. I like the holistic approach of crime prevention outlined by the new Crime Prevention Council and would like to see that move forward.
Thank you for this opportunity. Cheers Gerald Graham
JOHNSON, REBECCA
What new strategies would you employ to engage and retain young talent in our community?
First we have to determine that youth want to stay and be employed in our community. The horizon for young people in our world today goes beyond Thunder Bay and Northwestern Ontario. It is not only Thunder Bay that has challenges with retaining youth it is a world challenge. More and more people, not only youth, are moving to urban centres. We have to provide the leading edge jobs that they want and the environment that they are looking for. With this in mind Thunder Bay has created a new information sector with the Regional Hospital, the Research Institute, many IT businesses and the University/College. We have to sell our community and communicate it to the youth. We should be putting more energy into training entrepreneurs at the high school level. More co-op programs are required. Tax breaks on tuition for College and University if the student stays in Northwestern Ontario to work could be initiated. There needs to be more collaboration between high schools, the college and university re the transfer of credits.
Give young people a say in how best to make this happen. At the City, this could mean establishing a Youth Cabinet for instance. I know a few cities (including Toronto www.thetyc.ca) that have fairly successful and long running Youth Cabinets (ages 13 ~25) whose members play an advocacy and lobbying role for young people (i.e. attending City deputations, speaking to committees, meeting with City Councilors). The Council provides young people opportunities for leadership, capacity building and skills development and has had some success in influencing decisions at council and increasing youth voting patterns.
Younger people embrace the new technologies more readily and are more likely to get their information and engage in dialogue through social media like Facebook and Twitter. Engaging through those media would help.
I know a number of “younger” people who are fully engaged in our community supporting causes that they believe in. Specific people need to be targeted on specific issues in order to elevate their level of engagement.
2. List your top 3 priority issues for Thunder Bay. How will you deal with these issues?
Developing a long range strategic plan that includes communication with the community in its development and forges partnerships between the public and private sectors.
Attraction, retention and expansion and economic growth strategies to create jobs for the diverse community. Work with the Chamber of Commerce, the Entrepreneur Centre and other organizations including both Lakehead University and Confederation College to implement the recommendations of the Business Retention and Expansion Report and the Economic Development Commission’s strategic plan.
Dealing with the poverty issues that create other issues such as crime, drug abuse and other social issues. A solution is not easy but with recommendations coming from both the Drug Strategy and the Crime Prevention Council a direction will be provided that needs to be implemented by all community partners.
KHAN, IQBAL n/a
MCMENEMY, MARVIN ROBERT n/a
METZLER, BEATRICE
Prepared and Submitted by Beatrice Metzler, Candidate Councillor at Large
Question #1
What new strategies would you employ to engage and retain young talent in our community?
Response
I believe that Councillors should be more aware of the changing demographics in our community. As the economy shifts from resource based to technology/health services/research based, those whose careers are in the new economy tend to bring different expectations of quality of life, their work, family, values, etc. Our emerging new economy attracts more young professionals than that of our former economy.
Younger working people tend to be more environmentally conscious, value recreational pursuits that different than our previous generation, and for the most part see their careers as only one part of their life as opposed to all-encompassing.
Although the above commentary is deliberately brief, it speaks to the need for our City to engage young people in planning for the future. It’s a vital strategy if we hope to create a community environment that will include servicing their needs as well as the existing maturing population.
By engaging young people in planning for the future, we will help direct our financial resources in a way that creates the quality of life in Thunder Bay that will hopefully retain and also attract young talent. For example, instead of investing in more ice arenas, we would probably want to develop our soccer fields. Another example is to plan for more opportunities to access local food sources, rather than try to attract more fast food outlets. These are simple examples, but they speak to the type of re-thinking that needs to occur.
Question #2
List your top 3 priority issues for Thunder Bay. How will you deal with these issues?
1. A Vigorous Economy Spurs Job Creation One of my three priorities is the economic revival of our City. A vigorous economy propels the way for meaningful job opportunities today and for the next generation. I believe a local economy that embraces manufacturing, specialized small business, high-end technology, and health services is within our reach. Our City needs to get serious about moving forward with progressive actions. The movement should start with a vigorous, accountable City Council. I will work to set achievable, measurable benchmarks for an economic revival blueprint. 2. Lower Taxes Help Build an Affordable Community Residents and business owners share our municipal tax burden, and I believe both taxes are becoming prohibitive. This is especially noticeable as major employers in our area shed jobs. It should be City Council’s goal to help people stay in their own homes, help local entrepreneurs grow their businesses, and attract new business. To achieve this, we need a taxation framework that is affordable and fair for all.Transparency about our taxation system is also a key issue for me. Whether we pay higher tax bills, or instead pay higher hydro bills and water bills, the money is still coming out of taxpayers’ pockets. I will work toward a fair, affordable, transparent taxation framework. 3. A Safer Community Every resident has the right to walk our streets and feel that they are safe. We should not be prisoners in our own homes because we fear what may be outside our doors. Feeling safe is both what you see and what you don’t see.A safe city includes a whole range of issues. The troubling problems we experience in our City may have roots in early family life or stem from the judicial system, with enforcement somewhere in between. We need to work together on those issues where we have the power and resources to improve safety and reduce crime.I will realistically examine what drives both perception and reality regarding crime and safety in our community.
Once elected to Council, the opportunities to address all 3 priorities will be more readily apparent. At this point, it is not possible to identify resources available, time frames, etc.
Thank you for the opportunity to participate in the Leadership Thunder Bay Survey.
Beatrice Metzler, Candidate, Councillor at Larg
MOOREY, HOUSE RICHARD
What new strategies would you employ to engage and retain young talent in our community?
We have to start with engagement period! There is too much apathy when it comes to municipal affairs in our community and the responsibilty for this falls squarely on the shoulders of those that fill the chairs of council chambers. There is no communication, accountability and very little integrity right now among our municipal leaders. The politicians have shown us what they can do. Its time to let real people take the helm.
I am NOT a politican! I'm a hard working person just like you. I put in 70+ hours a week. I have a family and a life here. I am a man of principle and with a nickname like "HOUSE" you know I have the shoulders to knock down barriers and carry the city forward over the next several terms.
We have to create a municipality that is open and freely communicates. A community where people are regularly informed. A city where people feel engaged and involved. A Thunder Bay that participates and grows together. When people don't feel involved they don't participate, when they don't participate the system breaks down and right now the system is broken.
We need to bring street level politics back to our city. We have to stop obtaining all of the information we use to make decisions from the weekly paperwork issued to council and start getting back to where the ideas are real...in our businesses (big and small) our doctors and nurses, labourers and unions, with our white and blue collar workers our friends and neighbours and families.
By creating this type of community we can build business, expand employment, lower taxes, get a handle on crime and make this a city that has fufilled its potential making it a place where our youth have opportunity and reason to stay and build families of there own.
List your top 3 priority issues for Thunder Bay. How will you deal with these issues?
Communication --
1. Open communication
2. Fight to stop back room deals
3. Work to have departments communicate more smoothly to stop waste
4. Create an environment where open door is the rule and people have access to their council
5. Ensure that all questions are answered quickly and with honesty and integrity (a novel idea!)
6. Keep promises! Remember how many candidates supported the homes for the aged? Remember how many voted to axe them at the first opportunity? What about the promise to remove the hospital tax? It's not right!
Contracts that stick --
1. When we make a deal its done! All contracts and companies dealing with the city will be obligated to fufill their contracts for the price negotiated.
2. Choose the best company for the job (not the cheapest or the company that has friends in the old boys network)
3. By getting accountability and integrity from our contractors we can easily produce results that will allow us to save millions and get more out of every dollar.
Get a handle on crime --
1. We have had a problem that for the last few terms has been ignored and denied. Our citizens deserve more than a last minute rush to put together a "golden" crime committee that was slapped together to be a shining example of what we can accomplish when an election is less than a month away
2. We need to get together with real officers and members of the community to work together to reduce crime
3. More police getting back to neighbourhood and community policing
4. Block parents and neigbourhood watch back on the forefront
5. Help for crimestoppers
Thank You for this opportunity!
OSTBERG, SHARON n/a
PETTIT, SYDNEY n/a
ROBERTS, DARREN n/a
RUBERTO, ALDO
What new strategies would you employ to engage and retain young talent in our community?
I think we have the right strategy, right now. We are competing with the world when it comes to young talent so in order to retain and engage young people. We have to continue creating a city that invests in itself not only in infrastructure, things like great parks, trees, bike lanes, waterfront development, a multi-purpose facility, dog parks, libraries etc. But also areas of sport,s culture and art. Young people, talented people, and skilled people all want to enjoy their work but also enjoy their life. They want a city that they can be proud of.
We have to continue to promote Thunder Bay as a place where you can not only make money but save time. There is an old saying ,” You can make money anywhere but you can't make time “. We have to let people know that communing to work takes minutes, not hours. Accessing the outdoors minutes, not hours. Attending a show, sports event, it takes minutes to get there and back. This means you have time to coach your kids, watch their ball games,spend precious time doing the things you love to do. In Thunder Bay you can make both money and time...quality time. Proof.....we just recruited 25 new doctors this year so far. These people can live and work anywhere they chose Thunder Bay for good reasons.
Secondly we have to continue to invest in the Economic Development Corporation. They have done a great job of recruiting and expanding business in Thunder Bay .
2. List your top 3 priority issues for Thunder Bay. How will you deal with these issues?
The key issues in the community are jobs, safety and poverty .To solve these issues we have to look at the causes. I may be putting things very simplistically but it all boils down to parenting, good parenting. If parents would raise their children with love, respect and teach them to respect themselves as well as others we would eliminate 90 % of our problems. To get parents to do this we have to educate, train and support them in any way possible so they will be fit to raise their children in a respectful way. Our society already has many programs that provide support services but a lot more has to be strategically invested in order to get greater results. With supportive parenting, proper education, a city that supports programs to help families in need, the children will grow up to be responsible, good citizens. If we don’t address this issue first we will see an increase in poverty ,crime and lack of skilled employees.
SPONCHIA, NORMAN
Thanks for questions.
1. What new strategies would I employ to engage and retain young talent in our community.
The first thing I would like to say is that my experience as president of the Bay And Algoma Business Assoc. and my work with my son at the VillEdge Art gallery on Bay and then on Algoma has brought me very much in touch with a large section of our younger community. One of the things that struck me was that they are already staying more than they were a few years back and young people from other parts of Canada are coming and staying. So with that positive development in mind I would say that the first thing we must do is listen to them . We need to set up forums where young people can express their ideas for the kind of community they want to be engaged in. They have so many great ideas that are very well grounded and well founded. Young people are impressive as far as their ideas about a sustainable economy that takes into consideration , green technology , the environment , the development local produce , community gardens, and locale farmer markets and social justice. They are interested in being part of a new more dynamic economy and community that will allow them to support and engage in the type of future they see as the most intelligent and compassionate way to go. I am all for hearing what they have to say because to engage them is to secure our future and with what i have seen in our young adults i have great hope for our cities future. But they must not be left out of the mix when developing our cities future. We must have forums for them to express their views and we must support many of the wonderful initiatives that they are already engaged in. Now finally we have to find ways to bring good paying jobs to Thunder Bay so that they can stay here and raise their families , but I have much hope that this will happen and will be the kind of jobs that they can support and I also know that they are creating their own jobs.
2. My top 3 priorities, How will I deal with these issues.
I think that the main issues of our city are all linked to each other ,Crime, employment, and poverty. We need to start addressing the social issues of our community. I believe that a safe and secure community is the foundation of a prosperous and vibrant economy. Companies make decisions on where to locate based on a number of factors but one very important one is crime and how it will impact them and their bottom line. One of the ways I have been talking about to help our police service to be more effective in such a difficult situation is to free them up from the time and police budget they use up on dealing with public intoxication. As a member of the Thunder Bay Drug Strategy Committee I have heard presentations from the police department out lining the statistics around public intoxication. Thunder Bay has 3000 of these types of arrests a your with the next closes community of Timmins at 500 a year. It is over half of all arrests by police in Thunder Bay. It is costing us about a million dollars from the police budget per year. These arrests also only amount to about 150 to 200 people . so the same people are being arrested over and over. One of the helpful solutions that are being used in cities like Calgary is a thing called "Wet Houses". This is a service that helps take the burden off of the police and it also takes the arrested person out of the more expensive system of police station cells. It also gives the arrested person a more appropriate surrounding to try and deal with their problems and their medical and health issues. This is a much less expensive idea that I would support as your councillor at large.
Jobs for our citizens young and old is something we all have to work together on. we cant bring companies here that the community will not except as the kind of companies we want here. Young people are very solid on this point. They will not accept companies that are not willing to be players in a clean technology and sustainable environmental concerns. W e do not need the kind of companies that pay working poor type wages, nor do we need the kind of jobs where we are offered only part time so that there are no benefit required by the company. We have a lot to offer as a city and a life style that can exist here. We must sell that as a strength and not play the , we will take anything game,. We must always negotiate from our strengths when attracting jobs to out city not from a desperate and weak position.
Poverty in our city is huge. I for one will be focusing on this issue. I think we need higher levels of Gov. to start investing in affordable housing for our seniors , our handicapped and our less fortunate. We must find ways to help the children and women in poverty in this city, ways to bring them up to a decent level of living and making sure that our young citizens have access to recreational facilities at reduced or affordable levels. We must find places for the women and children in poverty to live , this a basic human right. I will lobby , fight , and find funding for these issues from our city and higher Gov. sources. I also would like to see the city help and support more youth programs that are being initiated by the community volunteers and heroes amongst us and I will be a voice for them when they come for support from the city. we need our young folks engaged in healthy activities to help prevent them in making poor life decisions , we must invest in preventative programs to keep our vulnerable population away from becoming involved in criminal activity and addictions.Prevention is the key to a better community and it is also so much cheaper and effective in the long run.
I thank you for this opportunity to address you all and I humbly ask for your vote on Oct. 25 so that I may be a voice for a prosperous and more intelligent and compassionate community.
STAAL, NORM
The new strategies I would employ are to create good paying jobs by creating a environment where business can flourish, thus creating jobs to keep young talent in this community. I would accomplish this by elimating red tape which stops businesses to expand and hire new employees. I would vote against any budget that includes a tax increase, I would fiscally responsible with tax payer money.
1. My top three priority issues for Thunder Bay are taxes, jobs and crime.
Taxes: I believe taxes in Thunder Bay are to high. I will vote against any budget that includes a tax increase. We can save the city money by managing large capital projects properly, example of this is constant use of consultants from southern ontario who aren't familiar with Thunder Bay. I would also try to streamline administration.
2.Jobs: I have outlined my job creation strategy in question one. I am a small business man with common sense. I plan to bring a common sense approach to council, I do not agree with voting on issues before public input. I believe in long term planning, not changing tenders because the price isn't right. These are a few examples I have for tax savings. Business is an area where Thunder Bay is lagging behind, business is the backbone of an sucessful economy. Our city council needs someone with business sense.
3. Crime: I admit I am not an expert on crime, I will support all reasonable initiatives to prevent and control crime. Owning a business in the downtown south core a realize crime is an issue. Our city should be safe for all, I believe a long term stragey is would help the crime issue.
TIMKO, LAWRENCE n/a
WADDINGTON, DICK
I do not have a new strategy to engage or retain young talent in our community.
The top three priority issues for Thunder Bay are:
a) Employment opportunities for our citizens;
b) Fiscal prudence by our government;
c) Health and safety of our citizens.
I would continue to support the efforts of our Economic Development Corporation including the funding of a staffer dedicated to increasing our involvement with the mining industry.
I would do all I could in order to reduce our taxation burden which is now deterring businesses from locating or expanding locally.
I would continue my efforts to ensure a safe, reliable source of water and sewage treatment for our citizens. I would also continue to argue in favour of community-based policing.
WOODS, TYLER n/a
_____________________________
Ward Candidates:
What value does a ward system bring to the community as a whole?
Would you be willing to challenge the status quo?
Please comment.
Current River (1 to be elected)
FOULDS, ANDREW
1.What new strategies would you employ to engage and retain young talent in our community?
I’m a guy who came back. After going away to university and spending a year in the Far North on Baffin Island, I had a job opportunity teaching in my home town. So jobs are Job #1in retaining our youth. Creating new job opportunities in mining, forestry, and the value-added jobs associated with the resource industry is a top priority. As is expanding our new knowledge-based industries associated with research at Confederation College, Lakehead University, the Medical School and the Regional Hospital.
But we also need to expand our entertainment and arts-based industries in music, fine arts, and writing. Turning the "Port Arthur" downtown core into genuine entertainment and restaurant district like Toronto’s "Distillery District" could be a start. Incorporating arts, entertainment, and sports in the Waterfront Development would help make it a genuinely "people place."
We also need to encourage young people to make presentations to city council while they are still in high school, college and university to give us new, fresh ideas. We should examine more closely the data from the City’s surveys of its citizens to see what the concerns of youth are. Establishing a council committee specifically concerned with youth issues and whose membership (except perhaps for the councillor(s) on the committee) would be under 30 could be another idea we explore.
Finally we need as a city council and administration to make better use of the social media to get more meaningful interaction with our youth.
2. What value does the ward system bring to the community as a whole? Would you be willing to challenge the status quo?
I am a strong supporter of the ward system. The councillor for each ward is not only responsible to his/her own constituents, but to the city as a whole. I believe my record shows that. For example, Boulevard, Centennial, and Trowbridge Parks – which are in Current River Ward – benefit the whole city and are used by citizens from all over the city. They are also major tourist draws. (As is Chippewa Park on the other side of town.) I have fought hard to improve the trails, tree planting, infrastructure and recycling in these parks, as well as taking a lead in greening our transit system.
The ward system allows new comers who are not well-known an opportunity to get elected to Council. You can go door-to-door in a ward in order to campaign and to get the voters’ opinions. You can’t do it adequately at large, because the whole city is too vast. So only those with a high profile from sports, business, etc. have a chance to get elected at large.
In fact, the smaller the area a councillor represents, the better he or she can represent it. I believe the current mixture of at large and ward councillors is a good one.
In Toronto where they have a pure ward system councillors like Howard Moscoe, Kyle Rae, Adam Giambrone, (and Mayor David Miller) have not only been concerned about their wards, but the city as a whole. They have even fought hard to get the TTC contracts for our plant in Thunder Bay. So they have shown ward councillors can show leadership for the whole province.
WOLFF, ANDY n/a
McIntyre (1 to be elected)
GIERTUGA, TREVOR n/a
KOMAR, MICHAEL n/a
TUCHENHAGEN, TRUDY n/a
WATKINS, CHRISTOPHER n/a
YAHN, TERRENCE A.
1. First of all, I believe that our young people have the opportunity to
travel anywhere in the world to enjoy life and advance in their chosen
careers. We must make sure that in trying to encourage them to stay, that we
do not restrict their ability to leave. Saying that, the city must be
socially and culturally attractive to youth - the availability to sports,
entertainment, recreation, education, affordable housing and good jobs (that
provide the opportunity for advancement).
What is available at our College and University and the programs that they
provide go a long way in retaining not only local students but also those
who come here to learn from throughout the district. Therefore programs that
meet the job needs of the community, where young people can see a future,
are very important. These institutions must present themselves as
educational destinations. Young people want to live and work in
"destination" cities and I believe that Thunder Bay is one of those
progressive communities.
2a. A Ward system allows for an additional level or dedicated connection,
with a specific Councillor, to city information and services. That
councillor may be better able to direct a constituent to a city department
that could best answer their specific issue or concern. Another role,
through Ward Meetings, is to keep residents of the Ward updated on Council
activities.
More importantly, when discussing new issues and projects, the Ward
Councillor must be able to determine if Council decisions have any direct
ramifications or impact on their Ward and share that information with
constituents. Also, the Ward Councillor should make sure that services,
maintenance, development, improvements are balanced throughout the city.
2b. Once a Ward system is in place it is difficult to remove it. Councillors
who run in a Ward and then want to change the system would be going against
the very reasons why they put their name forward in the first place. A
referendum would have every voter being asked to give up their ability to
put someone, with their issues at heart, into office. The Ward system brings
many more candidates, who are committed to good representation, into
Municipal politics. An At-Large system reduces the number of candidates and
name recognition plays a greater role on election night.
Can it be changed? - sure, if there was another system that randomly
assigned or appointed elected Councillors to have the additional
responsibilities to a specific area of the city to ensure that those lines
of communication remain open.
Respectfully submitted
Terrence A. Yahn Candidate for Councillor
McIntyre Ward
McKellar (1 to be elected)
NICHOLSON, DAVID
1. What new strategies would you employ to engage and retain young talent in our community?
We have to keep thinking about the future and try to be ahead of the curve. Are the programs offered at Confederation College and Lakehead University developing skills needed in Thunder Bay in sectors that are that are thriving, or expected to thrive, in the next five to ten or twenty years? If we educate and train them so they can leave, that does not help the city. Also, if we have emerging sectors that we are not training people for here, then that should be a priority. Are young people also being provided with entrepreneurial skills so they can work independently and create their own future? Skills and knowledge development has to be a priority. We have to offer future potential here to build careers, not simply jobs.
I left the city to work in Toronto in the 1990s to work at a national television network, since there were not opportunities to challenge and develop my skills here in Thunder Bay at that level. My priorities shifted after my daughter was born and I transitioned into a new career in research and moved back to Thunder Bay for the lifestyle. I now provide services to a global market from Thunder Bay.
We have to excel in all areas to make it attractive to want to be here. I do not want Thunder Bay to become labelled as a retirement town. We have to create recreational and cultural experiences that have a sense of adventure and challenge to them, and not always doing all the same events other cities are doing. We seem to be finally recognizing our “creative economy” of filmmakers, artisans, performers and musicians, and the vibrancy and enrichment they bring to the city. We are geographically isolated, which provides us with an opportunity to be unique and set a high standard for others to follow.
2. What value does a ward system bring to the community as a whole? Would you be willing to challenge the status quo? Please comment.
The value of the ward system is its connection to neighbourhoods and to the people. All of us have to have a sense of belonging to the city, the ward, the neighbourhood, our street. The ward system provides an opportunity to know a councillor, as they are likely much more involved with issues and events going on in the ward. I am not sure an entire at-large system is the best way to go, as councillors could be elected from one area of the city who do not have direct knowledge of other areas, which is not fair representation for city council.
Is it time we considered shrinking the size of city council? Perhaps work to include it in a strategic plan for five or ten years from now. I would favour maintaining a ward councillor system, but make the job of councillor a full-time position with council meetings during the day, instead of evening meetings that go until the early morning hours. This could also add new responsibilities to the role of councillor, which I feel would be a positive change, because we would attract people to the position who have the skills for public service and dedicated to making the city better.
PUGH, PAUL
Following are my replies to the two questions.
1. My strategy is to build on what we have in order to secure decent jobs in Thunder Bay. Our city has a skilled work force, and substantial economic potential in manufacturing, education and health care. Our region has forest an mineral resources, we have a favourable geographical location and good transportation facilities. As President of CAW Local 1075, I led our Local Union's very successful campaign to secure contracts for the Bombardier plant. During that 5 year campaign, I met with political, industry and labour leaders throughout the procince, I propose to make use of this experience in securing decent jobs for
Thunder Bay, and provide opportunities for young people. Besides my experience as a labour leader for many years, I hold an M.A. in Economics, and am singularly unimpressed by consultants promising miracles. The way forward will require cooperative efforts by representatives of existing sectors and sources of economic potential.
2. The ward system is essential to municipal democracy, in at least the following important ways: it is more affordable to run in a ward, allowing more citizens to participate meaningfully as candidates in elections, and it offers voters a realistic opportunity to replace a representative who hasn't performed up to expectations. Speaking from personal experience, I would not have been able to distribute a comparable amount of campaign information city-wide, as the costs would have been prohibitive, nor would I have had any hope of personally canvassing a comparable percentage of voters. McKellar ward voters may or may not elect me, but at least they have had an opportunity to hear from me. This would not have happened had I run city-wide, as I could not afford it. Likewise, if voters in McKellar are unsatisfied with the person elected in McKellar, they will be able to focus their electoral dissatisfaction much easier, than on at-large candidates.
I would be willing to change the status quo, if that means replacing the at-large positions with more ward positions. I do not believe the at-large system enhances municipal democracy, as it is biased towards candidates financially able to afford a city-wide campaign, eliminating voter choice of otherwise qualified candidates. Sincerely,
Paul Pugh
RICKARDS, ROBIN n/a
Neebing (1 to be elected)
RYDHOLM, LINDA n/a
SCOLLIE, BILL n/a
SHCHEPANIK, GARY - withdrew from election
SINCLAIR, DON n/a
WOJAK, HENRY n/a
Northwood (1 to be elected)
ARMIENTO, FRANK
BENTZ, MARK
Thank you for the opportunity to respond to the survey.
1. What new strategies would you employ to engage and retain young talent in our community?
In my opinion, young talent requires two things in order to want to live in a community. Most importantly, they require stimulating employment and opportunity. Secondly, they need to feel that they are living in a community that is progressive and moving forward. The two are very linked in that in order to have one, you need the other. My focus continues to be on economic development and attracting investment to Thunder Bay as I feel this is the primary way that we will be able to retain our youth and provide them with the opportunities they require to build a life. A strong and vibrant economy has numerous benefits: higher youth retention rates, lower unemployment, lower taxes and a safer community. All of these attributes work to attract and retain young talent that is critical to our future success.
2. What value does a ward system bring to the community as a whole? Would you be willing to challenge the status quo?
I believe that the ward system provides many benefits to our municipal democracy. First and foremost, it ensures that every area of the city is represented by a citizen that lives in that area and is accountable for representing it. This is important because different areas have different needs and having a representative that has first hand knowledge of those needs at the table is essential to good decision making. Secondly, the ward system makes entering politics more accessible and less costly to lesser known candidates thereby assisting interested citizens to become engaged in the democratic process. The more that citizens engage in our democracy, the better our democracy will be.
As the status quo has a majority of ward councillors, I do not feel that it is a priority to change the make up of Council at this time. When implemented, the system was designed to be a compromise to satisfy those who advocated for a full ward system and those who advocated for an full at large system.
At this time, the system appears to be working well and the feedback I am getting from the community indicates that it is not an issue that is at the top of voters' minds. Having said that, I would be prepared to advocate for a full ward system if the electorate identified it as a critical issue for our city.
Mark Bentz
Candidate, Northwood Ward
POLHILL, DAVID n/a
Red River (1 to be elected)
ALEXANDER, LAURY
What new strategies would you employ to engage and retain young talent in our community?
Changes in economic, social and environmental and sustainability adaptation methods are often led by City Hall. Effective adaptation requires input from all citizens to engage them further in a community that is in transition.
Council member decisions has significant impact to the youth who will inherit the merits and challenges of their decision during adult years. It is imperative that programming, education, quality of life audits are regularly performed to ensure we are not contributing to youth out-migrating and effectively solicit youth input into what will make them stay in their hometown community.
It's important to engage every citizen in sustainability efforts from principle to practice.
Thunder Bay is known to be a pioneer city and this trait often draws "pioneer-like" students to live and learn here.
I would encourage our youth to offer their input, you are natural change-makers.
You offer needed academic expertise, individual initiatives and insight that can significantly benefit this community as it diversifies.
2. What value does a ward system bring to the community as a whole? Would you be willing to challenge the status quo? Please comment.
Ward systems were introduced into communities when disproportionate representation was perceived to be hindering growth in one community area over another.
Thunder.
The at-large voting system at one time was seen to be supportive of a status quo at times could divide a city into ward-related disproportionate representation. Many Canadian and Ontario cities have recently reintroduced wards--often as part of a combined system that includes at-large and ward representation.
In the past four years, what were once considered ward issues has now spread equally to all areas of the city: increased spending and decreased revenues, public and neighbourhood safety, green energy, zoning by-law changes, brown field development, taxation, land planning and organized development.
I would be open to a city-wide plebscite and let voters decide. Factors such as population declines and migrating populations into other wards as well how service and representation could be best be served is best chose by voters.
Elect Laury Alexander
Candidate Red River Ward
356 Van Norman St. 626-9832
www.laury.ca
MCKINNON, BRIAN n/a
STAPLETON, JAY n/a
WOLFE, PAUL n/a
Westfort (1 to be elected)
POLHILL, JEFFREY JOHN
In order to train and keep our brightest and best young people, I would engage in the creation of a large cancer centre to train young oncologists, and also technicians for research and inovations.
Thunder Bay has one of the largest cancer rates in Canada and would be the natural place for a mega clinic/research facility. Twinned with our world class university, our world class colledge, and our world class hospital with it's DNA lab, cellular medicine lab, and native health clinic, we would create a cancer reseach jugernaut.
The ward system should be maintained and possibly expnded to ensure that the aldermen and women are more accountable to the people they represent.
I look forward to your opinions and would welcome your suggesstions.
Respectfully,
Jefrey John Polhill.
RADL, JOHN
Question #1
There really is not any new strategies to keep young here. As has been stated we need jobs (with good wages), we need more recreational areas and we need to improve safety of our neighbourhoods. If done this would keep more of our sons and daughters from leaving here.
Question #2
The ward system is important if you want all residents to have representation and assistance from a counsellor. If no ward system existed then small areas like Sandy Beach Road with small number of homes would be overlooked. Other places where people live and are not finically well off may not get service from counsellors. The larger areas with more votes, more money, more pull will benefit, others will be left hanging.
As for changing the status quo, yes I would be willing to challenge it, if and only if we could design a system that guarantees groups spoken about are looked after. Maybe a City ombudsman with some pull.
Thanks John R
VIRDIRAMO, JOE n/a
___________________________________
School Boards Candidates for All School Board Trustees:
1. How will you establish a higher level of literacy for graduating Grade 12 students?
2. What is your understanding of the root cause of bullying and what strategies would you implement to address them?
Trustees for only one (1) school board. You may vote for eight (8) trustees if you are an English-Public supporter, six (6) trustees if you are an English-Separate supporter, one (1) trustee if you are a French-Public supporter and four (4) trustees if you are a French-Separate supporter.
To be a supporter, you must meet the following criteria:
• English - Public: Anyone may support.
• English - Separate: You must be Roman Catholic.
• French - Public: You must have French Language Education Rights.
• French - Separate: You must be Roman Catholic - have French Language Education Rights.
English Public - School Board (8 to be elected)
ARNONE, MARG
Answers to yout two questions:
1) Unfortunately the curriculum is set by the Ministry of Education. The Board of Trustees are there to ensure that the curriculum is followed and of a high level. I will be one of the eight on the board. Decisions are made jointly and not individually. Honestly I do not think this is a fair question to ask.
2) Bullying is a multifaceted issue. Root causes are many and varied. Everything from T.V.programs, violence in video games, violence in the home, lack of good parenting skills to learned behavior and feelings of inadequacy and insecurity. It has only one purpose--“to allow one person to exercise power over another”. It takes many forms; face to face, internet, exclusion, to actual arassment under the Human Rights Code, such as discrimination because of race, creed, ethnic origin, sex, sexual orientation etc.
The Board of Education has policies and procedures to follow and the base rate for bullying must be a zero tolerance. My job as a trustee is to ensure that the policies and procedures are implemented and adhered to and if not then I must advocate to see to it that this occurs. All School Boards need to speak with one united voice on this issue. We have to educate our children about what it is and what to do to stop it. We need to train our children to not be by standers--to act to get help and to step in to help when they see this--the schools role I believe is to provide this training.
GRANT, FRANK n/a
HANNAFORD, JOYCE n/a
JOHANSEN,PAT
1. How will you establish a higher level of literacy for graduating Grade 12 students?
Literacy needs to be addressed long before grade 12. Literacy needs to begin even before entering school with the parent/guardian. The Fair Start program for students entering school and the early identification of learning difficulties is very important. School libraries, parent involvement, community partners, and creating learning opportunities outside the class room all develop higher levels of learning. Literacy is not just reading and writing.
2. What is your understanding of the root cause of bullying and what strategies would you implement to address them?
Bullies often are not good students and have academic problems in school, such as a learning disability. Bullying needs to be acknowledges and, we need to develop strategies to insure victims feel safe to tell someone and trust that the bullying stop. Bullying can often be a cry for help and unless they receive help, children who bully become adults who bully. Schools, parents/guardians and community need to strive to teach our children mutual respect, trust, and caring.
Both questions you asked are difficult to answer and issues that need everyone working together to find solutions for. The Lakehead Board has always involved staff, parent/guardians, and community groups to develop strategies for issues. I believe in listening to all theories, and ideas on how to create new directions and positive solutions.
LUKINUK, LORI
Thank you for the questions. Both are significant to education and I appreciate the opportunity to provide my views on each.
1. How will you establish a higher level of literacy for graduating Grade 12 students?
A high level of literacy does not just happen in Grade 12. As far back as the early years in kindergarten and the primary grades it is necessary to develop an interest in reading and strong oral language skills along with learning to put thoughts and ideas to paper (or in the 21st Century putting thoughts and ideas to a word document). This all starts very early and transcends to life long learning. In the 21st Century, students are faced with diverse and abundant choices for information. The use of internet will not in itself create more informed students without the students learning skills to use such information effectively. Information is found in many unfiltered formats and students are required to think critically, evaluate and analyze information, problem solve, and incorporate the information into their knowledge base. The ability to do all of these, beginning in the early years, will result in a higher level of literacy in senior grades.
After saying all of the above, while I have my own views on literacy, as a trustee I am not the education expert. My job and the job of the Board as a whole is to hire a Director of Education who, as the expert in the field of education, has a vision and the knowledge to create a leadership team able to implement a plan that will result in a higher level of literacy for graduating Grade 12 students. As a trustee it is my job to vote on a budget that will provide the programs and resources for our students to succeed. My first question when making decisions should be, “Is this good for students?” It is up to the Board to hold the Director accountable to ensuring student success.
It is important that trustees know and understand their role. The Director, Administration, employee groups, parents, and most importantly the students of Lakehead Public Schools all have a role to play. The trustee role is to work as a Board to make decisions that will support the role of all other groups. By providing those supports, all groups are better able to do their jobs and that will result in greater student success including a higher level of literacy.
2. What is your understanding of the root cause of bullying and what strategies would you implement to address them?
I don’t believe there is one root cause of bullying behaviour. I have, as a trustee, attended many workshops on bullying. There is always reference to a lack of self-esteem, or a family environment where the bully themselves is being bullied at home. I’ve even heard the theory that some people have a personality referred to a predatory. I believe there can be many causes of bullying behaviour.
The Character Education initiative at Lakehead Public Schools involved a wide range of stakeholder groups and community members as part of focus groups who came up with 5 values that they felt would best encompass what all groups wanted to see at Lakehead Public Schools. The values of Respect, Responsibility, Empathy, Integrity, and Acceptance were agreed to and these traits are discussed at all of our schools.
Another important piece of work being done at Lakehead DSB with the help of Dr. Ed Rawana is a pilot project focusing on strength based learning. Dr Rawana is a child psychologist and Director of the Lakehead Site of the Centre of Excellence for Children and Adolescents with Special Needs. The strategy is to focus on areas of strength to enhance self-esteem and as a result promote positive behaviour. The teachers examine their students’ strengths and incorporate them into the day-to-day activities in the classroom. The objective is to encourage students to recognize and use their strengths to deal with situations that they encounter in the school. The student learns to self assess and the teacher builds a student strength profile for each student that can be used to communicate with that student, their parent and other staff. Acknowledging students’ strengths on a consistent basis encourages them to learn. Focusing on student strengths is a positive way to respond to misbehaviour. By helping students to recognize their strengths, when difficult situation occur, they will have the confidence to tackle challenges.
Both the character education initiative and the strength based learning work being piloted and expanded to other schools are examples of the work being done in our schools to support all our students including those who struggle. By having all students identify and understand good behaviour and recognize in themselves their own strengths, the culture in the school will be positive and as a result bullying will not be accepted within the culture of that school.
As a trustee, I encourage and support such strategies.
Thank you again for the opportunity and your interest in the 2010 election candidates.
Sincerely,
Lori Lukinuk
Trustee Candidate – Lakehead Public Schools
Email: lalukinuk@tbaytel.net
Phone: 626-9569
Website: www.lorilukinuk.com
MASSARO, DEBORAH n/a
OIKONEN, RON
#1 Our board has a high level of expectation of our staff to promote this and we monitor the level of literacy to continue to improve and the public should give us feed back if we are not graduating our students with a high level of literacy. The college, university and the work place have to let us know.
Question # 2 We have programs such as safe schools , character education and equity but this is also a community promblem the board is part of the solution however we cannot do it alone. We work with many agencys to combat this problem . Ron
PLAYFORD, JACK n/a
SAARINEN, GEORGE n/a
WILSON, KAREN
Thank you for the opportunity to share my views and values with your Board of Directors and alumni. Along with reviewing my answers to your questions I hope you will take the time to get to know me a little better by accessing my website www.karenwilsontrustee.com. I have a passion for education and believe that a public education system provides accessibility to all learners.
As an incumbent trustee I have come to understand how trustees can have an impact on the education of the Board’s students. While much of what we do is Policy development these are only documents. The true test is how these policies and procedures are implemented in the day to day workings of the schools. We as a Board of Trustees entrust the assurance that policies will be implemented and successful to the Director of Education.
In June 2008 Lakehead Public Schools engaged its many stakeholders in developing a Board Strategic Plan. The Plan is based on 3 Pillars: Student Success, Staff Success, System Success. From this Strategic Plan an Operational Plan was developed by Administration. This twelve page document is available on the Lakehead Public Schools website www.lakeheadschools.ca.
Both questions below are addressed in each of the 3 pillars with some very specific goals.
1. How will you establish a higher level of literacy for graduating Grade 12 students?
“Student Achievement is a high priority for me and as such I support the Operational Plan which is focused on high literacy rates for students and states specific targets for improvements to EQAO testing results, OSSLT (Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test), and credit achievement by Grade 10. The Board is also focusing resources both in personnel and programs for Aboriginal students. The provision of many Alternative Education programs offers students a variety of ways to achieve graduation (Co-op, Connections, SAIL, SAM/MISOL, Storefront, SALEP). Teachers are being given training on a number of assessment tools to monitor students throughout the school year.”
2. What is your understanding of the root cause of bullying and what strategies would you implement to address them?
“In my research of the root causes of bullying I have learned that there are a number of factors that can influence a person to bully. It is usually a power and control issue. Bullying is a learned behaviour which can start at home. A victim of bullying can in turn exhibit bullying behaviour. The glorification of violence (eg. video games and movies), poor social and relationship skills, learning disabilities are all seen as contributing factors. A child raised in a violent home, the lack of bonding with a parent, and poor supervision are also seen as factors.
A number of strategies must be implemented to address the issue of bullying in schools. As a Board trustees have recently passed Policy 8071-Bullying Prevention and Intervention. A part of the process will be to have each school participate in a ‘Climate Survey’ to determine various issues of bullying as it impacts that school. Also, there will be staff training on how to identify and deal with bullying.”
Respectfully,
Karen Wilson
English Separate - School Board (6 to be elected)
ASHE, ELEANOR
1: How will you establish a higher level of literacy for graduating Grade 12
students?
The Ministry objective is to enhance graduation levels to 85 %. Advanced literacy and numeracy knowledge skills are the keys to successful lives for students and a prosperous society. Academic and applied courses of study are developed to capitalize on students’ individual potential. The OSSLT-Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test- administered to all Grade 10 students is an important tool for improvement planning at the student, school, school board and provincial levels. Curriculum development and resources support Student Success programmes such as Specialist High Skills Majors, Expanded Co-op, E-learning and technological studies. Ministry policy, memoranda and guidelines assist in the establishment of other benchmarks to ensure appropriate direction for student achievement.
2; What is your understanding of the root cause of bullying and what strategies would you implement to address them
In a perfect society, each individual would be respected and respectful. With diversity in physical, social, economic, spiritual, cultural, emotional and moral development, the survival of the fittest appears to approaching the norm. Harassment, prejudice, bigotry, racism , and discrimination are exhibited behaviours which result in forms of bullying. Generally speaking, the pundits attribute a deemed sense of inferiority or lack of self-esteem as a root cause. Sarah Boesveld in the Globe and Mail article of April 2010, defies bullying as the “black side of power”. Bullying is predominantly a learned behaviour which must be addressed. Teaching students to build positive relationships and develop effective communication strategies will empower all students and the entire school community to create environments free from bullying.
The Education Amendment Act, Bill 157 approved in February , 2010 deals with Anti-Bullying, in keeping with the Safe Schools Act 2000. All Boards must have policies in place to address the elements of bullying, with constant review.
It is required that each school include and anti-bullying statement in their Code of Conduct . In addition, school principals are required to establish and maintain a bullying prevention program in each school. The Bullying Prevention Program is to be discussed annually with each School Council.
CATTANI, DON n/a
CELLA, WILLIAM n/a
CICCONE, THERESA n/a
DEGAGNE, ROBERT
Answers
1- Literacy is a problem that needs to be addressed in the earlier years of learning. We need to examine the students reading habits as well as writing habits to develop a strategy that would give us the feedback necessary to build their reading and writing skills. To say that literacy is a problem with grade 12 students is really a problem that has to be looked at much earlier in the students education. More time needs to be allocated for the fundamentals of reading and writing to ensure greater success moving forward.
2- Psychologists used to believe that bullies had low self esteem and put down other people to feel better about themselves. New studies show that most bullies actually have excellent self esteem but lack compassion, impulse control and social skills. Bullying is a problem that isn’t new or regional. Bullying is a worldwide problem and because of our diverse culture we need to always have a policy in place to prevent bullying. The Ministry of Education has a policy in place(Bill 157) for bullying in the province of Ontario. This along with a strong a message from the local boards must be continuously viewed to ensure that all the students have a safe educational experience. Some strategies that have worked in other area of the world should be looked at to see if they can be implemented into our schools to reduce and control bullying.
HOWIE, JEFF n/a
HUPKA, BOB
How will you establish a higher level of literacy for graduating Grade 12 students?
The Thunder Bay Catholic District School Board has worked tremendously hard in recent years to improve literacy across the entire system. In fact, our EQAO scores clearly show the positive results from these efforts.
The Board believes that all students require a firm foundation at the beginning of their academic journey in order to secure success throughout their schooling. A recent reading program called “PALS” has already shown impressive improvements to our students’ literacy and comprehension.
At the high school level our students continue to shine. Based on our most recent EQAO scores, 88 per cent of our students passed the Grade 10 Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test. For those students who continue to struggle, we have initiated a number of great programs including a remedial reading, credit recovery and dual credit to name a few.
We understand that a good educational system is key the Thunder Bay’s future.
2. What is your understanding of the root cause of bullying and what strategies would you implement to address them?
There are a number of causes for bullying. A sense of alienations or discrimination, maturity levels, personal experiences and up bringing all play a role in creating an environment for bullying.
Our Board takes this issue seriously. Today bullying is no longer restricted to a schoolyard squabble or name calling in the hall. With the advent of technology like computers and cell phones, many children are now victim to cyber-bullying.
Working with a number of community agencies, including Thunder Bay Police, our Board will continue to stamp out bullying.
A number of our schools have addressed the issue by discussing it openly and expressing the painful realities of bullying. Some schools have issued challenges to their students to identify bullying as soon as it occurs. Only by naming it and bringing out into the open can we deal with the situation.
Bullying is not tolerated at our schools but despite our best efforts it will continue to rear its ugly head. We must continue to work together with the students, the parents and community groups to reduce the effects of bullying.
How will you establish a higher level of literacy for graduating Grade 12 students?
The Thunder Bay Catholic District School Board has worked tremendously hard in recent years to improve literacy across the entire system. In fact, our EQAO scores clearly show the positive results from these efforts.
The Board believes that all students require a firm foundation at the beginning of their academic journey in order to secure success throughout their schooling. A recent reading program called “PALS” has already shown impressive improvements to our students’ literacy and comprehension.
At the high school level our students continue to shine. Based on our most recent EQAO scores, 88 per cent of our students passed the Grade 10 Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test. For those students who continue to struggle, we have initiated a number of great programs including a remedial reading, credit recovery and dual credit to name a few.
We understand that a good educational system is key the Thunder Bay’s future.
2. What is your understanding of the root cause of bullying and what strategies would you implement to address them?
There are a number of causes for bullying. A sense of alienations or discrimination, maturity levels, personal experiences and up bringing all play a role in creating an environment for bullying.
Our Board takes this issue seriously. Today bullying is no longer restricted to a schoolyard squabble or name calling in the hall. With the advent of technology like computers and cell phones, many children are now victim to cyber-bullying.
Working with a number of community agencies, including Thunder Bay Police, our Board will continue to stamp out bullying.
A number of our schools have addressed the issue by discussing it openly and expressing the painful realities of bullying. Some schools have issued challenges to their students to identify bullying as soon as it occurs. Only by naming it and bringing out into the open can we deal with the situation.
Bullying is not tolerated at our schools but despite our best efforts it will continue to rear its ugly head. We must continue to work together with the students, the parents and community groups to reduce the effects of bullying.
KNAUFF, GENEVIEVE C.
Please find below my answers to your survey questions.
Thank you for the opportunity.
Genevieve
1. How will you establish a higher level of literacy for graduating Grade 12 students?
Increased literacy levels begin with Early Learning Programs that offer literacy opportunities to 4 and 5 year olds, including fulltime Junior and Senior Kindergarten. Early Learning not only offers a critical foundation in language and math, the program engages students at a young age in the social school environment and facilitates the beginning of their journey on the path of lifelong learning. Early Learning Programs offer students the best possible start to their school careers.
Each year, the Thunder Bay Catholic District School Board (TBCDSB) examines student success rates on EQAO standardized testing, including the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT). Utilizing these results, the Board develops a Strategic Plan for Literacy and Numeracy Development. This annual literacy and numeracy plan is an integral part of the 2008-2012 Board Strategic Plan and guides the program development and spending efforts of the Board aimed at increasing student success. The TBCDSB has the majority of its students achieving results at or above the provincial average on the OSSLT.
Through the implementation of these strategic plans, I will continue to work with my fellow Trustees and key members of Senior Administration to dedicate the required human and financial resources to increase the level of literacy for graduating Grade 12 students.
2. What is your understanding of the root cause of bullying and what strategies would you implement to address them?
At the core of bullying is an intolerance towards differences and diversity among students that can encompass race, gender and socioeconomic position. Bullying can take many forms from conventional physical and verbal assaults to the more recent phenomenon of cyber-bullying, which is equally damaging. There has also been a marked increase in female bullying that has escalated to be as violent as male bullying.
Safe Schools is a high priority with the Ministry of Education. In 2007, the government passed several amendments to the Education Act with the goal of enhancing the learning environment in all schools by addressing Progressive Discipline, Bullying and Programs for students who are suspended or expelled.
On February 1, 2010, Bill 157 – Keeping Our Kids Safe at School Act came into effect. This Act is intended to raise awareness levels of inappropriate behaviours, increase response levels to such behaviours and provide guidance and direction for the support of all students who have been involved in unpleasant or harmful situations. The TBCDSB continues to be proactive and vigilant with respect to bullying within its schools and ensures that all staff receive the required training modules associated with Bill 157, the related Regulation (472/02) and any updates to the legislation.
As a Catholic learning environment, the TBCDSB is committed to providing quality education that combines academic excellence with a concern for the spiritual, moral, social, emotional, cultural and physical growth of the student. This education is provided in a Christ-centered environment where diversity is embraced and tolerance is promoted, which are the most effective tools to combat bullying. Utilizing the teachings of Christ, I will continue to assist the Board in our endeavours to ensure we offer a safe and accepting learning environment to all our students.
Genevieve Knauff, R.P.F.
gck Consulting
46 Hwy 130, R.R. #2
Thunder Bay, Ontario P7C 4V1
Cell: (807) 620-6877
Email: gcknauff@shaw.ca
MAHONEY, DONNA
1. How will you establish a higher level of literacy for graduating Grade 12 students?
· Increased testing of students in early grades in elementary school, and continue into high school. Perhaps a testing prior to being admitted to junior and high school will enable the system to better determine the level of each individual student.
· Setting up programs and obtaining resources to assist students who fall behind the required level of literacy.
· Making the delivery of literacy education flexible for those students with special needs.
2. What is your understanding of the root cause of bullying and what strategies would you implement to address them?
· School boards, students and all employees play an important role in providing a safe environment for both students and staff. A trustee is responsible under Education Act to ensure that regulations are outlined in policy that clear, concise, consistent, and fair. Policy should also meet legal obligations to protect both board staff and students. Bullying behaviour is not conducive to a respectful environment in which students can successfully develop, learn and achieve. Bullying is a behaviour that should not be tolerated.
· In my opinion, one of the causes of bullying comes from behaviour that is learnt by our children at an early age. Children learn it during socialization relating to each other at home, day care, playgrounds, school etc. Acting out behaviour such as playing mean little games that hurt an individual can be considered a type and degree of bullying. One example would be if there were three little girls playing together and two of them do not include the third causing feelings of rejection. Perhaps a very minor example, however, can be very hurtful and can be the beginning of this type of negative social behaviour that results in more serious types of bullying.
Thank you
Donna Mahoney,
Candidate Thunder Bay District Catholic School Board.
O'BRIEN, KATHY
1. How will you establish a higher level of literacy for graduating Grade 12 students?
As a Trustee, I will continue to support the Board and its staff with the positive initiatives they are implementing, such as:
- identifying key teachers to be leaders in curriculum development and implementation of literacy and numeracy subject areas.
- identifying best practices in literacy and numeracy throughout the Province and implementing them within our schools where best applicable.
- looking for opportunities to support staff in-service in stragegies used to assist students in achieving improved academic results.
- Support Board initiatives in providing schools with improved resources to be used in the classroom.
Identifying the areas of strength and weakness in standardized tests so that the curriculum can be adjusted to build on successes and remediate areas in need of work
Look for opportunities to encourage administrators and teachers to upgrade themselves in courses that would address student academic needs.
2. What is your understanding of the root cause of bullying and what strategies would you implement to address them?
It is difficult to identify the root cause of bullying, not only in our system but in society as a whole. Some feel it is a product of our economic situation, others feel it is a product of society. Either way, bullying is prevalent in all schools and because of more disclosure it has become one of the key issues facing all school boards today. The latest statistics suggest that still, only less than five per cent of bullying is reported.
With respect to addressing bullying in schools, I would continue to suppory zero tolarence for any sort of bullying. A number of initiatives must continue to be implemented depending on the situation. They include;
Every school must implement an anti-bullying strategy that involves staff, students, parents, guardians and community members (including the Police).
Schools should implement anti-bullying assemblies regularly (monthly, if possible) to make students aware of the problem and afford them tools with which to deal with bullies (ways to divert, disclose to adults, and, as a bystander assist the victims).
Clear, fair but firm consequences must be adhered to for all bullies (including internet bullying).
All schools must develop a relationship with Thunder Bay Police and the resource school officer to work with staff, students and school councils to best address this issue in their respective community.
ROMEO, TONY n/a
VALE, HANNI
Thank you for the opportunity to fill out your survey.
Please find my answers to your survey below.
1. How will you establish a higher level of literacy for graduating Grade 12 students
We need to identify these problems a lot sooner then grade 12. With the EQAO testing we now have a better idea of learning difficulties – with that said we need to address these issues, may it be with more help after school, getting parents more involved or maybe more partnerships with some external groups. Make sure that these children are aware of the difficulties they face in the working world if they do not get the help that they need.
2. What is your understanding of the root cause of bullying and what strategies would you implement to address them?
I think the root cause for most bullying is that our children do not understand or respect the difference within our schools and with other children. If these children do not understand then they need to express themselves and with that you get the bullying. I also believe that children are not bullying for the same reason and with all of the different kinds of bullying we need to sit with each child and find out the answer to “why”. I think that maybe a bullying “team” should be put into place, maybe made up of Parents, Teachers, Principal and a Board member. Some children may feel intimidated by the staff within the school so maybe bring in just your average parent.
Thank you,
Hanni Vale
Candidate for Separate School Trustee
French Public - School Board (1 to be elected)
GELINEAULT, ANNE-MARIE n/a
French Separate - School Board (4 to be elected)
BRETON, DIANE n/a
GLEESON, CLAUDETTE n/a
LANGEVIN, MARIETTE n/a
MAYER, LINA n/a
PARADIS, SERGE n/a
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All candidate responses have been posted "as received" without editing or formatting,
as of Friday October 15, 2010 at 10 pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Maggie Chicoine
Lead Facilitator
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