A standing-room-only crowd came out to the Portuguese Cultural Centre in the one opportunity to meet the candidates running in this month's Bradford West Gwillimbury municipal election.
The Bradford Board of Trade-sponsored event allowed for speeches from the four mayoral and two deputy mayoral candidates, with the various ward council candidates situated around the room for one-on-one discussions with voters.
For mayor, residents are faced with a choice to continue on the same trajectory set out by the current council or chart a new course.
James Leduc, current deputy mayor for the municipality, is eager to be promoted and carry on with him and his colleagues have been working toward during the previous terms of council.
“A lot of great work has been done by our leadership team to date…. I want to continue the growth trajectory that continues to make Bradford a place of choice,” Leduc told the audience. “I will be very qualified to continue this important work as your mayor and I’m grateful to have the endorsement of (current Bradford West Gwillimbury) Mayor (Rob) Keffer.”
One of the initiatives Leduc wants to continue is the focus on bringing affordable housing to the community. He wants to expand the reach, however, by providing more housing options for those in different income brackets and with different needs. To do this, he’ll have the municipality do some of the initial legwork for the developers and rely on a cash influx from the federal and provincial governments.
“We perform the studies – we ask the province to fund those studies for us – and then we have the federal government get involved and actually support the down payment for young families to get those houses,” Leduc said. “I have a plan. I want to bring it to the province, I want to bring it to the feds and see if we can get that done.”
Leduc also realizes there’s room to improve the town’s mix of residential to commercial/industrial tax base. That ratio today is 92:8, in favour of residential; eventually, he wants to see a 70/30 split.
“We have to maximize our employment lands… and as soon as this race is over, I’m going to force the development community to get out there and actually service the lands,” Leduc said. “I believe I can move the needle within four years. I want a 70/30 split; if I can make it greater I will, but I will make it a mandate of mine that we need jobs to be here before we build more houses.”
Already, there’s movement to help Leduc’s goal come to fruition, regardless of who is mayor, with a servicing agreement Bradford West Gwillimbury council passed at its final regular meeting of the term. The agreement will help spur the development of employment lands in the Highway 400-Line 5 corridor, with the hopes of eventually bringing 200 new jobs to the community.
It was this parcel of land that Mauro Di Giovanni said helped spur him to run for mayor in the election. He felt council’s decision to defer property tax payments on the property wasn’t right and not the kind of option the municipality would provide him as a resident.
“I can tell you that I was shocked that in 2019, Mr. Leduc and this council voted to defer more than $10 million in fees to a developer,” he said. “I knew that my tax dollars were not being deferred. It was not in the best interest for the community.”
Di Giovanni frequently challenged the current council’s record via Leduc during his remarks, and took aim at one project in particular after the speeches, indicating the Bradford Community Hub project at 177 Church St. would be in jeopardy if he was elected mayor.
“The town-owned St. Mary’s… they gave that land away last year,” he said. “So, you gave land away, and you purchased land up the street to build a community hub. If the intent was to build a community hub, why didn’t you just build it on our townland?”
When such initiatives as the community hub or the downtown revitalization project are eliminated, combined with finding efficiencies in town departments, the zero per cent tax increase he is promising could become easier to obtain.
“The first thing you got to do is you have to stop the spending,” he said. “When you stop that spending, then you’ll see what tax dollars we have left before we start raising taxes.”
Another way that the town could save its residents' money is through private-public partnerships (PPPs), suggested mayoral candidate Antonio Garcia. Best known as the owner of the now-closed Pollario BBQ, Garcia suggested working with private interest could spur the kind of development required to make an impact for current and future residents.
“Bradford has nothing to bring some of those investments into town and we can do lots of things,” he said. “We have to work with the private industry… that’s how we’re going to save our taxes.”
Garcia, too, suggested the most recent councils had brought little new to the community, going as far to say that “nothing has been built in Bradford for many, many years that someone can say ‘I am proud to be a Bradfordian.’”
He lamented a lack of opportunity in the town for culture and entertainment, suggesting there is nothing to do in the community. If elected, he’d want to make the town more attractive for people to live, work and play, as opposed to it feeling like a bedroom community.
“Nobody comes here. You know why? It was never built,” Garcia said, reacting to the lack of arts, culture and conference centres in the municipality. “Our council that has been in there for many years… they have not been able to grow Bradford the way it should be growing.”
Garcia also had concerns about the deficiency of firefighters employed by the town. That echoed a plank discussed by mayoral candidate Michael Lotter, who began his speech to the audience by sharing that the town’s complement of police officers is desperately lacking when compared to the national average. Getting more cops on our streets would be a priority for him if elected.
“Our police service has a shortage in both manpower and technology,” he said. “This is an unacceptable situation if we are to maintain safety for all Bradford West Gwillimbury residents.”
He elaborated further following the meeting.
“One Friday night, we had three officers out on patrol… for a population of 45,000, that’s terrible,” Lotter said. “If we look at how many trap houses we have in Bradford, how many drug issues we have, how long it takes to respond to something. If we are at either the provincial or national ratio of 189 (officers) to 100,000 (residents), we’d be in a better position to mitigate… the crime issues we see happening.”
To achieve this, and some of the growth-related goals imposed upon the municipality by upper tiers of government, Lotter suggests greater lobbying is required with the province – and the town shouldn’t be afraid to play hardball with Queen’s Park.
“The province is a tough nut to crack,” he admitted. “Our population is driven by the province and by the county. So, when you go to the province and say ‘you want us to grow by 25 per cent, we need your help to do that, or we can’t build any more houses.’”
On the deputy mayor side, candidates Raj Sandhu, current Ward 1 councillor, and Brent Fellman were also given the opportunity to speak to the voters in attendance.
Sandhu showcased his multi-decade ties to the community and highlighted his experience as a member of council in his pitch to voters. Like Leduc, he feels his track, plus his ideas to keep the town moving forward can return him to the council table.
“I’m even more focused that residents have their voices heard from local council and at the county level,” Sandhu said. “Our town needs someone who has governance experience, business management experience and existing forms of relationships with other levels of government to deliver what our residents really need.”
Sandhu said he’ll continue to fight for prudent fiscal management, affordable housing, job creation and increased government transparency if elected deputy mayor.
Fellman offered ideas from his initial platform, as well as new additions based on conversations he’s had with residents since the start of the campaign, including better traffic controls and improved public services, such as additional snow removal in curb lanes and boulevards, to improve sight lines and overall safety on town streets.
“My motto is: tell the truth, use common sense and follow the data,” he said. “I also very much believe that I need to listen to you.”
Fellman closed his remarks with a pledge to end the town’s policy of not hiring applicants who haven’t been vaccinated against COVID-19, saying that those vaccinated can still bring the virus into the workplace while seemingly ignoring several scientific studies that show the severity of a COVID-19 infection is significantly decreased, including instances of hospitalization and death, in those who are vaccinated, on average.
Online voting runs in Bradford West Gwillimbury from Oct. 14 to Oct. 24.
