Combatting the climate emergency and homelessness were front and centre during a town hall meeting with mayoral candidates at the Indie Cinema on Monday night.
Eight of Greater Sudbury’s nine mayoral candidates spoke at Monday’s event, which candidate and convicted purveyor of hate speech David Popescu was not invited to attend.
Mayor Brian Bigger**, Evelyn Dutrisac, Don Gravelle, Bob Johnston, Devin Labranche, Paul Lefebvre, Miranda Rocca-Circelli and Mila Wong appeared united in declaring that something needs to be done when it comes to homelessness and the climate crisis.
Just what, exactly, should be done was up for discussion.
Although the event was introduced as “not a debate,” and candidates centered mainly on their own platforms and away from potshots, Bigger faced the brunt of criticism by virtue of his position as incumbent.
“We’ve invested significantly in providing homes – safe homes for people who are homeless, but it only makes sense when you’re also providing the supports that try to end the cycle of challenges with mental health or addictions or whatever other challenges they’re facing,” he said.
Much of this responsibility is outside the scope of municipalities, he said, noting that city council has gone beyond their mandated role to work on a 40-unit transitional housing complex on Lorraine Street, which will aim to ease the chronically homeless into permanent community housing.
Although not focused on, the same applies to the supervised consumption site downtown, which the city recently opened despite waiting on provincial funding for its operational expenses.
Bigger has advocated for provincial funding for these projects as mayor and as part of other organizations in recent months.
As for the environment, he cited the city’s work on the Community Energy and Emissions Plan, with a net-zero emissions target by 2050, which came out of city council’s unanimous vote in 2019 to declare a climate emergency.
He said greater funding will be required to help achieve these goals, but that the 2023 budget process will be a difficult one.
Lefebvre said there aren’t enough shelter beds this winter, which the city needs to address as quickly as possible.
“We have that data but we have no plans of how to address this, and that scares me because this is not new to us, this has happened over and over and over again,” he said, adding the city needs to bring in funding from senior levels of government and bring not-for-profit organizations together to work on the issue collaboratively.
“We need to listen to people with lived experience and we need to treat them with dignity.”
As for the environment, Lefebvre said the city needs to protect the Laurentian University greenspace, turn the GOVA Transit system electric more quickly and set more goals toward achieving net-zero by 2050.
“Poverty is the biggest determinant of our health,” Wong said, adding the city’s approach to house people in “dormitory-style” lodgings is “inhuman.”
“They would rather have a door of a tent because at least then they feel safe.”
Rocca-Circelli said the city needs to better encourage the development of co-operative housing with incentives and to better partner with existing organizations to help get them built.
She also said the city needs to continue renovating existing buildings to make them more environmentally friendly, protect the Laurentian University greenspace and take salt out of the city’s dust control efforts.
Labranche said the city needs to lower development charges and other such fees to make it less expensive for developers to move forward with construction. He also said the city needs to tackle the use of pesticides on lakefront properties.
Gravelle urged the city to allow people to build tiny homes.
“We currently do not allow tiny homes in our community, but all the younger generation who are getting out of school and getting jobs for the first time, they will never be able to afford a house,” he said.
He also said the insurance industry might have answers in relation to mitigating the impacts of climate change.
Dutrisac cited her work with Abbeyfield Canada as an example of what can be done when a community group comes together to find a housing solution. She also said the city needs to partner with area professionals to conduct scientific research in relation to the impacts of climate change.
Johnston said the city needs to do a better job of reaching out to area organizations to work together on education and communication in relation to the environment, do a better job with paving roads and better limit the use of road salt.
He would pledge $50,000 of his mayoral wages for the first two years toward an education program for the homeless and people living with addictions to substances.
Monday’s event was co-hosted by Bike Sudbury, Black Lives Matter Sudbury, Coalition for a Liveable Sudbury, Greater Sudbury Food Policy Council, Poverty and Housing Advocacy Coalition, reThink Green, Sudbury and District Labour Council and the Sudbury Workers Education and Advocacy Centre.
A livestream of Monday’s mayoral town hall can be found by clicking here.
The Coalition for a Livable Sudbury issued a survey for all mayoral and city council candidates, the results of which have recently been released.
The following are the results for the mayoral candidates:
Pledge 1: Urgent climate action
I pledge to actively champion clear, resourced action plans to meet the short-term targets of 25 per cent greenhouse gas emission reductions by 2025 and 55 per cent reductions by 2030.
- Bigger: Yes
- Dutrisac: Yes
- Gravelle: Yes
- Johnston: Unsure
- Labranche: Unsure
- Lefebvre: Yes
- Rocca-Circelli: Yes
- Wong: Yes
Pledge 2: Housing for all
I pledge to actively champion achieving functional zero homelessness within five years while supporting the dignity and human rights of unsheltered community members.
- Bigger: Yes
- Dutrisac: Yes
- Gravelle: Unsure
- Johnston: Yes
- Labranche: No
- Lefebvre: Yes
- Rocca-Circelli: Yes
- Wong: Yes
Pledge 3: Reallocating funds from policing to services
I pledge to actively champion shifting 10 per cent of the GSPS budget to social services and supports such as affordable housing, community-based crisis response and harm reduction.
- Bigger: Yes
- Dutrisac: Yes
- Gravelle: Unsure
- Johnston: Unsure
- Labranche: No
- Lefebvre: Unsure
- Rocca-Circelli: No
- Wong: Unsure
Pledge 4: Basic mobility
I pledge to actively champion protected bike lanes on all major roads within five years, and improving winter sidewalk maintenance within two years.
- Bigger: Yes
- Dutrisac: Yes
- Gravelle: Unsure
- Johnston: Unsure
- Labranche: Unsure
- Lefebvre: Yes
- Rocca-Circelli: Yes
- Wong: Unsure
Pledge 5: Support for community initiatives
I pledge to actively champion a one-stop-shop for community initiatives with a “can-do” attitude of providing the support to make great community-led initiatives happen, smoothly and easily.
- Bigger: Yes
- Dutrisac: Yes
- Gravelle: Yes
- Johnston: Yes
- Labranche: Yes
- Lefebvre: Yes
- Rocca-Circelli: Yes
- Wong: Yes
Pledge 6: Truth and reconciliation
I pledge to actively champion implementing the Truth and Reconciliation Calls to Action, the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Calls for Justice and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of INdigenous Peoples at a local level.
- Bigger: Yes
- Dutrisac: Yes
- Gravelle: Yes
- Johnston: Yes
- Labranche: Unsure
- Lefebvre: Yes
- Rocca-Circelli: Yes
- Wong: Yes
Pledge 7: Better protecting land and water
I pledge to actively champion protecting land and water, inclusive of a sustainable, equitable and reliable fully-funded model for the Stormwater Asset Management Plan and a robus residential inflow and filtration program to be implemented within this term of council.
- Bigger: Yes
- Dutrisac: Yes
- Gravelle: Yes
- Johnston: Yes
- Labranche: Yes
- Lefebvre: Yes
- Rocca-Circelli: Yes
- Wong: Unsure
This was the second of four mayoral debate/forums slated to take place in advance of the Oct. 24 civic election. The Sudbury chapter of the Canadian Association of Retired Persons joined the Sudbury Arts Council in hosting a debate on Oct. 1. The following two events are coming up:
- On Oct. 5, the Capreol Community Action Network (CAN), the Capreol Lions Club and the Capreol Royal Canadian Legion Branch 179 are hosting a mayoral candidates debate at the Capreol Arena beginning at 7 p.m.
- On Oct. 6, the Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce is hosting a “Mayoral Candidates’ Fireside Chat” at the Collège Boréal concert hall from 7-9 p.m.
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.
**Editor's note: Brian Bigger announced on the afternoon of Oct. 4 that he was dropping out of the mayoral race, citing family reasons for his decision.
