THUNDER BAY – Brian Hamilton isn’t afraid to get down in the trenches to make Thunder Bay a better place.
It’s an attitude he plans to bring to city hall if he happens to be elected on Oct. 22 for a four-year term on city council.
Hamilton, 43, is one of four candidates vying for the open McKellar ward seat being vacated by Paul Pugh, who chose to walk away from municipal politics after two terms in office.
After spending the past three months helping the homeless, his main concern is making sure no one gets left behind in a city full of an increasing number of vulnerable people.
“Our city is growing and we have to make sure the fortunes of its residents are going to grow with it,” Hamilton said.
“I’ve been an advocate for a long time for businesses, as part of the Bay and Algoma Business Association. For the past couple of years I’ve been an advocate for poverty reduction and I’ve been on the crime prevention council advocating for business areas and it’s been very enlightening.”
On that end, Hamilton, who once got in legal trouble for dumping chocolate milk on anti-abortion protesters, has a plan to address community safety throughout Thunder Bay, should he win the vote.
“I’m implementing a new, updated neighbourhood watch program. We’re going to use Bay and Algoma neighbourhood for a pilot and we’re going to actually bring that program and make a more residential model as well,” Hamilton said.
“I look forward to organizing that and getting to work on that right away. That’ll be like Day 1.”
McKellar Ward residents want accountability for their taxes, but more importantly, they want to be heard, to feel their representative has their back.
“They need to be able to call someone and vent their frustrations. And their frustrations in a lot of cases aren’t being heard,” Hamilton said, adding the streets need cleaning in more ways than one.
“We’ve got a lot of nuisance drug use right across the ward, from north to south that has to be dealt with. And the neighbours have a lot they’d like to add to that conversation. People are frustrated with the police, but the police only have so much of a mandate. We almost need to create a separate drug police or amp up the work of the Street Outreach Service program.”
