May 4, 2024 • 49 mins
Join us on Beyond the Ballot this weekend as we sit down with the front-runner in Mississauga’s mayoral race, Carolyn Parrish. We discussed her platform and vision for the city and got to know Carolyn a little bit better.
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Episode Transcript
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The views expressed in the following programare those of the participants and do not
necessarily reflect the views of SAGA ninesixty AM or its management from the treaty
and traditional territory of the Mississaugas ofthe Credit First Nation. You're listening to
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Beyond the Ballot with Brian Gurcharn andNokah duck Ru and welcome back this week
to another episode Beyond the Ballot wherewe keep you informed, updated to give
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you everything you need to know soyou can choose Mississauga's future on June tenth.
That's right, you get to chooseour next mayor, Noka. Are
you ready to choose her next?Mirror? Brian, I'm I'm ready,
I'm almos ready, almost ready.I feel still have time. I still
feel like I want to see lawnsigns before. It doesn't feel like an
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election yet to me. Yeah,it's not an election until you see lawn
signs. You know, there's alot of talk always in the media about
banning lawn signs and banning law signs. As you do that, nobody would
even know what's going on. Nobodywould know. You know, what we
should do if we ban lawn signs, and then make it mandatory to vote
or you pay a fine. Let'ssee that happen. Then everybody will get
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fine because nobody would know there's anelection going on. But do you know
much revenue that would create for thiscity for a new like a food program
for youth or shelter. We canbuild a few shelters with that. That's
going to be very unpopular, andI'll tell you that much. This is
why I'm not running from mayor.But we there is somebody else who's running
from mayor who has way better ideasthan I have. In fact, all
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of the candidates do. That's whyI'm not running that. And it costs
two hundred dollars to I can't evenfordtwo hundred dollars to register. So Carolyn
Parrish, actually you know her.She she is a friend of yours.
I think everybody knows Carolyn. Shewas a counselor's my counselor for Ward five
before she left. I still callher counselor Parish. I've been calling that
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for years, so it's still Butshe's not a counselor anymore. So I
got to remember that Fred Resident show. I'll probably uh screw that. You
probably won't. No, MARYL cannedycounselor Parish, And I'm really MARYL candidate
Carolyn Parish. You said MARYL candidatecounselor Parish. See, I did it
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again. She will be here totalk about why we should vote for her.
Maybe she'll convince you. We havea lot of questions. I think,
Okay, you have some great questions. I think planned, I've got
you, I've got I've got ourresidence covered, lots of questions. Yeah,
talk about her whole plan. Yeah, and then hopefully by the end
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of it you could come to theconclusion if you want to vote for her
or not. This is our firstcandidate, and we're planning to bring all
of the candidates. Who are you'veseen in the polls. I mean,
we have a lot of candidates.Of course, we would love to include
them all, but uh, youknow, we're we're we're looking forward to
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future episodes with more candidates as well. That's right. And also we're looking
we're going to do a town hallin the near future, so look for
that. Is there anything you wantto say about the election so far?
What are your thoughts? You've seeneverything? The election has been great.
I mean lots of things have beenhappening this this past week. We had
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Peter McCallion drop out. He endorsedCarol and Parish right, so that was
that was a big piece of bignews. We also have very interesting because
I correct me if I'm wrong,but when Hazel mccallian, they routween this
whole inquiry into you know, thewhole scandal about her. It was her
and her son. And I wasn'tCarolyn Parish to one spearheading that like she
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was really forceful. I think fromthe media coverage, the one who's you
know, there's something here we needto this is not acceptable. And how
many a couple of years later,I guess he's endorsing her, but I
think, you know, I thinklater on they they did have a better
relationship. Well I'm not sure.I'm sure they did because he endorsed her.
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Yeah, for sure dropped out.Yeah. And another interesting one that
that I saw Brian Crombie joined therace. That is true. He has
dropped in what started off as anApril Fool's joke, I don't want to
say continued as April fool's joke.How I started off as April Fool's joke
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turned into something real for him.Yeah, so he's he's going to be
on the ballot. Lots of interestingthings going on in Mississauga, Lots of
interesting things. We've really heard alot about the top issues from a lot
of a lot of people who havejoined us. We talked about housing,
affordability, talked about affordability in general, the cost of living. We've talked
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about a lot of issues. Andnow we get to hear from the candidates
themselves. How are they going toaddress these issues? And we will take
a quick break. Let's do thatand bring Carolyn on and see how she
answers some of these questions. Allright, So stay tuned right here and
Beyond the Ballot with Ryan Gurcharn andNoka Dak grub on u Stock Saga nine
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sixty am, stream us live atSAGA nine sixty am dot CA. You're
listening to Beyond the Ballot with RyanGerdcha and Noka Duck rub And welcome back
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to Beyond the Ballad with your hostRyan Gertarna. It's me and Noka Duck
grub Hi. Okay, Hello,hello, hey, and we have our
first candidate running for mayor of thisgreat city in Mississauga, and I'm gonna
let nokid do the honors. Sure, thank you for that. Ryan.
We have our first candidate who isrunning for mayor of the City of Mississauga.
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Our guest today needs no introduction.I'm pretty sure everybody in Mississauga knows
this name. She's a former memberof parliament, a former school board trustee,
and a city councilor for about sixteenyears if I'm correct, fighted the
math correctly, and it's Carolyn Parrish. Welcome Carolyn, Thank you for joining
us, Thank you for having me. So, Carolyn, let's get started
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with issues. Tell us a littlebit about what you think are the biggest
issues that Mississauga's facing. Right Well, Mississauga lost forty thousand people from the
last census now, so what it'stelling me is we're too expensives. Our
rents are too high, buying purchasingcondos is too expensive, and single family
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houses are impossible. We have avery slow process in planning, and I
want to have a really hard lookat that. I've tried over the years,
but I think in the position ofMary can have a better look at
it. Kind of people are morelikely to show you the crinolines under their
skirts when you're more in charge.So we've got to get some housing going.
And I supported four plexus. Isupport all the gentle intro but that's
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not going to do it. Forexample, and word five, which is
my word, was my word beforeI resigned. We have one hundred and
sixty three acres right along the alarts between Matheson and Dairy. It's all
zoned office and it's been sitting emptyfor fifteen or twenty years. One of
the things I did was pull theownerships and the price is paid, and
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found out that they got the landvery cheaply. So what I've planned to
do is call each individual in andsay, okay, I know what you
paid for the land. Now,if you can put that into your package
and build a nice apartment, rentalor purchase for a reasonable price and a
reasonable profit, I will rezone yourproperty to mix use. Mixed use allows
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an eight to ten story building residential. Then you can put stores around the
base and some shops, and youcan slowly build up that whole area that
the LRT is going through. Thesecond thing is I've had plans brought to
me by Heartland, and they haveplans for taking down a whole pile of
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stores in the South End right alongMouth and putting in a greenway and some
high rise buildings, mid rise buildings, leaving some offices, leaving some stores
that passed when I was chairman ofplanning at the region, but it didn't
pass at the city. Now strongmayor powers give you the magic wand or
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the magic ten that you get threeother votes and you can start doing things
like this, And that's what Iplan to do. Because if you can
get shelter at what they say shouldbe thirty percent of your budget, then
you're not using a food bank,and you're clothing the children properly, and
you're just generally having a better life. So when you look at cost of
living, it's fundamentally because of housing. Yeah, absolutely, And I you
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know, I've followed your career fora long time and you have a pretty
pretty good record on housing, evenbefore before anybody else started talking about it
really, which has really been justquite recently. Just follow up on,
you know, for example, thatthat development that came to you from in
Partland, what be some reasons whythat would not pass at the city level.
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To be honest with you, Idon't know. They want to do
multiple studies, they want to putit through the ringer at the planning department.
One of the things I plan todo is take the really reputable builds,
not to fly by nighters, butthe good ones and do a Mayor's
Advisory Council and meet once a month, and the ones that are having plans
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going through that are taken forever,we'll say, Okay, where are you
at this month? Have you hadany improvements of things moving? But they
can also tell me all the problemsthey've had in our planning department and then
we can start making changes. SoI think the Heartland thing is going to
be a go. I'm going tomake sure it is, and we're going
to try to do it as quicklyas possible. There's also some smart centers
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in Meadowvale that want to do it. They had one public meeting on it
already and a lot of people showedup and said, well, we want
our stores and we want our parkinglot, all this and you just have
to educate them. Part of thejob I've always felt in elected office,
and you probably went through this yourself. It's part of its educating people.
Part of it's listening to them andfinding out what they want, and sometimes
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educating takes precedence over belly aching overI'm losing my stores, and you have
to talk about the number of unitsthat you're going to be housing and affordable
housing. Because again, when Heartlinecame to me, I said, so
I can be assured, Phil Kingthat these are going to be affordable units
because you bought that land thirty fiveyears ago. And he sort of put
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his head down. He said,well, I guess here in public,
I have to admit that and I'llhave to stick to it. So he's
one of their principal guys on this. So it's going to take persuasion,
it's going to take adaptation. It'sgoing to take educating the public and making
sure they don't be moaned that they'relosing a couple of stores. Everybody uses
Amazon now anyway. I've got packageson my front porch and I haven't a
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clue how to order them, butthey get here, and I think everybody's
doing that. Yeah, that's that'sfair true. And I think as our
society changes and our needs are changing, you know, the landscape of what
our city is going to look like, you know and and the things are
going to things are going to becertainly different. You talk a lot about
housing in your plan for the city. You talk about streamlining city processes,
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which is which you mentioned. Youtalk about lowering development fees. How would
that help well? One of thethings I've noticed on a couple of munis
colleges. I think Hamilton does it. When you're in an area that's already
built. You've got the library,toout community centers, you've got the pipes.
You could probably do two types ofdcs of virgin territory where you're having
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to put this stuff in, orareas where you have to increase the size
of the pipes and they should bepaid full pot areas where all of that's
in place and it's working well andyou don't have to do that. There's
no reason why you can't do afifty percent. That's great, That's that's
quite interesting. You also talk aboutmeeting housing targets, and we understand that
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there's some money that comes with that. Where's Mississauga at right now? Abysmally
poor quarter of twenty twenty three,I was told we built eight we gave
building permits for eight single family houses, that's in the last twenty three so
we are way off our targets.And if we don't get the provincial money.
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We got to because we agreed onfour plexes, so it was a
very token gesture, but it wasone hundred and twelve million dollars and I'll
take it. Yeah. Absolutely,What you think is the biggest challenge?
Do you really think, you know, having a strong pro housing mayor with
you know, strong mayor powers isgoing to be the the the key to
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this. I'm very hesitant to tosay I want to use strongwrare empowers.
I'm very pleased that we've got atleast of the new counselors, we've got
three very progressive ones. They allare so if we have to do strongwar
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powers, I would be mostly luctantto use it. But if I have
cool I will. Okay, let'stalk a little bit about the cost of
living. You mentioned a little bitthat you know, a big part of
why things are so expensive is housing, and we all agree with that.
What are some things you plan todo to help residents with cost of living.
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I had a lot of meetings withseniors groups. It's very educational.
I brought in the one dollar busfairs a couple of years ago. It
was a three three effort struggle.We had to take it to council three
times before it finally past. Iwould like to make it zero because other
municipalities are doing that, and it'sso important for the mental health of seniors
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sixty five year olds. Rather thansit at home all day, if you
have a past, go on thebus, you go to over to the
community center. And I noticed whenI'm sitting in I had I was early
for a meeting, which is veryunusual for me. So I was sitting
in the parking lot of community centerwatching during the day and most of the
people coming out with little bags thathave their rummy shoes and everything, and
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the more seniors. So we haveto keep the building open, we have
to light it, we have toheat it. I don't see why they
can't have free access to exercise.So if we issued a sixty five year
old pass card, you get onthe bus for free, You get to
use the facilities in our community centersfor free, because you actually paid for
them over the last sixty five yearsin your taxes. So I think that's
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going to make a big difference.It also helps with the socialization of seniors.
When you go to some of theseseniors clubs, they do all kinds
of interesting things together. The tutorchatter, they can't wait till the next
club meeting, and you see themthat are frequent flyers. They go to
the club on Monday, then theygo to another one in a completely different
area on Thursday, and they justlike the companionship. So I think if
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we can make life a little betterfor the seniors, that's helpful. As
far as the other STEP's concerned,I think we need a real review from
top to bottom on what we're chargingon all these feests, particularly people with
small kids, that it's good forthem to get out and do this.
The other thing is I built ayouth hub up in Malton. It was
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a conversion of an indoor swimming pool. It was about eleven point seven million
dollars and one point seven million ofit eyehetch a raise. I got six
million from the region five through thecity. There are three other areas in
Mississauga that need youth hubs. Thishub has fifteen hundred card carring members.
They don't pay anything. They've hadover fifty thousand visits since it opened.
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In October. They've got a recordingstudio, they've got a dance studio,
they've got a games room upstairs.They've got counseling, they've shared in college,
helping kids with homework. They've gotall kinds of things going on there
on both levels. And we alsohave a teaching kitchen. We're teaching kids
how to cook using basic ingredients.And we have over two hundred kids a
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day come to the hub with nobreakfast, no lunch, So we're feeding
two hundred kids a day, andthey're bringing their friends along who can afford
to bring lunch, and they're alleating together. I have five hundred kids
in there every day. So theseare the sorts of things you do to
make life enjoyable for people who don'thave a lot of money. And the
police had told me that all thepetty crime and shoplifting and all that nonsense
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seems to have diminished greatly in Malton. So I'm hoping if we have three
other areas to do this in,and I'm also hoping that we'll get a
good sponsor for one. One ofthe sponsors that I raised part of that
money with came to the opening andhe said, what this caused you,
and I told him. He says, well, if I was to give
you all that money, would youname it? After my family said,
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of course I will, So youdon't. It doesn't mean you're spending taxpayer
dollars. That means you have tobe innovative. And I'm really good at
partnerships, very good at collecting money. And we've seen that with a lot
of what you've done in the milkfund raising money for It's not the Avro
airplane. It is a construction rightnow. We raised three millions for that,
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right and it's not city money.So you do have a history of
that, but you did. Ijust want to take it back a little.
You did mention too. Demographics areof the most vulnerable population in Mississauga.
We've got seniors. You're looking atmaking a transit free for them,
and you've got youth. You're lookingat creating hubs and programs for them to
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do, helping them cook, yougive them life skills. I'm wondering,
when your door knocking, you're probablynot hearing from other vulnerable folks in the
community, and they probably honestly don'thave time to go and vote. They're
probably busy trend to make ends meetor during a shelter or some wondering anything
in your platform that you're going tobe you're thinking about them, or how
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we can address poverty in Mississauga.Well, we have a lot of excellent
agencies. One of the good thingswe did was that we had mister Ford
stop the split up of the region. That's where all our social services are.
Maybe a really good job and ifwe tried to reproduce those in three
municipalities, taxes would have gone throughthe roof. So we have good social
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service agencies. We have to keepworking on lobbying the province, particularly because
we don't get our fair share ofsocial service money. It's always been flagging
behind. Most of the outer areas, the nine to five areas are underfunded.
So this will be probably the firsttime I shouldn't say this out about
the first time we'll have three mayorsthat actually get along. In fifty years
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at the region, they've always beenbattle lines drawn and these two groups against
this group has always been kind ofpushing us around. But mississ August got
twelve votes and the other guys hadtwelve votes. So I think if we
all work together and doing some reallygood lobbying at the province. We could
at least get our social service moneyafter the level it should be. The
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other thing. I brought in freedental care for seniors way back many years
ago, and now the province hastaken it up and the FEDS just introduced
it in their budget. So sometimesgood ideas come out of the lower levels
of government and they're picked up bythe other levels. Never could figure out
why your eyes and your teeth werenot part of your body, so we
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did that. I think our programwas better because people could go to their
own dentists and the dentists would sendthe build into the region. Now you
have to go to a specific clinicand so forth. But we had a
good program for quite a few years. So those are the things you have
to look at that you can touchand you can try to make changes.
But revamping the world from talk tobottom isn't on my agenda yet, but
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it might happen for sure. Andyou've you've been in politics and public life
for so long, so I'm sureyour contributions have revamped quite a bit of
it. Just follow up on theon poverty as well as housing. What
do you think you know we're notdoing so well on UH. I think
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it's called deeply affordable housing. Now, what do you think are some things
that a mayor can do or whatwhat are things that you know you might
be interested in doing to help providemore of that. I think we were
I was talking to some developers theother day and they're talking about prefab houses.
They're talking about prefab three story apartments, They're talking about prefab up to
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eight stories, and I think thatcan save a lot of money. But
the land is usually the problem,and the market for the land is going
up. It doesn't matter how longyou've owned it. What we have to
do is stop at any of theseguys that do the flip. They go
in and they get its zones,they flip it, and then somebody else
to go cast to commit and doall the applications and get the building permits.
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So deeply affordable means subsidies from theFeds, it means subsidies from the
province. Because builders are not altruistic. They're in there to make money,
and the interest rates are so badright now that they're not even doing that
very well. And then you've alsogot the problem of a lack of carpenters,
brick layers, all those people.I know a lot of laborers that
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came here and they built our city, and they built many houses. And
then the first thing they did wastell their kids, you're going to university.
You're not going to do the hardwork I've done all my life.
And unfortunately we don't have a lotof skills tradesmen anymore. I can remember
with what mister Kretchain used to dofor immigration. He would ask each profits
to send us a list of thejobs they need. It was always whol
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and die makers, all those kindof jobs. One province which will remain
unnamed, had strippers on their list, and we had quite a proof on
the newspapers when that twist king in. But I guess they earn a living.
But I think i'd like to seethe federal government go back to that
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and start giving people extra points forhaving occupations that we need, rather than
just buy your way in. Soit's a hard question, it's a very
complex question, and I don't havea magic solution to it. But I
think it turns out it has tobe lobbying senior levels of government. I
know at one point, poor misterTrudeau said housing isn't a federal issue.
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It certainly was when I was there, because we had CMHC loans, we
had a low interest rates, wehad inducements for young people to buy their
first home. We have none ofthat right now, and it didn't It
didn't go very well for him whenhe said that's that's great. I also
I also read that, you know, there's obviously there's a lot of concern
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about some federal taxes. We hearabout that in your plan for the city.
You talk a little bit about challengingfederal taxes. Tell us a little
bit about what that looks like.I am not absolutely sure what your question
is. I read in your platformunder cost of Living that you'd be challenging
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federal taxes. Oh. I thinkwhat I said was I would be treating
our taxes here very very carefully.There is one candidate that's going to do
zero tax increases for the next twoyears, and I think it's impossible.
Brampton did it for a couple ofyears, and they have parts of the
city that are falling apart. Iwas in it today. Not to be
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insulting, I'm not, but it'svery impractical when you have unions that you
have to give mild increases to everyyear. You've got baking roots and community
centers. You've got fire trucks thathave to be place. You just have
to budget really carefully. And whatI would love to do instead of doing
this, we've got the budget,call some public meetings, find out what
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people think of the budget in apast that anyway, I would rather every
three or four months, have thecounselors take all the new projects, all
the financial strains, and call publicmeetings then and build the budget over a
year so that there are priorities satby the constituents. And then we'll try
to keep our budgets within the costof living. But I have not promised
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zero budget, never would. Okaywith that, We're going to take a
short break and when we come backsome more of counselor parish or should I
say candidate marrow candidate not a longercounselor Right here on New Stoksaga nine sixty
am, No Radio, No Problemstream is live on Sagay nine am dot
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col. You're listening to Beyond theBallot with Ryan Gurcharn and Noka Duck rub
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And welcome back if you're just joiningus here on new stock Staga nine sixty
am. I am here Ryan Gertarnwith Noka Duck Grub and we have Meryl
candidate former counselor Carolyn Parris. Ikeep calling you Cancelor Parish for the pass
how many years? So it's justcan So we are talking about your platform.
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We're talking about how you are yourvision for Mississauga for the next at
least two years. And uh,just before we go, we were talking
about taxation, in property taxes orfreezing taxes A little bit more on that
just before I throw to Noka forthe next question. Knocking on the doors
and sure you hear it all thetime. Property taxes are way too high
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for a lot of folks, andyou alluded to somebody saying that it's not
possible to freeze it for the nexthow many years? What is your plan
on talk addressing that keeping things affordableproperty tax wise? Well, as I
mentioned or started to mention, I'mgoing to treat the budget like I treat
my own budget. I do havegrandchildren that rip me off everyone so while
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for cash, but generally speaking,I'm very careful how I spend my money,
and I think we have to bemore careful spending tax payer dollars,
particularly when we're going through such adifficult period. The tax increase we had
lost for twenty twenty four was abouttwo point three percent in the city,
but it was through the roof ofthe region, so it ended up the
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combination was very high, and wehave to try to make sure that doesn't
happen again. Part of the factorthere was all the refugees when they finally
get caught up that says, Imay give us the money that they've promised
us for housing and feeding refugees,and we are a big area for that
because we have the airport right here. I think that'll help. But I
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also think the police budget was veryhigh. But it's funny because you talk
to people at the door and theysay, well, the police budget's crazy,
you've got to freeze it. Andthen the next house will say,
well, somebody just stole a caron our street and the police didn't get
here for fifteen minutes. So Imean, you've got to try to balance
that sometimes. I know when Hazelwas the mayor, she didn't sit on
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the Police Services Board. I intendto, and the Police Services board you
can't adjust. It comes to you. If you don't like it, you
can send it back and they lookat it for a minute, may bend
it right back to you. Youhave to go down to Queen's Park to
get it changed. You saw Oliviachowbo through that this year. So I'm
going to try to persuade the PoliceServices Board to be doing quarterly updates too.
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I think when you get the wholething in one big chunky's just too
much. People you have some ofthe councilors pick up little areas in very
rarely do you ever change it.You've got to change it in process.
You've got to change it as you'regoing along. So I'm going to work
very hard to make sure the attitudeof all of counsel and we've got some
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good counselors that think this way alreadyis we're going to spend it like it's
our own money. And just talkingyou mentioned auto theft. We do have,
you know, pretty significant crime inour city right now, especially auto
theft, and it's been something thatresidents are concerned about and have been for
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a few years. What are somethings you will do to address crime in
the city. Well, as theysaid to you, I'm going to sit
on the Police Services Board. I'mgoing to evaluate very carefully when they say
that our ratio of citizens to policeofficers is not sufficient, and we'll look
at that, and if we haveto put more money into police services,
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we'll be taking it out of somethingelse. We'll be doing a little bit
of a balancing act. Patrick Brownhas done quite a study on auto theft,
and we only inspect four percent ofwhile the cargo going out of the
two ports in this country, Montrealand Vancouver in the United States, which
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is ten times our size, theyhave a quarter of our car thefts because
every single shipping location has any equipment. So I mean, if you've got
a load of cars going out ofthe country, your chances are maybe one
in fifty if somebody's going to inspectit. If it goes through a scanner,
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it's one hundred percent. Then youknow to open it, check the
papers, make sure it's because thecar theft is actually organized crime. It's
not the teenagers that steal the carsare getting to five hundred dollars a car,
and then they're shipping them into Nigeria. They're shipping them into them the
least they're shipping them into various countriesin Europe. So if you don't have
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a ready market, then the needto steal goes away or diminishes greatly.
So that would be one thing thatwe have to do. The other thing,
and that's lobbying again the FEDS andsaying invest in scanners. We've only
got two forts and c N shouldbe investing in scanners in their shipping areas
as well. And once you canstop that easy market, then you also
(31:25):
can produce the crime. He wasjust talking to a gentleman today who came
out about Tim Hortons with coffee andhe was pledged to the ground, grabbed
his piece, stole his BMW andhe said he had to call nine one
one to the lady had asked hima whole series of questions before he could
go through to the police. SoI would like to have a room,
(31:45):
And they didn't get there for twentyminutes or ten minutes. So we need
to have a better look at puttingmore people in nine one one and training
them so that they can sense quicklyput that call right through. I find
your bureaucracy sometimes as part of theproblem. On general crime, we're not
(32:06):
bad. I mean the car petsand The breaking into houses to get your
piece gets a lot of publicity,so people think we're inundated with crime.
In fact, on a Canadian widelevel, we're in pretty good shape.
Let's talk a little bit about transit. You talk about improving public transit,
tell us a little bit about whatthat looks like. Well, I'm still
(32:30):
fascinated by the fact that somebody decided. There's lots of somebody who's decided a
north south group was a really goodidea for the LRT without an east west
crisscross, I don't see how goodit is. One of the things I'm
looking at and I think it wouldwork, is with all that housing going
into Lakeview, if you take theLRT down into Court Credit instead of ending
(32:52):
it there, turn it east andgo right into the subway station, then
you've got some transportation that works.Or you can run it across Saig Lincoln,
which is a fairly wide street.We're going to have to have an
east west connection, no question.We're also going to have to keep pounding
the Feds to put their money intothem. All they go to Milton.
(33:12):
The province finally stepped up. Nowwe got to go back to the Feds.
But again, I think you getmore luck with these people that are
in the higher levels of government.If you go with two other mayors for
Peel, you ask reasonable questions.You don't you don't anger them, you
don't upset them, you don't demandbut you just come in there cap in
(33:34):
hand like the good little kids thatwe are, and say we need more
money for sure. And in termsof transportation within the city, so you
know the Mississoc transit, what aresome things that we could do to improve
that. Well, we're gonna haveto hire more drivers, We're going to
have to increase the buses in allthe types of transit during rush hours,
(34:00):
lots of buses. I've had complaintswhere they'll go buy two buses, they'll
go buy with the doors closed becausethis bus is jammed and people can't get
on. I actually talked to somebus drivers yesterday and they are very upset
about split shifts. There's got tobe a way to reorganize that because it's
two big chunks of time out ofyour day and not much you can do
(34:22):
in between, and some of theshifts are very late into the night.
They also asked for shields. Theyhave them in Toronto. They have them
in Brampton, and they apparently aregetting more violent passengers giving them a pop
in the head when they're driving.So I think we have to look at
all that to keep our bus drivershappier, but also then you keep your
(34:42):
customers happier. And we have toincrease the fleet. We're doing it now
and it's all the all electric buses, but I think we have to concentrate
on meeting the needs of the cityin the times that they need the busing.
And you talk a little bit aboutcreating community and hubs, and you
mentioned that you've done that in Malton. Do you see that that's something that
(35:06):
you know you could increase throughout thecity or what would that look like.
Well, it'll looks like the threefor sure, they really need them.
But I would also like to challengesome of the developers around city Center to
do a complete revamp of the LivingArts Center. It is such a drab,
old place that needs a big revamp. Build for interesting restaurants, interesting
(35:31):
clubs, and try to build acity center that's actually vibrant. If you
walk around there, there's lots ofpeople walking around, but there's not a
lot to do, and it's gettingbetter, but it needs to get much
better. And I actually had onedeveloper for the last couple of years said,
if you give me that piece ofland that's on the corner right beside
(35:52):
City Hall and the Elert and theLiving Arts Center and Square one, there's
a big triangular piece of landers.If you lease that to me for one
hundred years, I'll rebuild the LivingArts Center. So that's the deal I'm
ready to sign tomorrow. Let's talka little bit about Carolyn. So tell
us a little bit, you know, tell us things that people may not
(36:15):
necessarily know about you. People haveknown you for so long, but what
are some things you know you'd liketo share that maybe they don't know about
you. I tend to overshare.People know me quite well. I love
dogs. I had up until acouple of weeks ago, to British bulldogs,
and then one got a very rapidleukemia into fifteen days and he was
(36:39):
we had to have him put downand it was heartbreaking. But we've gone
through pairs and pairs and pairs ofdogs. We do that. My husband
and I. I have two greatkids, two great son in laws,
five great grandchildren. I'm a verylucky lady. I've always paid a huge
amount of attention to family. Politicshasn't consumed my whole life. I've always
(37:00):
paid attention to my family. Ididn't actually get into Ottawa politics until my
kids were in high school and thecleaning guy would come around, because this
was before I knew what to doat the computer, which I still don't
know very much, and my kidswith backs up their essays and I'd be
sitting there putting comments on I usedto be an English teacher, and the
(37:21):
cleaner would too, and he says, Madam Parrish, you're doing essays again
for your kids, And I don'tknow. I'm just a strong family person,
not much of an athlete anymore.I don't do golf, I don't
do any of those things. Itreat my job as though it's also my
hobby, is also my passion,and I really hope I win because I
(37:44):
did resign my seat, so there'sno fallback position. I believe everybody should
do that. I think if you'regoing to go for a job like this,
I'm working solidly all day long andinto the evening. I don't know
how you could also be a counselor, but I guess they're doing it.
No, I work hard, Ireally work hard, but I love it.
(38:04):
It doesn't feel like work. Icould attest being in word five resident.
We've seen that dedication for the pastfew years now. I'm not endorsing
anybody online officially, I'm just sayingI've seen it like myself. You've mentioned
the youth Hub. There's a lotof a new park that you've built by
the Paul Coffee and that's been renamedas well, honoring some of Malton's talent.
(38:28):
I just want to shift gear somepolicy right now, go a little
inside baseball and be like you've ranmany campaigns, You've knocked on many many
doors. How does this campaign differfrom the past. I would say there's
not a lot of awareness, despitethe fact we're trying our hardest, all
of us, to let people knowthat there is a by election going on.
(38:50):
We did a bunch of drops todayand got tons of calls for signs,
so people are starting to wake upa little bit. I think on
the twelfth, when you can putup signs, I think you're going to
see a difference. But it's notapathy so much as people have crazy,
busy lives and nobody really follows politicsthat closely. So the things with a
(39:12):
by election is people just don't paya lot of attention. But this is
the first time in a long timethat it's actually been a contest, so
I think it'll pick up. Andpeople don't vote sadly enough for people.
They vote against people they don't like. So we've got three or four good
candidates, so I think that's goingto probably cut the voting down a bit.
But we'll see. Some other citieshave done rank ballots and other ways
(39:37):
of, you know, choosing whatthe majority of folks want. Do you
have any thoughts on how we electour mayor do you have any plans or
into far future maybe? Or isthat on your horizon at all? Policy
Procedures Committee And twice rank ballots cameup and twice I voted for them,
but they got killed once you gotto council. And it's my theory is,
(40:00):
however you got there, you thinkthat's the best system, So while
to rock the vote and bring inranked ballots, because if you had ranked
ballots, you would get very fewpeople winning with thirty percent of the vote.
They would have to have a solidfifty at some point of all of
thot's tasks, so I've voted forthat. I've also voted for absentee ballots,
(40:21):
which we've got. I've voted formail in ballots, which we don't
have. I think what we haveto do is try to attract people to
vote as many as we can getto vote, and if they have a
difficulty voting, we should be ableto solve that problem. But I particularly
like ranked ballots. I think thatthat what happens is it makes for a
(40:43):
nicer campaign. You don't get thenasty stuff. You have to be nice
to everybody because you want their supportersas well as your own. I've never
thought a dirty fight in my life. I've always been very straightforward or worry
about my campaign, don't take shotsat the other guys. But some people
aren't. And like you said,lawn signs are really the only way that
(41:04):
people really clue in there is anelection coming. So when those go up,
I think the winds may change alittle and folks will be paying attention
more. I remember as soon asthe election started nomination where there was a
mailer. Your mailer was right there, like right away, the first one
I got, and I remember seeingthem like, oh, Okay, somebody's
(41:27):
on their game. In the pastelections, you mentioned mailing is not an
option. I've had issues with thattoo, getting people to vote. And
I also saw that pulling locations makingthem more accessible. There was a point
in time, I think in thetwenty twenty two election the pulling locations were
(41:50):
actually decreased in ward five and thenI think somebody had a chat with somebody
and then some more new locations cameup. But I've also seen that happen
for the rest of the city.Is that something you may be looking at
a more accessible pulling locations Always,you always want to make it as easy
as possible for people to vote.One of the things that we put in
(42:12):
here the last two elections is youcan vote in any polling station. You
can vote close to where you live, you can vote close to where you
work. You Wi buya a pollinglocation, they don't look busy. You
can go in and vote as longas you're on the voter's list. It's
all computerized, so that's helpful.People don't have to rush home to do
that, and they don't have toleave work, and they don't have to
(42:32):
get lunch. So that's been helpful. We also put a lot of pulling
stations and seniors buildings, and youdon't get a big voter turnout, but
the ones that want to vote reallywant to vote, so's it's not a
burden on anybody to have somebody watchingthe ballot box all day at air So
(42:52):
when I was in Ottawa, wedid some studies on why the voter turnouts
keep going down, and I thinkfundament actually, people are so busy trying
to feed their families, trying tokeep a job, trying to make ends
meet, that voting becomes less important. It's just another aggravation in the day.
(43:13):
But the ones th thirteen are mostlyseniors or over fifty five. We've
done studies on that and their propertyowners rather than people who live in rental
buildings unfortunately. But you've got tomake an effort to get them out,
and I think the biggest effort wouldbe, especially the high rise buildings,
put a police station in every singlelobby. But I don't know what the
(43:34):
heck that would cost. I'm toldthis election is costing three point five million
dollars and one of the reasons thesecond reason I resigned my seat when I
registered was now the word five byelection can take place at the same time,
and it staves the city half amillion dollars. So I made up
my mind that this was it.I was going to put my whole heart
(43:57):
and soul into it. And Ialso realized that we need a Ward five
councilor right away. We don't wantto wait another three months for all the
mechanics of another biolect and we alsoare saving half a million dollars. Very
good. I just wanted to getone last minute. We got one more
minute. Give us your elevator pitch. Why should we vote for you?
Elevator pitch? I work harder thananybody I know. That's not tooting my
(44:22):
horn. That's probably a bit obsessive. I have all the experience in the
world at three levels of four levelsof government, because I'm a regional counselor
as well. Where I was unsensible, I understand people. I'm very outgoing,
but that's not important. What's importantin this day and age in our
(44:43):
city is experience and an ability towork with other levels of government, which
I can do. Carolyn, thankyou so very much for joining us today.
We really really appreciated our time together, and thank you very much for
you know, this engaging discussion andwe wish you the best with the upcoming
election. And I must compliment tothe questions were all very good. Thank
(45:06):
you, thank you, thanks somuch. And with that we're going to
take sorry, we're going to takea quick break, and when we come
back, we'll have more of thenews talk SAGA nine sixty am. Ray
Hair stream us live at SAGA ninesixty am dot C. You're listening to
(45:30):
Beyond the Ballot with Ryan, GerdCharn and Noka Duck Rube and welcome back
to Beyond the Ballot. If you'rejust joining us, I'm so sad because
(45:53):
you just missed the entire thing,but you could hear it again soon on
Sunday. Yeah, Or if you'relistening to on Sunday and you missed it,
you could also hear it on thepodcast because you could just download us
and listen to our very smooth voices. You would have been What you would
hear is our entire interview with CarolynParrish who's running from her Yeah, and
(46:16):
she's currently the front runner, rightRyan, from all the polls I've seen,
I don't think I see anything differentso far. Yeah, No,
It was great. It was agreat conversation. We talked about a lot
of really important stuff. She talkedto us about her plan to address the
housing crisis. What did you think? What did you think? I thought
it was? Did you buy it? Did you buy it? You apology?
(46:37):
Yeah? No, I thought shehad She had really good ideas and
she was you know, the greatthing about Carolyn, and I am not
endorsing anybody on air either, butthe great thing about Carolyn is that she
really knows the city inside out.She does seem to have also because of
that knowledge, connections to what Ihope, I don't know what the others
(46:59):
would say, but like she's talkingabout Heartland, she knows a developer there,
She's talking about living Art Center andthe folks there, and how you
know, she just knows. Shehas those networks and those connections, and
I think that's what really helps drivea lot of her solutions. Yeah,
yeah, absolutely. We talked about, like I said, we've talked about
(47:19):
creating community. And then Carolyn toldus a little bit about herself, maybe
some things that people don't really knowabout her. So we'll see, we'll
see what are our listeners, whatare our listeners? Think I'm worried.
You know, I'm worried about Ryanlaw science. No, I'm not worried
about lot of science. I lovelaw of science. Okay, long scigns
are a joy to me. I'mworried about the voter turnout. Yes,
(47:45):
well, this is why I wasasking her, like, I'm assuming this
election we're going to have a lowturnout just because every you know, municipal
elections, it's usually pretty low.But she had some ideas there that I
think could really turn things around inthe next election, like making sure there's
more accessible polling stations, having mailin ballots. I think that's a big
(48:06):
one, and maybe maybe having rankballots become the next conversation before the next
election. But how do we getpeople to recognize the value and importance of
minnes book? And I think that'son the candidates. I think that's a
very good question that our show shouldbe looking to answer, and I want
(48:29):
to answer it the next We'll seefor a next candidate to actually answer that.
Who is next week? Noka.So we have Brian Crombie confirmed for
next week, so we hope tobring you. We hope to bring you
a great interview with him. Sothat's it for this week. If you
(48:50):
have any questions, feel free toreach out to us. If you have
any questions for the candidates, wecan ask on your behalf right here.
Just contact us Ryan and Noka fromBeyond the Ballot on New Stocksaga nine sixty
am. Until then, stay safeand get involved. No Radio, no
(49:15):
Problem. Stream is live on SAGAnine sixty am dot co
The views expressed in the following programare those of the participants and do not
necessarily reflect the views of SAGA ninesixty AM or its management from the treaty
and traditional territory of the Mississaugas ofthe Credit First Nation. You're listening to
(00:25):
Beyond the Ballot with Brian Gurcharn andNokah duck Ru and welcome back this week
to another episode Beyond the Ballot wherewe keep you informed, updated to give
(00:45):
you everything you need to know soyou can choose Mississauga's future on June tenth.
That's right, you get to chooseour next mayor, Noka. Are
you ready to choose her next?Mirror? Brian, I'm I'm ready,
I'm almos ready, almost ready.I feel still have time. I still
feel like I want to see lawnsigns before. It doesn't feel like an
(01:07):
election yet to me. Yeah,it's not an election until you see lawn
signs. You know, there's alot of talk always in the media about
banning lawn signs and banning law signs. As you do that, nobody would
even know what's going on. Nobodywould know. You know, what we
should do if we ban lawn signs, and then make it mandatory to vote
or you pay a fine. Let'ssee that happen. Then everybody will get
(01:29):
fine because nobody would know there's anelection going on. But do you know
much revenue that would create for thiscity for a new like a food program
for youth or shelter. We canbuild a few shelters with that. That's
going to be very unpopular, andI'll tell you that much. This is
why I'm not running from mayor.But we there is somebody else who's running
from mayor who has way better ideasthan I have. In fact, all
(01:53):
of the candidates do. That's whyI'm not running that. And it costs
two hundred dollars to I can't evenfordtwo hundred dollars to register. So Carolyn
Parrish, actually you know her.She she is a friend of yours.
I think everybody knows Carolyn. Shewas a counselor's my counselor for Ward five
before she left. I still callher counselor Parish. I've been calling that
(02:16):
for years, so it's still Butshe's not a counselor anymore. So I
got to remember that Fred Resident show. I'll probably uh screw that. You
probably won't. No, MARYL cannedycounselor Parish, And I'm really MARYL candidate
Carolyn Parish. You said MARYL candidatecounselor Parish. See, I did it
(02:36):
again. She will be here totalk about why we should vote for her.
Maybe she'll convince you. We havea lot of questions. I think,
Okay, you have some great questions. I think planned, I've got
you, I've got I've got ourresidence covered, lots of questions. Yeah,
talk about her whole plan. Yeah, and then hopefully by the end
(02:59):
of it you could come to theconclusion if you want to vote for her
or not. This is our firstcandidate, and we're planning to bring all
of the candidates. Who are you'veseen in the polls. I mean,
we have a lot of candidates.Of course, we would love to include
them all, but uh, youknow, we're we're we're looking forward to
(03:21):
future episodes with more candidates as well. That's right. And also we're looking
we're going to do a town hallin the near future, so look for
that. Is there anything you wantto say about the election so far?
What are your thoughts? You've seeneverything? The election has been great.
I mean lots of things have beenhappening this this past week. We had
(03:43):
Peter McCallion drop out. He endorsedCarol and Parish right, so that was
that was a big piece of bignews. We also have very interesting because
I correct me if I'm wrong,but when Hazel mccallian, they routween this
whole inquiry into you know, thewhole scandal about her. It was her
and her son. And I wasn'tCarolyn Parish to one spearheading that like she
(04:09):
was really forceful. I think fromthe media coverage, the one who's you
know, there's something here we needto this is not acceptable. And how
many a couple of years later,I guess he's endorsing her, but I
think, you know, I thinklater on they they did have a better
relationship. Well I'm not sure.I'm sure they did because he endorsed her.
(04:32):
Yeah, for sure dropped out.Yeah. And another interesting one that
that I saw Brian Crombie joined therace. That is true. He has
dropped in what started off as anApril Fool's joke, I don't want to
say continued as April fool's joke.How I started off as April Fool's joke
(04:55):
turned into something real for him.Yeah, so he's he's going to be
on the ballot. Lots of interestingthings going on in Mississauga, Lots of
interesting things. We've really heard alot about the top issues from a lot
of a lot of people who havejoined us. We talked about housing,
affordability, talked about affordability in general, the cost of living. We've talked
(05:19):
about a lot of issues. Andnow we get to hear from the candidates
themselves. How are they going toaddress these issues? And we will take
a quick break. Let's do thatand bring Carolyn on and see how she
answers some of these questions. Allright, So stay tuned right here and
Beyond the Ballot with Ryan Gurcharn andNoka Dak grub on u Stock Saga nine
(05:39):
sixty am, stream us live atSAGA nine sixty am dot CA. You're
listening to Beyond the Ballot with RyanGerdcha and Noka Duck rub And welcome back
(06:17):
to Beyond the Ballad with your hostRyan Gertarna. It's me and Noka Duck
grub Hi. Okay, Hello,hello, hey, and we have our
first candidate running for mayor of thisgreat city in Mississauga, and I'm gonna
let nokid do the honors. Sure, thank you for that. Ryan.
We have our first candidate who isrunning for mayor of the City of Mississauga.
(06:40):
Our guest today needs no introduction.I'm pretty sure everybody in Mississauga knows
this name. She's a former memberof parliament, a former school board trustee,
and a city councilor for about sixteenyears if I'm correct, fighted the
math correctly, and it's Carolyn Parrish. Welcome Carolyn, Thank you for joining
us, Thank you for having me. So, Carolyn, let's get started
(07:03):
with issues. Tell us a littlebit about what you think are the biggest
issues that Mississauga's facing. Right Well, Mississauga lost forty thousand people from the
last census now, so what it'stelling me is we're too expensives. Our
rents are too high, buying purchasingcondos is too expensive, and single family
(07:26):
houses are impossible. We have avery slow process in planning, and I
want to have a really hard lookat that. I've tried over the years,
but I think in the position ofMary can have a better look at
it. Kind of people are morelikely to show you the crinolines under their
skirts when you're more in charge.So we've got to get some housing going.
And I supported four plexus. Isupport all the gentle intro but that's
(07:49):
not going to do it. Forexample, and word five, which is
my word, was my word beforeI resigned. We have one hundred and
sixty three acres right along the alarts between Matheson and Dairy. It's all
zoned office and it's been sitting emptyfor fifteen or twenty years. One of
the things I did was pull theownerships and the price is paid, and
(08:13):
found out that they got the landvery cheaply. So what I've planned to
do is call each individual in andsay, okay, I know what you
paid for the land. Now,if you can put that into your package
and build a nice apartment, rentalor purchase for a reasonable price and a
reasonable profit, I will rezone yourproperty to mix use. Mixed use allows
(08:37):
an eight to ten story building residential. Then you can put stores around the
base and some shops, and youcan slowly build up that whole area that
the LRT is going through. Thesecond thing is I've had plans brought to
me by Heartland, and they haveplans for taking down a whole pile of
(08:58):
stores in the South End right alongMouth and putting in a greenway and some
high rise buildings, mid rise buildings, leaving some offices, leaving some stores
that passed when I was chairman ofplanning at the region, but it didn't
pass at the city. Now strongmayor powers give you the magic wand or
(09:18):
the magic ten that you get threeother votes and you can start doing things
like this, And that's what Iplan to do. Because if you can
get shelter at what they say shouldbe thirty percent of your budget, then
you're not using a food bank,and you're clothing the children properly, and
you're just generally having a better life. So when you look at cost of
living, it's fundamentally because of housing. Yeah, absolutely, And I you
(09:43):
know, I've followed your career fora long time and you have a pretty
pretty good record on housing, evenbefore before anybody else started talking about it
really, which has really been justquite recently. Just follow up on,
you know, for example, thatthat development that came to you from in
Partland, what be some reasons whythat would not pass at the city level.
(10:07):
To be honest with you, Idon't know. They want to do
multiple studies, they want to putit through the ringer at the planning department.
One of the things I plan todo is take the really reputable builds,
not to fly by nighters, butthe good ones and do a Mayor's
Advisory Council and meet once a month, and the ones that are having plans
(10:28):
going through that are taken forever,we'll say, Okay, where are you
at this month? Have you hadany improvements of things moving? But they
can also tell me all the problemsthey've had in our planning department and then
we can start making changes. SoI think the Heartland thing is going to
be a go. I'm going tomake sure it is, and we're going
to try to do it as quicklyas possible. There's also some smart centers
(10:52):
in Meadowvale that want to do it. They had one public meeting on it
already and a lot of people showedup and said, well, we want
our stores and we want our parkinglot, all this and you just have
to educate them. Part of thejob I've always felt in elected office,
and you probably went through this yourself. It's part of its educating people.
Part of it's listening to them andfinding out what they want, and sometimes
(11:13):
educating takes precedence over belly aching overI'm losing my stores, and you have
to talk about the number of unitsthat you're going to be housing and affordable
housing. Because again, when Heartlinecame to me, I said, so
I can be assured, Phil Kingthat these are going to be affordable units
because you bought that land thirty fiveyears ago. And he sort of put
(11:35):
his head down. He said,well, I guess here in public,
I have to admit that and I'llhave to stick to it. So he's
one of their principal guys on this. So it's going to take persuasion,
it's going to take adaptation. It'sgoing to take educating the public and making
sure they don't be moaned that they'relosing a couple of stores. Everybody uses
Amazon now anyway. I've got packageson my front porch and I haven't a
(11:58):
clue how to order them, butthey get here, and I think everybody's
doing that. Yeah, that's that'sfair true. And I think as our
society changes and our needs are changing, you know, the landscape of what
our city is going to look like, you know and and the things are
going to things are going to becertainly different. You talk a lot about
housing in your plan for the city. You talk about streamlining city processes,
(12:22):
which is which you mentioned. Youtalk about lowering development fees. How would
that help well? One of thethings I've noticed on a couple of munis
colleges. I think Hamilton does it. When you're in an area that's already
built. You've got the library,toout community centers, you've got the pipes.
You could probably do two types ofdcs of virgin territory where you're having
(12:45):
to put this stuff in, orareas where you have to increase the size
of the pipes and they should bepaid full pot areas where all of that's
in place and it's working well andyou don't have to do that. There's
no reason why you can't do afifty percent. That's great, That's that's
quite interesting. You also talk aboutmeeting housing targets, and we understand that
(13:07):
there's some money that comes with that. Where's Mississauga at right now? Abysmally
poor quarter of twenty twenty three,I was told we built eight we gave
building permits for eight single family houses, that's in the last twenty three so
we are way off our targets.And if we don't get the provincial money.
(13:30):
We got to because we agreed onfour plexes, so it was a
very token gesture, but it wasone hundred and twelve million dollars and I'll
take it. Yeah. Absolutely,What you think is the biggest challenge?
Do you really think, you know, having a strong pro housing mayor with
you know, strong mayor powers isgoing to be the the the key to
(13:56):
this. I'm very hesitant to tosay I want to use strongwrare empowers.
I'm very pleased that we've got atleast of the new counselors, we've got
three very progressive ones. They allare so if we have to do strongwar
(14:16):
powers, I would be mostly luctantto use it. But if I have
cool I will. Okay, let'stalk a little bit about the cost of
living. You mentioned a little bitthat you know, a big part of
why things are so expensive is housing, and we all agree with that.
What are some things you plan todo to help residents with cost of living.
(14:41):
I had a lot of meetings withseniors groups. It's very educational.
I brought in the one dollar busfairs a couple of years ago. It
was a three three effort struggle.We had to take it to council three
times before it finally past. Iwould like to make it zero because other
municipalities are doing that, and it'sso important for the mental health of seniors
(15:03):
sixty five year olds. Rather thansit at home all day, if you
have a past, go on thebus, you go to over to the
community center. And I noticed whenI'm sitting in I had I was early
for a meeting, which is veryunusual for me. So I was sitting
in the parking lot of community centerwatching during the day and most of the
people coming out with little bags thathave their rummy shoes and everything, and
(15:24):
the more seniors. So we haveto keep the building open, we have
to light it, we have toheat it. I don't see why they
can't have free access to exercise.So if we issued a sixty five year
old pass card, you get onthe bus for free, You get to
use the facilities in our community centersfor free, because you actually paid for
them over the last sixty five yearsin your taxes. So I think that's
(15:46):
going to make a big difference.It also helps with the socialization of seniors.
When you go to some of theseseniors clubs, they do all kinds
of interesting things together. The tutorchatter, they can't wait till the next
club meeting, and you see themthat are frequent flyers. They go to
the club on Monday, then theygo to another one in a completely different
area on Thursday, and they justlike the companionship. So I think if
(16:08):
we can make life a little betterfor the seniors, that's helpful. As
far as the other STEP's concerned,I think we need a real review from
top to bottom on what we're chargingon all these feests, particularly people with
small kids, that it's good forthem to get out and do this.
The other thing is I built ayouth hub up in Malton. It was
(16:29):
a conversion of an indoor swimming pool. It was about eleven point seven million
dollars and one point seven million ofit eyehetch a raise. I got six
million from the region five through thecity. There are three other areas in
Mississauga that need youth hubs. Thishub has fifteen hundred card carring members.
They don't pay anything. They've hadover fifty thousand visits since it opened.
(16:52):
In October. They've got a recordingstudio, they've got a dance studio,
they've got a games room upstairs.They've got counseling, they've shared in college,
helping kids with homework. They've gotall kinds of things going on there
on both levels. And we alsohave a teaching kitchen. We're teaching kids
how to cook using basic ingredients.And we have over two hundred kids a
(17:14):
day come to the hub with nobreakfast, no lunch, So we're feeding
two hundred kids a day, andthey're bringing their friends along who can afford
to bring lunch, and they're alleating together. I have five hundred kids
in there every day. So theseare the sorts of things you do to
make life enjoyable for people who don'thave a lot of money. And the
police had told me that all thepetty crime and shoplifting and all that nonsense
(17:38):
seems to have diminished greatly in Malton. So I'm hoping if we have three
other areas to do this in,and I'm also hoping that we'll get a
good sponsor for one. One ofthe sponsors that I raised part of that
money with came to the opening andhe said, what this caused you,
and I told him. He says, well, if I was to give
you all that money, would youname it? After my family said,
(17:59):
of course I will, So youdon't. It doesn't mean you're spending taxpayer
dollars. That means you have tobe innovative. And I'm really good at
partnerships, very good at collecting money. And we've seen that with a lot
of what you've done in the milkfund raising money for It's not the Avro
airplane. It is a construction rightnow. We raised three millions for that,
(18:25):
right and it's not city money.So you do have a history of
that, but you did. Ijust want to take it back a little.
You did mention too. Demographics areof the most vulnerable population in Mississauga.
We've got seniors. You're looking atmaking a transit free for them,
and you've got youth. You're lookingat creating hubs and programs for them to
(18:45):
do, helping them cook, yougive them life skills. I'm wondering,
when your door knocking, you're probablynot hearing from other vulnerable folks in the
community, and they probably honestly don'thave time to go and vote. They're
probably busy trend to make ends meetor during a shelter or some wondering anything
in your platform that you're going tobe you're thinking about them, or how
(19:07):
we can address poverty in Mississauga.Well, we have a lot of excellent
agencies. One of the good thingswe did was that we had mister Ford
stop the split up of the region. That's where all our social services are.
Maybe a really good job and ifwe tried to reproduce those in three
municipalities, taxes would have gone throughthe roof. So we have good social
(19:30):
service agencies. We have to keepworking on lobbying the province, particularly because
we don't get our fair share ofsocial service money. It's always been flagging
behind. Most of the outer areas, the nine to five areas are underfunded.
So this will be probably the firsttime I shouldn't say this out about
the first time we'll have three mayorsthat actually get along. In fifty years
(19:53):
at the region, they've always beenbattle lines drawn and these two groups against
this group has always been kind ofpushing us around. But mississ August got
twelve votes and the other guys hadtwelve votes. So I think if we
all work together and doing some reallygood lobbying at the province. We could
at least get our social service moneyafter the level it should be. The
(20:15):
other thing. I brought in freedental care for seniors way back many years
ago, and now the province hastaken it up and the FEDS just introduced
it in their budget. So sometimesgood ideas come out of the lower levels
of government and they're picked up bythe other levels. Never could figure out
why your eyes and your teeth werenot part of your body, so we
(20:37):
did that. I think our programwas better because people could go to their
own dentists and the dentists would sendthe build into the region. Now you
have to go to a specific clinicand so forth. But we had a
good program for quite a few years. So those are the things you have
to look at that you can touchand you can try to make changes.
But revamping the world from talk tobottom isn't on my agenda yet, but
(21:02):
it might happen for sure. Andyou've you've been in politics and public life
for so long, so I'm sureyour contributions have revamped quite a bit of
it. Just follow up on theon poverty as well as housing. What
do you think you know we're notdoing so well on UH. I think
(21:22):
it's called deeply affordable housing. Now, what do you think are some things
that a mayor can do or whatwhat are things that you know you might
be interested in doing to help providemore of that. I think we were
I was talking to some developers theother day and they're talking about prefab houses.
They're talking about prefab three story apartments, They're talking about prefab up to
(21:45):
eight stories, and I think thatcan save a lot of money. But
the land is usually the problem,and the market for the land is going
up. It doesn't matter how longyou've owned it. What we have to
do is stop at any of theseguys that do the flip. They go
in and they get its zones,they flip it, and then somebody else
to go cast to commit and doall the applications and get the building permits.
(22:07):
So deeply affordable means subsidies from theFeds, it means subsidies from the
province. Because builders are not altruistic. They're in there to make money,
and the interest rates are so badright now that they're not even doing that
very well. And then you've alsogot the problem of a lack of carpenters,
brick layers, all those people.I know a lot of laborers that
(22:33):
came here and they built our city, and they built many houses. And
then the first thing they did wastell their kids, you're going to university.
You're not going to do the hardwork I've done all my life.
And unfortunately we don't have a lotof skills tradesmen anymore. I can remember
with what mister Kretchain used to dofor immigration. He would ask each profits
to send us a list of thejobs they need. It was always whol
(22:57):
and die makers, all those kindof jobs. One province which will remain
unnamed, had strippers on their list, and we had quite a proof on
the newspapers when that twist king in. But I guess they earn a living.
But I think i'd like to seethe federal government go back to that
(23:18):
and start giving people extra points forhaving occupations that we need, rather than
just buy your way in. Soit's a hard question, it's a very
complex question, and I don't havea magic solution to it. But I
think it turns out it has tobe lobbying senior levels of government. I
know at one point, poor misterTrudeau said housing isn't a federal issue.
(23:38):
It certainly was when I was there, because we had CMHC loans, we
had a low interest rates, wehad inducements for young people to buy their
first home. We have none ofthat right now, and it didn't It
didn't go very well for him whenhe said that's that's great. I also
I also read that, you know, there's obviously there's a lot of concern
(24:03):
about some federal taxes. We hearabout that in your plan for the city.
You talk a little bit about challengingfederal taxes. Tell us a little
bit about what that looks like.I am not absolutely sure what your question
is. I read in your platformunder cost of Living that you'd be challenging
(24:23):
federal taxes. Oh. I thinkwhat I said was I would be treating
our taxes here very very carefully.There is one candidate that's going to do
zero tax increases for the next twoyears, and I think it's impossible.
Brampton did it for a couple ofyears, and they have parts of the
city that are falling apart. Iwas in it today. Not to be
(24:45):
insulting, I'm not, but it'svery impractical when you have unions that you
have to give mild increases to everyyear. You've got baking roots and community
centers. You've got fire trucks thathave to be place. You just have
to budget really carefully. And whatI would love to do instead of doing
this, we've got the budget,call some public meetings, find out what
(25:07):
people think of the budget in apast that anyway, I would rather every
three or four months, have thecounselors take all the new projects, all
the financial strains, and call publicmeetings then and build the budget over a
year so that there are priorities satby the constituents. And then we'll try
to keep our budgets within the costof living. But I have not promised
(25:32):
zero budget, never would. Okaywith that, We're going to take a
short break and when we come backsome more of counselor parish or should I
say candidate marrow candidate not a longercounselor Right here on New Stoksaga nine sixty
am, No Radio, No Problemstream is live on Sagay nine am dot
(25:57):
col. You're listening to Beyond theBallot with Ryan Gurcharn and Noka Duck rub
(26:17):
And welcome back if you're just joiningus here on new stock Staga nine sixty
am. I am here Ryan Gertarnwith Noka Duck Grub and we have Meryl
candidate former counselor Carolyn Parris. Ikeep calling you Cancelor Parish for the pass
how many years? So it's justcan So we are talking about your platform.
(26:40):
We're talking about how you are yourvision for Mississauga for the next at
least two years. And uh,just before we go, we were talking
about taxation, in property taxes orfreezing taxes A little bit more on that
just before I throw to Noka forthe next question. Knocking on the doors
and sure you hear it all thetime. Property taxes are way too high
(27:03):
for a lot of folks, andyou alluded to somebody saying that it's not
possible to freeze it for the nexthow many years? What is your plan
on talk addressing that keeping things affordableproperty tax wise? Well, as I
mentioned or started to mention, I'mgoing to treat the budget like I treat
my own budget. I do havegrandchildren that rip me off everyone so while
(27:27):
for cash, but generally speaking,I'm very careful how I spend my money,
and I think we have to bemore careful spending tax payer dollars,
particularly when we're going through such adifficult period. The tax increase we had
lost for twenty twenty four was abouttwo point three percent in the city,
but it was through the roof ofthe region, so it ended up the
(27:49):
combination was very high, and wehave to try to make sure that doesn't
happen again. Part of the factorthere was all the refugees when they finally
get caught up that says, Imay give us the money that they've promised
us for housing and feeding refugees,and we are a big area for that
because we have the airport right here. I think that'll help. But I
(28:11):
also think the police budget was veryhigh. But it's funny because you talk
to people at the door and theysay, well, the police budget's crazy,
you've got to freeze it. Andthen the next house will say,
well, somebody just stole a caron our street and the police didn't get
here for fifteen minutes. So Imean, you've got to try to balance
that sometimes. I know when Hazelwas the mayor, she didn't sit on
(28:34):
the Police Services Board. I intendto, and the Police Services board you
can't adjust. It comes to you. If you don't like it, you
can send it back and they lookat it for a minute, may bend
it right back to you. Youhave to go down to Queen's Park to
get it changed. You saw Oliviachowbo through that this year. So I'm
going to try to persuade the PoliceServices Board to be doing quarterly updates too.
(28:56):
I think when you get the wholething in one big chunky's just too
much. People you have some ofthe councilors pick up little areas in very
rarely do you ever change it.You've got to change it in process.
You've got to change it as you'regoing along. So I'm going to work
very hard to make sure the attitudeof all of counsel and we've got some
(29:17):
good counselors that think this way alreadyis we're going to spend it like it's
our own money. And just talkingyou mentioned auto theft. We do have,
you know, pretty significant crime inour city right now, especially auto
theft, and it's been something thatresidents are concerned about and have been for
(29:38):
a few years. What are somethings you will do to address crime in
the city. Well, as theysaid to you, I'm going to sit
on the Police Services Board. I'mgoing to evaluate very carefully when they say
that our ratio of citizens to policeofficers is not sufficient, and we'll look
at that, and if we haveto put more money into police services,
(30:00):
we'll be taking it out of somethingelse. We'll be doing a little bit
of a balancing act. Patrick Brownhas done quite a study on auto theft,
and we only inspect four percent ofwhile the cargo going out of the
two ports in this country, Montrealand Vancouver in the United States, which
(30:21):
is ten times our size, theyhave a quarter of our car thefts because
every single shipping location has any equipment. So I mean, if you've got
a load of cars going out ofthe country, your chances are maybe one
in fifty if somebody's going to inspectit. If it goes through a scanner,
(30:41):
it's one hundred percent. Then youknow to open it, check the
papers, make sure it's because thecar theft is actually organized crime. It's
not the teenagers that steal the carsare getting to five hundred dollars a car,
and then they're shipping them into Nigeria. They're shipping them into them the
least they're shipping them into various countriesin Europe. So if you don't have
(31:02):
a ready market, then the needto steal goes away or diminishes greatly.
So that would be one thing thatwe have to do. The other thing,
and that's lobbying again the FEDS andsaying invest in scanners. We've only
got two forts and c N shouldbe investing in scanners in their shipping areas
as well. And once you canstop that easy market, then you also
(31:25):
can produce the crime. He wasjust talking to a gentleman today who came
out about Tim Hortons with coffee andhe was pledged to the ground, grabbed
his piece, stole his BMW andhe said he had to call nine one
one to the lady had asked hima whole series of questions before he could
go through to the police. SoI would like to have a room,
(31:45):
And they didn't get there for twentyminutes or ten minutes. So we need
to have a better look at puttingmore people in nine one one and training
them so that they can sense quicklyput that call right through. I find
your bureaucracy sometimes as part of theproblem. On general crime, we're not
(32:06):
bad. I mean the car petsand The breaking into houses to get your
piece gets a lot of publicity,so people think we're inundated with crime.
In fact, on a Canadian widelevel, we're in pretty good shape.
Let's talk a little bit about transit. You talk about improving public transit,
tell us a little bit about whatthat looks like. Well, I'm still
(32:30):
fascinated by the fact that somebody decided. There's lots of somebody who's decided a
north south group was a really goodidea for the LRT without an east west
crisscross, I don't see how goodit is. One of the things I'm
looking at and I think it wouldwork, is with all that housing going
into Lakeview, if you take theLRT down into Court Credit instead of ending
(32:52):
it there, turn it east andgo right into the subway station, then
you've got some transportation that works.Or you can run it across Saig Lincoln,
which is a fairly wide street.We're going to have to have an
east west connection, no question.We're also going to have to keep pounding
the Feds to put their money intothem. All they go to Milton.
(33:12):
The province finally stepped up. Nowwe got to go back to the Feds.
But again, I think you getmore luck with these people that are
in the higher levels of government.If you go with two other mayors for
Peel, you ask reasonable questions.You don't you don't anger them, you
don't upset them, you don't demandbut you just come in there cap in
(33:34):
hand like the good little kids thatwe are, and say we need more
money for sure. And in termsof transportation within the city, so you
know the Mississoc transit, what aresome things that we could do to improve
that. Well, we're gonna haveto hire more drivers, We're going to
have to increase the buses in allthe types of transit during rush hours,
(34:00):
lots of buses. I've had complaintswhere they'll go buy two buses, they'll
go buy with the doors closed becausethis bus is jammed and people can't get
on. I actually talked to somebus drivers yesterday and they are very upset
about split shifts. There's got tobe a way to reorganize that because it's
two big chunks of time out ofyour day and not much you can do
(34:22):
in between, and some of theshifts are very late into the night.
They also asked for shields. Theyhave them in Toronto. They have them
in Brampton, and they apparently aregetting more violent passengers giving them a pop
in the head when they're driving.So I think we have to look at
all that to keep our bus drivershappier, but also then you keep your
(34:42):
customers happier. And we have toincrease the fleet. We're doing it now
and it's all the all electric buses, but I think we have to concentrate
on meeting the needs of the cityin the times that they need the busing.
And you talk a little bit aboutcreating community and hubs, and you
mentioned that you've done that in Malton. Do you see that that's something that
(35:06):
you know you could increase throughout thecity or what would that look like.
Well, it'll looks like the threefor sure, they really need them.
But I would also like to challengesome of the developers around city Center to
do a complete revamp of the LivingArts Center. It is such a drab,
old place that needs a big revamp. Build for interesting restaurants, interesting
(35:31):
clubs, and try to build acity center that's actually vibrant. If you
walk around there, there's lots ofpeople walking around, but there's not a
lot to do, and it's gettingbetter, but it needs to get much
better. And I actually had onedeveloper for the last couple of years said,
if you give me that piece ofland that's on the corner right beside
(35:52):
City Hall and the Elert and theLiving Arts Center and Square one, there's
a big triangular piece of landers.If you lease that to me for one
hundred years, I'll rebuild the LivingArts Center. So that's the deal I'm
ready to sign tomorrow. Let's talka little bit about Carolyn. So tell
us a little bit, you know, tell us things that people may not
(36:15):
necessarily know about you. People haveknown you for so long, but what
are some things you know you'd liketo share that maybe they don't know about
you. I tend to overshare.People know me quite well. I love
dogs. I had up until acouple of weeks ago, to British bulldogs,
and then one got a very rapidleukemia into fifteen days and he was
(36:39):
we had to have him put downand it was heartbreaking. But we've gone
through pairs and pairs and pairs ofdogs. We do that. My husband
and I. I have two greatkids, two great son in laws,
five great grandchildren. I'm a verylucky lady. I've always paid a huge
amount of attention to family. Politicshasn't consumed my whole life. I've always
(37:00):
paid attention to my family. Ididn't actually get into Ottawa politics until my
kids were in high school and thecleaning guy would come around, because this
was before I knew what to doat the computer, which I still don't
know very much, and my kidswith backs up their essays and I'd be
sitting there putting comments on I usedto be an English teacher, and the
(37:21):
cleaner would too, and he says, Madam Parrish, you're doing essays again
for your kids, And I don'tknow. I'm just a strong family person,
not much of an athlete anymore.I don't do golf, I don't
do any of those things. Itreat my job as though it's also my
hobby, is also my passion,and I really hope I win because I
(37:44):
did resign my seat, so there'sno fallback position. I believe everybody should
do that. I think if you'regoing to go for a job like this,
I'm working solidly all day long andinto the evening. I don't know
how you could also be a counselor, but I guess they're doing it.
No, I work hard, Ireally work hard, but I love it.
(38:04):
It doesn't feel like work. Icould attest being in word five resident.
We've seen that dedication for the pastfew years now. I'm not endorsing
anybody online officially, I'm just sayingI've seen it like myself. You've mentioned
the youth Hub. There's a lotof a new park that you've built by
the Paul Coffee and that's been renamedas well, honoring some of Malton's talent.
(38:28):
I just want to shift gear somepolicy right now, go a little
inside baseball and be like you've ranmany campaigns, You've knocked on many many
doors. How does this campaign differfrom the past. I would say there's
not a lot of awareness, despitethe fact we're trying our hardest, all
of us, to let people knowthat there is a by election going on.
(38:50):
We did a bunch of drops todayand got tons of calls for signs,
so people are starting to wake upa little bit. I think on
the twelfth, when you can putup signs, I think you're going to
see a difference. But it's notapathy so much as people have crazy,
busy lives and nobody really follows politicsthat closely. So the things with a
(39:12):
by election is people just don't paya lot of attention. But this is
the first time in a long timethat it's actually been a contest, so
I think it'll pick up. Andpeople don't vote sadly enough for people.
They vote against people they don't like. So we've got three or four good
candidates, so I think that's goingto probably cut the voting down a bit.
But we'll see. Some other citieshave done rank ballots and other ways
(39:37):
of, you know, choosing whatthe majority of folks want. Do you
have any thoughts on how we electour mayor do you have any plans or
into far future maybe? Or isthat on your horizon at all? Policy
Procedures Committee And twice rank ballots cameup and twice I voted for them,
but they got killed once you gotto council. And it's my theory is,
(40:00):
however you got there, you thinkthat's the best system, So while
to rock the vote and bring inranked ballots, because if you had ranked
ballots, you would get very fewpeople winning with thirty percent of the vote.
They would have to have a solidfifty at some point of all of
thot's tasks, so I've voted forthat. I've also voted for absentee ballots,
(40:21):
which we've got. I've voted formail in ballots, which we don't
have. I think what we haveto do is try to attract people to
vote as many as we can getto vote, and if they have a
difficulty voting, we should be ableto solve that problem. But I particularly
like ranked ballots. I think thatthat what happens is it makes for a
(40:43):
nicer campaign. You don't get thenasty stuff. You have to be nice
to everybody because you want their supportersas well as your own. I've never
thought a dirty fight in my life. I've always been very straightforward or worry
about my campaign, don't take shotsat the other guys. But some people
aren't. And like you said,lawn signs are really the only way that
(41:04):
people really clue in there is anelection coming. So when those go up,
I think the winds may change alittle and folks will be paying attention
more. I remember as soon asthe election started nomination where there was a
mailer. Your mailer was right there, like right away, the first one
I got, and I remember seeingthem like, oh, Okay, somebody's
(41:27):
on their game. In the pastelections, you mentioned mailing is not an
option. I've had issues with thattoo, getting people to vote. And
I also saw that pulling locations makingthem more accessible. There was a point
in time, I think in thetwenty twenty two election the pulling locations were
(41:50):
actually decreased in ward five and thenI think somebody had a chat with somebody
and then some more new locations cameup. But I've also seen that happen
for the rest of the city.Is that something you may be looking at
a more accessible pulling locations Always,you always want to make it as easy
as possible for people to vote.One of the things that we put in
(42:12):
here the last two elections is youcan vote in any polling station. You
can vote close to where you live, you can vote close to where you
work. You Wi buya a pollinglocation, they don't look busy. You
can go in and vote as longas you're on the voter's list. It's
all computerized, so that's helpful.People don't have to rush home to do
that, and they don't have toleave work, and they don't have to
(42:32):
get lunch. So that's been helpful. We also put a lot of pulling
stations and seniors buildings, and youdon't get a big voter turnout, but
the ones that want to vote reallywant to vote, so's it's not a
burden on anybody to have somebody watchingthe ballot box all day at air So
(42:52):
when I was in Ottawa, wedid some studies on why the voter turnouts
keep going down, and I thinkfundament actually, people are so busy trying
to feed their families, trying tokeep a job, trying to make ends
meet, that voting becomes less important. It's just another aggravation in the day.
(43:13):
But the ones th thirteen are mostlyseniors or over fifty five. We've
done studies on that and their propertyowners rather than people who live in rental
buildings unfortunately. But you've got tomake an effort to get them out,
and I think the biggest effort wouldbe, especially the high rise buildings,
put a police station in every singlelobby. But I don't know what the
(43:34):
heck that would cost. I'm toldthis election is costing three point five million
dollars and one of the reasons thesecond reason I resigned my seat when I
registered was now the word five byelection can take place at the same time,
and it staves the city half amillion dollars. So I made up
my mind that this was it.I was going to put my whole heart
(43:57):
and soul into it. And Ialso realized that we need a Ward five
councilor right away. We don't wantto wait another three months for all the
mechanics of another biolect and we alsoare saving half a million dollars. Very
good. I just wanted to getone last minute. We got one more
minute. Give us your elevator pitch. Why should we vote for you?
Elevator pitch? I work harder thananybody I know. That's not tooting my
(44:22):
horn. That's probably a bit obsessive. I have all the experience in the
world at three levels of four levelsof government, because I'm a regional counselor
as well. Where I was unsensible, I understand people. I'm very outgoing,
but that's not important. What's importantin this day and age in our
(44:43):
city is experience and an ability towork with other levels of government, which
I can do. Carolyn, thankyou so very much for joining us today.
We really really appreciated our time together, and thank you very much for
you know, this engaging discussion andwe wish you the best with the upcoming
election. And I must compliment tothe questions were all very good. Thank
(45:06):
you, thank you, thanks somuch. And with that we're going to
take sorry, we're going to takea quick break, and when we come
back, we'll have more of thenews talk SAGA nine sixty am. Ray
Hair stream us live at SAGA ninesixty am dot C. You're listening to
(45:30):
Beyond the Ballot with Ryan, GerdCharn and Noka Duck Rube and welcome back
to Beyond the Ballot. If you'rejust joining us, I'm so sad because
(45:53):
you just missed the entire thing,but you could hear it again soon on
Sunday. Yeah, Or if you'relistening to on Sunday and you missed it,
you could also hear it on thepodcast because you could just download us
and listen to our very smooth voices. You would have been What you would
hear is our entire interview with CarolynParrish who's running from her Yeah, and
(46:16):
she's currently the front runner, rightRyan, from all the polls I've seen,
I don't think I see anything differentso far. Yeah, No,
It was great. It was agreat conversation. We talked about a lot
of really important stuff. She talkedto us about her plan to address the
housing crisis. What did you think? What did you think? I thought
it was? Did you buy it? Did you buy it? You apology?
(46:37):
Yeah? No, I thought shehad She had really good ideas and
she was you know, the greatthing about Carolyn, and I am not
endorsing anybody on air either, butthe great thing about Carolyn is that she
really knows the city inside out.She does seem to have also because of
that knowledge, connections to what Ihope, I don't know what the others
(46:59):
would say, but like she's talkingabout Heartland, she knows a developer there,
She's talking about living Art Center andthe folks there, and how you
know, she just knows. Shehas those networks and those connections, and
I think that's what really helps drivea lot of her solutions. Yeah,
yeah, absolutely. We talked about, like I said, we've talked about
(47:19):
creating community. And then Carolyn toldus a little bit about herself, maybe
some things that people don't really knowabout her. So we'll see, we'll
see what are our listeners, whatare our listeners? Think I'm worried.
You know, I'm worried about Ryanlaw science. No, I'm not worried
about lot of science. I lovelaw of science. Okay, long scigns
are a joy to me. I'mworried about the voter turnout. Yes,
(47:45):
well, this is why I wasasking her, like, I'm assuming this
election we're going to have a lowturnout just because every you know, municipal
elections, it's usually pretty low.But she had some ideas there that I
think could really turn things around inthe next election, like making sure there's
more accessible polling stations, having mailin ballots. I think that's a big
(48:06):
one, and maybe maybe having rankballots become the next conversation before the next
election. But how do we getpeople to recognize the value and importance of
minnes book? And I think that'son the candidates. I think that's a
very good question that our show shouldbe looking to answer, and I want
(48:29):
to answer it the next We'll seefor a next candidate to actually answer that.
Who is next week? Noka.So we have Brian Crombie confirmed for
next week, so we hope tobring you. We hope to bring you
a great interview with him. Sothat's it for this week. If you
(48:50):
have any questions, feel free toreach out to us. If you have
any questions for the candidates, wecan ask on your behalf right here.
Just contact us Ryan and Noka fromBeyond the Ballot on New Stocksaga nine sixty
am. Until then, stay safeand get involved. No Radio, no
(49:15):
Problem. Stream is live on SAGAnine sixty am dot co
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