Residents hopefully have a more clear platform from each of the community’s three candidates for the Mayor’s seat after the second All-Candidates Debate in Kenora – as we get ready to elect our 9th Mayor this fall.
Seven Generations Education Institute was host to the debate between 11-year municipal veteran Andrew Poirier, long-time political hopeful David Byers-Kitt and 20-year leader of the Kenora and District Chamber of Commerce, Andy Scribilo – with a meet and greet afterwards.
And just like Wednesday night’s All Candidates Debate between potential councillors – all three of our hopeful Mayors spoke at length about the need to see change in the community throughout the night.
After opening remarks from the Kenora and District Chamber of Commerce, who organized and moderated the event, each candidate was given a few minutes to present themselves and their platforms – before seven pre-selected questions were asked to the three candidates.
“With strong leadership and a vision to move us forward, our current citizens and the next generation [can have] a city that we can be proud to call home,” said Poirier, who spoke about the need to increase safety downtown, to work with First Nation partners and to help support new housing developments.
“I promised this to myself,” said Byers-Kitt, who explains its been his personal dream for many years to become a municipal politician. “I’m doing this for me. I want to represent the citizens of Kenora. My voice has to be in the Mayor’s position.” He adds that he aims to be a ‘decision maker’ for the city.
“The job of Mayor is an honour for anyone who takes on the responsibility to lead the city for four years to a better future,” says Scribilo, who says Kenora is at a ‘crossroads’, and stressed his platform would strongly encourage input from community members for their vision on Kenora moving ahead.
Candidates were first asked for their thoughts on a potential Safe Injection/Consumption Site in Kenora – which has been proposed by the Northwestern Health Unit and a third party who are conducting a feasibility study into its value and potential impacts to the community.
Poirier explains that while he supports harm reduction programming and similar sites, he is reserving his comment on this proposal as he wants to see the study completed beforehand. He says he has concerns about its potential location, the funding for the programming, as well as its impacts downtown.
Scribilo, meanwhile, says he’s not in favour of a Safe Injection Site downtown – but he is in favour of a form of a rehabilitation centre outside of town, if the community is able to find adequate staff to operate it.
Byers-Kitt explained that he wasn’t in favour of the NWHU’s proposal or their current needle distribution program and harm reduction services. Instead, he says a recovery facility should be created for the region.
Housing was the next topic covered by candidates, specifically as it relates to the glaring need of additional housing units for seniors in Kenora.
Byers-Kitt proposes the city should be exploring opportunities from abroad and international developers. Scribilo agrees that outside developers need to be found, and stressed that Kenora wasn’t taking strong enough care of our seniors. Poirier says he’d work to reduce regulations and ‘red tape’ to help streamline the proposal process, noting a major 56-unit seniors housing build is on its way.
Candidates were then asked for their thoughts on how the community can work together to improve safety concerns and promote local businesses in our downtown core.
Scribilo says business owners are frustrated and the issues the community has seen over the last decade have been scaring away tourism dollars and our own residents, which needs to be addressed immediately.
He adds an expansion of the Open Air Markets, which he himself helped to create, could help support our local business owners – while giving residents new events to enjoy each summer.
Byers-Kitt agreed that an expansion of Open Air Markets could be a great thing for residents and business owners, noting they could be offered tax rebates or something of the sort for participating in the event.
In Poirier’s opinion, he says he thinks our justice system isn’t being ‘tough enough’ on re-offenders and drug users, and would work to increase the OPP’s presence throughout the downtown core. He adds that certain social service providers in Kenora also need to ‘step up’ to help address the situation.
Of course, Kenora’s Mayor candidates were bound to be asked about road conditions and pothole repairs – especially after this year’s historic flooding and brutal winter season before it.
Byers-Kitt stressed the need for city crews to be more accountable with main, arterial roads needing to be addressed as soon as possible, and posed a potential app to track where crews are performing work that day.
Scribilo says it’s a major problem in the community – that should be being addressed with additional roads crews.
Poirier stressed that while roads are meeting minimum maintenance standards as set out in the city’s Asset Management Plan, roads should be fixed right the first time.
To build on Kenora’s flooding concerns and recent tax and service level issues raised by the Property Owners North of the By-Pass group, the three candidates were asked for how they would be better prepared for future flooding and washout conditions.
Scribilo says it’s frustrating to see crews repeatedly have to repair the same areas – and agrees that crews need to fix it right the first time. He adds the city should be exploring better road repair equipment, technologies and methods.
Poirier noted that road repair work is in the city’s budget for those areas in the coming years – but taxes could be impacted. He adds the city should be in a better position to adopt those new repair technologies and methods when they’re proposed by city engineers.
Byers-Kitt argued that city crews fail to perform enough preventative maintenance work on a number of roadways north of the city, and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry should also be involved in preventative flooding and washout efforts – like eliminating large beaver dams.
The final two questions of the night both surrounded Canada’s inflation and spending crisis and how it’s impacting the city and the community.
First, residents were asked for their thoughts into how they could work to lower the city’s fuel and energy costs moving forward – potentially with the use of electric vehicles in the municipal fleet.
Byers-Kitt, a mechanic by trade, quickly noted those vehicles would not have enough power to push snow or sand around. Scribilo noted electric vehicles may be a possibility for certain departments, like by-law officers downtown. Poirier pointed to the city’s Sustainability Action Plan, which includes energy efficiency projects like LED streetlights, composting and efficiency upgrades at the Rec Centre.
Then, candidates detailed how they would work to handle inflation at the municipal level when it comes to taxation rates and the level of municipal services received.
Scribilo explains that the simplest way to increase revenues coming into the city is to grow Kenora’s population and tax-base, which can be done if ‘we all work together’.
Byers-Kitt proposed finding greater efficiencies between municipal management and employees.
Poirier adds that new housing and commercial developments can make a significant difference in regards to tax levels, and agrees that increasing the tax-base will help moving forward. Although, he says Kenora is close to ‘hitting the wall’ with our rising cost of living, and we’ll need to get creative.
As candidates finished up their rounds of questions from Chamber and community members, they were each given a few minutes to wrap-up the night and encourage voters to mark them down on their ballots later this month.
“I care about Kenora. I care what happens to the people of Kenora,” says Scribilo. “I’m going to be proactive to not keep it status-quo, but to build on it. Have initiatives. Be creative. We have it in us. We’re resilient people. People are frustrated. People are tired. And they’re starting to speak up.”
“You will have 6 new members of council,” adds Byers-Kitt. “We need to take that ideology, liberalized, controlled, unionized mentality sitting on city council over the last two terms. We need to pull that out of there, and we need to go with new visions and new ideas. Vision is important.”
“My experience both personally and professionally have prepared me for this election to be your Mayor,” adds Poirier, in his closing remarks. “Eleven years on council, eleven annual budgets and eleven years of legislating at the council table on your behalf. I’m a political junkie.”
You can find candidates’ profiles HERE for more information on their platforms.
Kenora’s next Mayor will succeed Dan Reynard, who served as Kenora’s 8th Mayor between 2018 and 2022.
Reynard followed long-time Mayor and fellow council member Dave Canfield, after he stepped away from the position after 14 years of service to the community.
Reynard, a lifelong Kenora resident, had served one term as councillor before his election, and said it was a tough decision to walk away from the role – but opted to keep his reasons private.
Advanced voting begins on October 11 and the election will take place on October 24.
Kenora Moving Forward will also be hosting a third All Candidates Debate with Councillor and Mayor candidates on October 11 at the Ne-Chee Event Centre at 5 p.m. – focusing on social issues in the community.