Keenan Menard: Why Sudbury Needs Better Transit, More Jobs & Smarter Spending

Running for mayor in greater Sudbury. We have Keenan Menard here in the studio with us. He dropped in and he's going to tell us a little bit about, uh,(...) you know, his plan for a greater Sudbury. Keenan, good to see you.

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So I'm going to ask you just like everyone else. Why did you throw your hat in the ring?

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Uh, there's just some things about the way the city was being run that I wasn't happy with. So I decided to throw my hat in the ring. Yeah. Okay. Um, can you give me, can you give me an example of a one or two things that, you know, prompted you to(...) make your day. Well, make a move. Yeah. Transit was my number one. Yeah. Uh, it's not where it should be. Yeah. And then the roads were number two. Okay. And then shortly after homelessness, mental health, addictions, and everything else came in to play. So the whole enchilada, because everything all, everything's all interconnected. Yeah.(...) So, um, if we start with the buses and the transit, what, um,(...) you know, should the hot seat in the mayor, uh, you're only one vote of 13 where, what would you want to do with transit? Transit, what are your, uh, what are your ideas?(...) I want to increase the frequencies. Yeah. I want to increase the longevity of the service.(...) So, uh, basically what I want to do is I want to get rid of the, there's a Monday to Friday schedule. Yeah. Then there's a weekend schedule. And then there's a holiday schedule. Yeah. The holiday schedule(...) does not work for Sudbury at all. The once every hour only. Yeah.(...) No, it doesn't work. So what I want to do is I want to make the weekend and holiday schedule into a Monday to Friday schedule, seven days a week. So the busier routes,(...) like the one, the two, the 11, the 12, and the few others, I want to make 24 hours. Really? Yeah. Because they're, they're busy enough. Like the city does not sleep between 12 and six. People still have to get to work. Still have to get home. Even at three. So. Because the shifts, the overnight shifts, they start,(...) they're varied, right? Yeah. They start at one, they could start at two, three, four, five. But are people getting on the bus other than a Friday? So I think if the buses ran on a Friday and Saturday night, maybe even Thursday night, all throughout, then at two o'clock, when a lot of the watering holes close up, people wouldn't be scrambling for cabs. That's another reason too. I want to keep the busier routes, especially like the one going to the college, college dorms, university dorms. Okay. You know, the kids, like why are they spending money in a taxi or Uber?

me, last year, I was working at Diesel Electric downtown. Yeah. And we had to start at 6am. Okay. And we had to be at the shop for 5.30 to change and get ready. Get ready. Yeah. The buses were not on the road ever. So I was spending 50 bucks a week or 150 bucks a week, sorry, in taxis because... To get to work in the morning? To get to work in the morning. This is the bus running on the road. And even what I also want to do is(...) the less busy routes want to increase the frequencies of the electric and start earlier. Yeah. So instead of starting at 6.15 from downtown, they can maybe start at 6.15. Yeah. They can maybe start at 4.15. Okay. And instead of ending at 11, 11.30, 12 o'clock, they can go till 2 or 3.(...) Does the size of the bus matter? Could they run smaller buses, shorter buses instead of running the full size? All our buses are the same length. They're all 40-foot length buses. Okay. So we don't have mini buses. There's...(...) Go. ...bus companies that do. Yeah. But we don't have operational control of those. We don't even operate those. Okay.(...) But all our buses are 40-foot length. Standard bus size. Yeah. I do want to... If I am elected, I do want to order in some 60-foot articulating buses for like the one... The bigger runs? Yeah. The bigger, busier runs that always overcrowded. Are they the buses that...

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They have an accordion in the middle? Yeah. In the center. Yeah. They bend when they go around corners. Yeah. Yeah. Would that be...(...) Would that be practical? Like would... You know, if you're running... It's like an airplane. You don't want to fly that airplane unless it's full. Right. Yeah. So it would(...) only run on specific runs. Okay. Like the busier, the one, the two,(...) the cape rail, the valley. The runs that are deemed that they will use the capacity. Yeah. Buses to the universities, the college. Okay.(...) The busier runs. The busier runs. So that's a case, a business case that would have to be made in order to make that happen? And they would mostly be run during rush hour only. Kind of like what they do in Toronto. Okay. Toronto has gone a bit too, so they're mostly out throughout the day now. Not just rush hour, but here, the plan to start, there would be busier runs at rush hour. Yeah. In the morning, in the afternoon. In the afternoon, yeah. Okay. That's... You know, it kind of...(...) It sounds reasonable.

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What else prompted you to run? I know you mentioned the roads. Yeah. It seems like for every time they get refurbished, resurfaced, it's like a year later, they're digging them up. They're adding piping or fixing piping or...

so they have to redo it again. So when you say, you know, resurfacing after a very short amount of time, like the road should last a little while. A couple of years at least. Yeah. Before they even have to like dredge in some cracks and crack sealing. Yeah. I've done road construction in the past, so I know a little bit of what goes on. Like not the resurfacing part. Yeah. More like the after maintenance, like crack sealing. Yeah, yeah. That rubber, whatever it is to seal it so that... It's taller. Yeah, rubber. Yeah, taller. Okay. Okay.

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What else would you want to cover, you know?

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So we've got to cover a little bit about taxes at the event center, efficiencies, not, you know, any accountability downtown because the mayor's job is pretty important. Well, I think too, like somebody told me last night too when I was talking about them, people seem to expect the mayor...

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People seem to have high expectations of what a mayor is supposed to do. They expect the mayor to do this. The mayor is... He has some authority. Yeah. But he's not Superman in the sense that he can do everything. No. He's only one vote. He's just a figurehead. Basically, yes. You know, he or she, you know, that person is just a figurehead. They have one vote out of 13 and they have to collectively work with council to get things done for the city. Yes. So when it comes down to...

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Now, the mayor does have some strong mayor powers as given from... The province. Yeah, from the province.

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When(...) it comes to getting things done and trying to be as efficient as possible with our... With the tax dollars, where would you want to go?

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You know, a lot of people wonder if we're getting value for money.

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Well, every(...) transaction or every...

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Whatever you want to call it, I'm going to be transparent with. Yeah. I'm going to have to make the numbers public. Okay.

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There's not going to be any backdoor spending. There's not going to be any backdoor deals. There's not going to be...

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Where's the money going? Okay. There's not going to be any questions like that. I'm going to make everything(...) transparent and on the table. Yeah. Yeah, because there's some things that are done and the public doesn't even know about it and trying to get access to it.

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It's tough. It's like trying... Like the new arena, for example. Mm-hmm. You know,(...) yeah, the current arena is old, but she still holds. Yeah. It's not falling apart. It's not a public hazard. Okay. In my opinion. I mean, yeah, we do need a new arena, but not right now. Okay. Like that money that they spent on it or spending on it, that money could have gone towards something else. It's not an Elliott Lake case arena where it's...

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Sometimes they say the life expectancy is this. Whatever it is, meanwhile, you can still get more out of it. Maybe it's just an eyesore or they want something more pretty. Yeah, but they could have used that money for more apartments, more(...) shelters, more... Something more...

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For the people? Yeah. Something more(...) of a necessity. That new arena of incident, that's not a necessity. That's not a... So, what are some of the necessities that(...) you're alluding to or you're getting at? What specifically(...) are things that(...) we need?(...) Well, I know this is a provincial thing, but I want to work with the problem. We need more healthcare. Okay. We need more hospitals. We need more emergency departments. I saw the hospital was going to expand. I saw that somewhere. Yeah. I was in the server store yesterday or on Monday. I didn't read the full article, but yeah, server is too big to have just one emergency department because it's not just us in the city. It's surrounding areas like Astaire, the Espinola, and everywhere around. They all come here to us. Yeah, it's the biggest regional hospital. Yeah. So, if we had more...(...) Like, I want to reinstate the emergency department at Memorial because it's still there. Yeah. I'd like to have a hospital built in the valley, Traumasford. Yeah. You know, because like I said, we're just too big of a city to have one. If you're waiting up to 14 hours... I think you're going out on a limb by having one in... I mean, Traumasford in the valley, but what if we had one in New Sudbury?(...) Or even New Sudbury. It's closer to the highways. Yeah, even New Sudbury because it's the province that pays up to 75% of the cost. The city only pays the other 25% or 30%.

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So,(...) taxpayer point of view, it's really not that much. We're just basically buying the beds. Yeah, okay. Maybe it can go up by the taxation data center, right by the highway. Easy in, easy out. Anyway, as long as we have like a second or third emergency department to go to, I'm all for it. I'm going to work...

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I'm going to do everything I can to get that happen. Okay.

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What about the homelessness and the drug addiction, that kind of stuff that's going on downtown? How can that be cleaned up? It's not an easy... There's no single way to clean it up, but(...) how can we start to turn the ship?(...) I just think a friend had asked me about the drugs. How do we get rid of it? I'm like, "Well, unless you stop every single bus, train, truck, car, plane, and everything else coming into the city..." Yeah, that's not going to happen. That's not... It's wishful thinking, but it's not going to happen. That's the only way. And I think too that there's obviously there's a grow house or something. They're being made here. Okay.

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But the drugs, that'll never stop. As much as anybody would like to see it stop, it's not... The homelessness issue, like I've been saying,(...) unless they want the help(...) to be housed, nothing can be done. I mean, there's this funding, there's programs, you could throw in more funding, you could throw in more programs, but unless they want that help,(...) you(...) can't do anything. There's nothing to be done unless they come to us and say, "Hey, I want to be housed. I want to be cleaned. I want to be(...) healthy and happy." Yeah,(...) I think there's another candidate that said,(...) "No one's born and five years old decides they want to be homeless." Exactly. It's(...) because of experiences or trauma that(...) it's(...) the only way that they know how to cope in order to get by.

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So that's another thing.

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When it comes to the(...) budget, the budget's always a big one. It's not always talked about, but it's the big(...) elephant in the room. It's the big thing that always has to be dealt or(...) brought up.

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The budget last year was, well, it's approaching a billion dollars. It was $870 million.

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Is the city doing the best it can(...) with the monies that it has, or is there anything else that can be modified or tweaked(...) in the sense that, are we(...) wasting money?

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A little bit. Like I said, the arena, that's one(...) expenditure that's on the wasteful side. The cultural hub transforming City Hall into a library and art center and(...) all that. That's another $70 million that could have been(...) better spent elsewhere.(...) So there is(...) some good and then there's some bad. It(...) needs tweaking. Okay.(...) It definitely needs tweaking.

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What else have we got here? We have(...) taxes. Taxes are a necessary evil. They have to go up(...) to some degree.

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Yeah, because of inflation. It keeps going up. Yeah, so there's another candidate that said they'd like to keep taxation around where inflation and that.(...) Well, when you think about the bigger picture, that makes sense.

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It's not that far out there. It really makes sense because everything does go up and you've got to just keep up with it.

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As for the mayor,(...) the mayor seat, where would you like to see the city in four years from now?

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Very prosperous. Yeah. A lot of growth, a lot of economic growth, more jobs, more(...) jobs outside of the mining sector, forestry,(...) manufacturing. Yeah. We've got the land. We've got the space. We've got a lot of space. Yeah. We've got this.

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There's over a billion trees in Sudbury. Why don't we have a lumber industry? Why don't we have(...) a place where they can build trains, buses, cars, even planes. Yeah, because we can build it here. Yeah. You know, jobs. But yeah, in four years, I definitely see Sudbury(...) more prosperous than what it is now. Okay. Any last words for anything you want to get out to the citizens of Sudbury before we wrap up?

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Oh, going back on my transit plan, I wanted to say that currently right now, the first Tuesday of every month, seniors ride for free. Okay. I want to make that every day. Every day? Every day. Because the seniors, they've paid(...) a lot for their whole lives. Yeah. You know, if I could give them a break in one aspect,(...) I'll do it. Is it realistic? Like, how much is it for a bus fare? Actually, how much is a bus pass for a senior? $56 a month. $56 a month? And then there's a six ride, which I believe is $15 a month, or $15 for every six ride card. Okay. And then the cash fare is,(...) I'm going to say $4. $4? Or it could be $2 or $3 for seniors. I can't remember exactly.(...) What if it's a tiered system for the seniors?(...) So, I don't know what the senior age is. Is it still 65? I believe so, yeah. So, if it's 65 until 70, it's a certain price.(...) 70, 75,(...) bring it down a little bit, and then so on, because(...) the demographics of the bus riders as a senior, are there any 90 year olds taking the bus? From what I've seen, I take the bus every day. Okay. So, you see what's out there. I see what's out there. I know what's out there. I see what works and what doesn't work. Ah, okay. And I've been wanting to say this for a long time. The people that run transit now,(...) and the people that make decisions about transit,(...) are not qualified in my opinion. They don't use the bus. They would have no idea.

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I know exactly what you're saying. They don't use the bus. They're not in it, so they don't see it. They don't see it, so they don't know what the rider wants. Because I ride the bus multiple times a day, six days a week,(...) I know what's what and what's not. Yeah, so you can see first hand what's working and what's not working, and where efficiencies can be... And that's what I want to fix. That's what I want to bring transit and Sudbury to(...) not quite full Toronto style, but up there. But something a(...) better service level than what it is now. Yes. Okay.

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Keenan Menard hey, thanks for coming in, man.

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