Dear Candidates for Mayor, Deputy Mayor and Owen Sound City Council:

Before I vote, here’s what I believe and what I want you to know.

I love Owen Sound and I can see the best of the past in the city’s rich history and pride of place. Its why my extended family of 9 all moved here in the last 5 years.

We are newcomers – the start of a flood of new people the city hopes will soon arrive to grow the population, grow the economy and share the love with long-time Owen Sounders.

However, since I first came here in 2017, the city has changed dramatically.

In Denial:

The 2021 Owen Sound Citizen Satisfaction Survey heard worrisome responses from many – our city has become less safe, less equitable, less sustainable, and it’s losing its sense of belonging. The city is in trouble, and leadership is not paying attention the way we as citizens are.

As someone who works in cancer advocacy, and writes about health for a living, I know just how fast a person’s health can change when they ignore a lump or a symptom and stubbornly refuse to get help. Too often, when they finally see a doctor, the cancer is out control. People naturally avoid things they don’t want to be real.

I don’t want our city to continue down the path of avoiding real problems.

Into the Future – “a change in thinking as much as a change in politics”

The pandemic and the climate crisis have been a wake-up call. We must build back an Owen Sound that is affordable, fair, welcoming and sustainable. As Gil Penalosa – founder of 880 Cities and candidate for mayor of Toronto puts it in his campaign message – “Many of the changes needed require a change in thinking as much as a change in politics.”

We need to stop waiting for the county or the province or some other level of government to fix our homelessness problem. People are sleeping outside on our downtown sidewalks, back alleys and encampments every night of the year. Like it or not, they are our responsibility to help to get an address, to get the social services they need, to get a better chance at life. Because, waiting and hoping for someone else to fix things hasn’t worked.

We need planning for our future economic wellbeing to be based on reality – our major employers and economic drivers include Grey Bruce Health Services, tourism, retail, agriculture, the creative class of artists and makers, a rich and resourceful critical mass of older adults. We can’t live in the past, hoping for manufacturing jobs to return – and as anyone who’s sat in the traffic backlogs that stretch to the top of the 10th Street West hill knows, we don’t have the capabilities to create infrastructure that would compete with every city along the 401 between Kingston and Windsor.

We must invest in affordable housing, co-ops and neighbourhoods, like Glassworks Cooperative Housing. Glassworks’ mission is to design and build a community of 350 homes, workspaces, manufacturing, agriculture and recreation, on 46 acres of land owned by co-op members in the Eastern Bluffs. Glassworks property must be rezoned from employment land to residential for homes to be built. Glassworks is not asking the city for favours or funding – Glassworks is asking the city for a change in thinking - to focus on removing the barriers for everyday people to build a new, complete community and attainable housing for the local workforce families.

lmagine Owen Sound in 2050 with a landmark eco-village, a thriving tourism mecca in our downtown core, with a young entrepreneur running a cool bike-lock-up/café/art-gallery and public washrooms; a centre of excellence in rural health and wellbeing based at GBHS, a farm cooperative that could supply an extended regional network of healthcare institutions, long term care and all-ages communities. A Georgian College bridge program to help RPN’s upgrade skills to qualify as RNs. Or a fast-track program for helping foreign-trained health professionals gain much-needed skills. A Grey Bruce campus for medical training like the Sudbury and Thunder Bay programs of McMaster’s Northern Ontario School of Medicine or the satellite site med school at the Kitchener Waterloo campus.

The future we all want for Owen Sound is to grow and to make it the healthiest, safest, most equitable, and sustainable city in Canada, with an affordable high quality of life for everyone.

To rebuild our city, we need a bold vision that comes from the people who live here, and we need city leaders who can blaze a trail for the future, leaders who have the courage to fight for the city and all its residents. 

I know the people of Owen Sound have the passion and motivation necessary to work for a better future we can all believe in.

So should our new mayor and council.

Pat Kelly, Owen Sound