Tell us a little bit about yourself and why you decided to run for mayor.
Well, I'm a long-term Moose Javian. I was born and raised in Moose Jaw. I've got four grown adult children and 11 grandchildren here, so I was raised here, I've spent my whole life here, my dad and his family were here. And so, I've got good roots here. I love the city. I have a real love for the people of the city, and I want to see the city actually grow and I want to see the city come back to actually being a friendly city again.
I'm looking forward to that. I don't want people walking around downtown — when I knock on doors, people say they're scared to walk downtown and I don't want that. I want my downtown and my Crescent Park — I want it to be full and people to be using it again and so I'm running.
My major platform is to be a voice for the people, the taxpayers. There's so many times that we have other people running and they have platforms or agendas, and we all have agendas, and my agenda is really to represent the taxpayers of Moose Jaw. I don't have any funding. I don't take any donations. I just want the taxpayers heard and I think that's one of the major issues in our city, is that decisions are being made and we're not listening to the taxpayers or we're not making decisions that are in the best interests of our taxpayers.
Do you have any experience in public service or community boards or politics?
I'm not a politician at all. I'm a businessman. But my business that I run is a public service. I teach education. I teach people how to drive and teach them how to operate motorcycles. So, I do work with the public a lot. Have I sat on boards? Yes. Have I volunteered? You know, I've coached sporting teams and when I was younger, I taught, you know, different sports teams.
I worked in the church, volunteered to different positions in the church, sat on church boards and oversaw different departments, and things like that. And I was a union member for 38 years, when I was a locomotive engineer with the Canadian Pacific Railway. So, I understand that, I've attended lots of meetings and understand how the meetings go, and I think the basics of that and the most important part of that is actually having good communication, being able to communicate and collaborate and work together. I think that's really the basis and the most important thing with boards and working with boards.
You said that you're not a politician. Do you feel that gives you an advantage over some of the counselors or former mayors that are running against you?
I don't know if I would say an advantage. I think it's an advantage simply because I just tell it like it is, I speak the truth. I'm a man of integrity and I'm not — you know, when I’m asked a question, I try to meet it head-on. I don't try to beat around the bush and talk for three minutes and not actually say anything.
I think it's important that we run our city as a business and so as a business owner, I understand that you have to make the bottom line, and you have to make the tough decisions and you also have to make sure that your employees are happy and the employees are treated properly and that they want to work for you. So, it's all of that, it's all of that collaboration of how to run a business. How to make people want to follow you and be able to lead by example. And I think that starts with integrity. That’s the bottom line of it. You get a person in charge that stands for integrity, that demonstrates integrity, is not afraid to go to work and is not afraid to do the dirty jobs. I do that with my job. If the pylons need to be picked up, I'll pick up the pylons. I don't expect the other workers to do all the hard work, so I don't mind doing the work.
And so, I think when you have a leader who's a good communicator, has good integrity and that, then people will work with you, because they will respect you and when you value the people that you work with, then they feel valued. It's easy to communicate, it's easy to collaborate on things, and it's easy to get things done. But it all starts from the top, that’s my belief.
Was there a topic or policy issue or incident that was a tipping point for you?
I think there's a series, because as I mentioned, I'm not really a politician. Running for politics wasn't something that I ever dreamed about or thought about. But I think it comes down, you know, civically a tipping point for me, maybe, is I just don't think that decisions are being made in the best interests of the people, I think.
There's often things that are done and we're not actually looking at or addressing the things that the people are speaking about, or maybe you'll have somebody come to a City Hall meeting and they'll do a lot of homework, put a lot of effort into what they're doing, and they'll do a great presentation to council. And I've sat in many of them, just in the gallery, just watching. They'll make a great presentation and it, and then I feel like they're being brushed off, so I can imagine they feel the same.
All the work they did, all the information — they don't have time to actually review it and take the time, they just want to vote and go and move on. And sometimes I think it's maybe a charade? Maybe the decisions already done, and so they're not really interested in what the public has to say, because they've already made a decision, and I would like to see the taxpayers listened to, and I'd like to see decisions made that are actually best for the taxpayers and that there's not special interest groups, there's not people that have money that are getting benefits out of the decisions that are made.
What criticisms do you have, if any, of the politics over the last two or three years?
Well, moving forward with that, I think number one, absolutely number one, is our roads. I mean, our City Council, the current members now just voted to spend almost 3/4 of $1,000,000 changing signs. And our roads are atrocious, and I don't think I've had one person in all the doors I've knocked and all the people I spoke to that told me that they thought that that was a great idea, not one person.
So, that tells me that they're not listening to the taxpayers because most of the taxpayers weren't worried about changing signs in school zones and things like that — they were actually worried about the roads, and the condition of our roads, and our road maintenance. So, I think that comes down to that. So, sometimes we're putting our cart ahead of our horse and we're just simply not listening to the taxpayers on issues like that.
And there's all kinds of them, I mean, safety downtown. Is the safety and the concern of our taxpayers and our businesses downtown, is it being addressed? And I don't think it is. I don't think we're tackling that problem in the right way. I don't think we're collaborating properly with the different groups to make our downtown safe and cleaning up our downtown.
And sure, there's some issues that we need to deal with — homeless, and the substance abuse and mental health and stuff. But do we need to deal with that right downtown in the heart of our city? I don't think so. I don't think that is the place and the area to deal with that. I think that the parks downtown, I think our Main Street, should be there for our taxpayers, so they should feel safe to go down and go to our businesses down there.
I mean, we want to promote our city, so we want visitors coming in, feeling safe. We want our own people feeling safe, going downtown and shopping downtown, going to the restaurants downtown, you know. So, I'm really very keen on making sure we clean up our downtown, make sure we have events, make sure we're doing things to bring people downtown, make our downtown great. I want our city to be a friendly city again. That's what I really want to do, and I want to bring people back to our city.
And what is your plan to compromise or cooperate with fellow council members to accomplish these policy goals?
So, I love the word compromise because a lot of times people use that word to get people to want to lower their moral standing, their integrity, or things like that. And that's something I will not do. My platform is to run for the people of Moose Jaw. I'm not running for a group. I don't take donations. I'm running for the people of Moose Jaw, so I want to hear from the people. I want to take their phone calls, and I want to hear from them, and I want to represent them, so compromising on their needs over something that maybe a special interest group or somebody with lots of money wants, isn't in my favor.
But at the same time, I think when you have people that have the interest of the taxpayers at heart, then we're going to be able to work together, we're going to be able to collaborate together. We're going to be able to come up with great ideas. I think we need to have visionary leaders like myself. That's what I'm hoping for — more good leadership like that, that have a good vision for the city.
We’ll think outside of the box. We'll look for other solutions, because clearly some of the solutions and the things that we're doing now aren't working. We can see that there's 29 people running for political office here in Moose Jaw, that tells us that people want change. So, I think our direction needs to change.
So, I look at compromise as ‘well, we're discussing whether we want blue carpet or green carpet or red carpet or whatever.’ That's coming to a decision — I don't really look at it as compromise. But when people start asking people to lower their standards and say ‘oh, forget about this or forget about that, let's just do what's best for us,’ I'm not into that.
So, I'm more for the people. I'm running for the people, and that's exactly my platform and that's what I'll do. And I think if we're a good communicator, and I think if we can show the other people there that you feel you value them, and they feel valued, I think people will enjoy working with us and working together and moving in the right direction.
What else would you like voters to know about you?
Well, a little bit of my history. My dad fought in the Second World War. He immigrated to Canada from Wales in 1920 and fought in the Second World War for our nation. And so, I'm a firm believer in our veterans and the freedoms, and I'm thankful for the freedoms that we have and that we've enjoyed. I grew up in that type of a household with a great father who taught me great values that way, and I appreciated them.
So, I want people to understand that. I'm a home-grown person, I love this city, I loved growing up here. I remember the great times, and I think we can bring those things back again and I think we can make our city that friendly city again, I want to bring that back to our city.
I want to try to create an atmosphere downtown where people actually want to come downtown. I remember the kids jumping on the bus and coming down, going to the late show, and I could take the bus home. We can't do that anymore, and I felt safe doing it and I want to be able to do things like that again. I want the people to be able to do that again and if we can create some type of activity, some types of things, draw people downtown.
Maybe we have our coffee shops stay out a little later, and so people can actually go downtown and have a cup of coffee and spend some time down there. So, I'm just a local boy. I'm a Moose Jaw man. I love my city, and I want to see it grow and I want to see my businesses grow, and I want businesses to want to come to this city because of the atmosphere that we bring in this city.
And finally, in the interest of transparency, are you coordinating or do you share an association with any other candidates in any way whatsoever?
You know, I'll say this jokingly, but please take it with a grain of salt: I've seen a few other candidates that are running for different positions at the Warriors game, so maybe we have an interest in the Warriors and hoping they do well and cheering them on. But other than that, no, I I'm not collaborating with anybody.
I don't have a group that I'm associating with, and there's nobody that I've made phone calls with or chatted with prior to the election. Kind of like everybody else, there's a number of them that are running for council, so I'm like everybody else, hoping there's going to be a forum or something, that I can see and hear what they have to say and what their values and where their stances are, so. And, you know, hoping that something will come up that way so we can actually get a good chance to get to know these people so we can make good decisions for our council.