Colin Burridge would like to bring some military precision to the mayor’s chair.
Burridge, who is seeking the city’s top elected position for the second straight municipal election, said he’s running this time for the exact same reasons he put his name forward in 2010.
“Our city is on a downward spiral and it has been since we lost all of our blue-collar jobs. We’re putting all our hopes on the Ring of Fire, which everybody knows is not a sure thing right now. It’s still at least 10 to 15 years away from affecting our city.”
Burridge knows he’s got an uphill climb.
In 2010 he finished fifth in a six-candidate race, garnering just 0.5 per cent of the popular vote.
Up against the likes of incumbent Keith Hobbs, former mayor Ken Boshcoff and anti-event centre stalwart Shane Judge, it would be easy to dismiss Burridge as a fringe candidate.
Burridge prefers to look at things slightly differently, saying he offers a breath of fresh air from the status quo.
“Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed often and for the same reason,” he said during last Wednesday night’s mayoral debate at the Thunder Bay Community Auditorium.
A former naval combat information officer, Burridge says he’s neither for nor against the proposed $114-million event and convention centre plan.
What he would like to see is the public have their say.
“I say that should go to the people’s decision because it’s their money that has to be spent. We talk about federal money, but that still is coming from taxes that people have paid. So it’s all taxes that are going for this event centre.”
Burridge isn’t a huge fan of the downtown north core location, saying the city is replicating the problems facing Fort William Gardens, especially a lack of parking, and simply replicating them on the other side of the city.
“They want to take away more park space for parking. I’ve seen their little plans and it’s not going to work.”
Crime is another issue that concerns people. Burridge said to solution is to work to bring more jobs to the city.
“Crime is created because people are idle. They’re not working, they’re stealing because they’re trying to make a buck because there are no decent jobs in town. Everybody that could has left to go to the oil sands to find work,” he said. “I was there for three years.”
Burridge thinks the city could easily become a hub for information technology and application design.
“It doesn’t take much for that to happen,” he said. “We have a whole bunch of buildings that are abandoned that we could (repurpose) and let the students create their own businesses.”
He added, if elected, he plans to lobby the province to increase the number of beds at Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre.
“The hard part is admitting a mistake was made and dishing out the money to fix that problem.”
