The City of Timmins is a business and needs to be run as such, says Joe Campbell.
The lifelong Schumacher resident is one of three candidates vying to be Timmins' next mayor in the Oct. 24 municipal election.
With a 40-plus year career in accounting and having served two terms as the Ward 3 councillor, Campbell believes he's a good candidate to deal with the issues that will come up in the next four years.
“My record on council has been I’ve been a voice for all taxpayers and I have not deviated from that for 7.5 years although it probably cost me a bit during the last term. I won’t compromise that position. I’m there for all the taxpayers and all the groups to be treated equally. I believed in diversity and inclusion for long before it was the latest flavour of the month,” he said.
With a host of issues on his priority list, he said it's extremely difficult to pick just three.
While he said roads, taxes and crumbling infrastructure are priorities, there's also homelessness and addictions, the economy and inflation.
The Community Safety and Well-being Plan, he said, has good intentions, but is a long-term plan.
"We need a short-term plan to deal with what’s happening right now. We have to face the numbers and face the realities and get the honest numbers out there and deal with the fact that we have a current problem that we have to resolve in this city,” said Campbell.
For the economy, he believes locally it's looking fairly attractive with the mining operations around, but noted that the feasibility study from Kidd Creek won't be out until later this year.
“There will be some challenges going forward and I think I’m qualified. I functioned at a very high level in my career dealing with problems, dealing with mining operations — I was involved with a mining company for 43 years. I understand mining, I understand how it runs on cycles and we’ve been fortunate in Timmins that during the downturns in the economy that the mining companies have continued to produce, including in COVID. But there were a lot of businesses that were hurting,” he said.
With inflation and further interest rate increases potentially on the way, Campbell said residents' spending power is hurting, especially for low-income workers and seniors.
"The city has to be prepared to play its role in softening the blow of inflation of the offside of COVID-19," he said.
This election, Campbell's running a grassroots campaign and is looking to meet and many people as he can.
“I’m not changing. I don’t have to run on promises that I will do, I’ll run on promises that I’ve kept,” he said.
If elected, Campbell wants to work with a "multitude of partnerships."
“You have to be receptive to new ideas. You have to be diplomatic. You have to be to the point where you will objectively consider all proposals fairly and equitably for everybody,” he said. “The mayor is the face of the city and he has to be in a position that can compromise and that can also lead the way.”
He said there should also be open debate on everything.
"You have to be open to everybody’s ideas. Can you solve everybody’s ideas? Not one candidate can do that. Because collectively a mayor has one vote, so he has to win over at least four other councillors to move forward and hopefully win over all eight councillors to move forward collectively towards a better city,” he said.
The other mayoral candidates are Michelle Boileau and Richard Lafleur.
