North Bay mayoral, council candidates talk homelessness, municipal spending at meet-and-greet

On one side of the room, there was a buffet of sandwiches and other finger foods.

On the other side, was a buffet of pamphlets — a table covered in campaign literature from the dozens of candidates running in North Bay in this municipal election.

"It's definitely overwhelming. There's a lot of names," said 19-year-old Nya Mackfall, looking over the pamphlets at a candidate meet-and-greet at the Nipissing University Student Union Centre on Tuesday night.

"But I'm excited to learn about them so I can make an informed decision."

Mackfall is voting in her first municipal election and has to pick 10 names from a list of 29 for North Bay city council, plus one of the three mayoral candidates.

"Just being open-minded to the opinions and attitudes of the younger generation, my generation is really important," Mackfall said, adding she was impressed after a chat with mayoral hopeful Johanne Brousseau, a current city councillor.

Jane Labbé is from an entirely different voting generation.

The 95-year-old moved to North Bay from Sturgeon Falls just two months ago. She listened to the candidates on Tuesday night while sipping a glass of white wine.

"Well, some of them talk pie in the sky, like somebody's saying they'll take care of all the potholes promptly. Well, that sounds good, but we know it's not something that they can do," she said. 

"I like to talk to people about things that are doable."

Labbé said the top issue for her is seeing more affordable housing built to help those struggling with poverty and addiction.

"I do feel that you can't keep overspending. It's hard's now. But to me the important thing is help the people that need help," said the retired teacher. 

The increase of homelessness in North Bay is what inspired Leslie McVeety to run for mayor.

"My house is broken into and I did some research into that and I'm not alone. So, then I started talking to homeless people and realizing that they're people too," she said, planning to take the city's cut of casino revenue to build tiny houses for those living on the street.

"Winter's coming, it's getting cold out there. I don't even like walking from my car to my house, so I can't imagine what it's like to live out there," McVeety said. 

Mayoral hopeful Peter Chirico said as a former North Bay city councillor and ex-city manager, he knows City Hall better than his opponents.

First on his to-do list if elected on Oct. 24 is to conduct an operational review, but he said it's about setting "benchmarks," not about cutting essential services.

"This isn't about going in and hacking and whacking and all of those things," Chirico said. 

"It's about changing the culture at city hall for customer service. It's to make sure that everybody is rowing on the same page." 

One North Bay council candidate joked that only a fraction of the crowd Tuesday night were voters and that it was mostly politicians talking to each other.

But Michael Taylor, a political rookie hoping for one of the 10 seats around the city council table, said he finds the meet-and-greets are a great way to get his message out.

"I think people appreciate it when we come to their doors, mind you, we're post-pandemic, we're still a little sketchy, there's been some challenges that way, not everybody's been welcoming," Taylor said. 

"Most people in the city are engaged. They want to know what's going on, they want to know what we can do for them, they're concerned about what's happening with our downtown."