Notes from the campaign trail: Long Term success & the four season economy

Well Prince Edward County voters, let’s talk policy. This is of course, the biggest question when it comes to running for office.

What are your issues? What are your plans?

It’s easy to come out and make statements like “we need affordable housing” or “it’s time for us to cut spending and be fiscally responsible” or “let’s fix the roads”. But what does that look like in practice over the next four years? How do we ensure a balance of support for basic needs while also continuing to fund services that fill need social gaps and make this place worth living in? None of the issues we are facing right now as this very hard moment in time have immediate solutions and will require innovative, sustainable answers to solve and build a more resilient Prince Edward County economic landscape for the next generation.

So what are my answers? At the end of the day, so many of the important issues to voters and to myself are interconnected and all stem back to a long standing problem in the county. Our main employment base is largely seasonal - this leads to lower incomes for many of the people you see bagging groceries, making your coffee, hosting events you attend, etc. It’s often a hard place to work and live in our second largest employment base, but one that is necessary for many people to fill for our successes to continue. This seasonal economy combined with the lowest vacancy rate in the province has created a pretty massive housing crisis, which means people leaving for other communities where rentals are more available and cheaper. Our tax base dwindles, our population is further skewed towards an aging demographic as younger folks are priced out, resulting in less pockets to cover both our necessary infrastructure and needed services that provide relief to our neighbours in this increasing time of need.

The answer then to all of these above issues remains the same as it has for almost my entire adult life; we must grow our younger and working population and to do this we need a larger diversity of industry, an increase in year rounds jobs and to build a four season tourist economy - something we have spent the last twenty years doing to increasing success.

To achieve this, we need to build a place where the kids who grow up here are able to stay and work and raise families here. We need to work to build a community that has housing options outside of living at home forever, as more kids are doing into their twenties now more than ever. We need supports like PELC helping people find training, file their taxes and providing a middle ground between grocery store prices and the food banks with their PEC Fresh program for the just over 1/4 of homes who currently face food insecurity in The County. We need green spaces and nature and activities that make people want to be here, not just exist here to work day in and day out.

Over the last month, I have been speaking to people across various industries about this exact issue. Because of course, before you can speak to the solutions, it’s important to connect with the people they would affect most.

I don’t want to promise voters short term solutions and empty words.

Between stopping by homes and other campaign events through the month of September, I am filling my calendar with conversations and meetings across all industries and areas of expertise to ensure the opposite. As the campaign moves along, I look forward to sharing with you some of the contrete polices and ideas I would bring to the horseshoe this fall to help create both an immediate and long term plan to build a sustainable year round employment within Prince Edward County.

If you’d like to share any concerns and ideas with me please check out my resident and small business feedback forms before you leave.