Ward 12 Candidate Ron Goswell: Can Business Experience Build a Better Sudbury?

The clock is counting down for the municipal election here in Greater Sudbury and across the province. In with us today is Ron Goswell from Ward 12. Good to see you. Good to be here. So Ronnie, tell me(...) why.

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You know, that's probably the number one question I get asked because I'm supposed to be retired now. Yeah. Okay. I've had a lifetime of(...) contributing to Sudbury. How? What did you do in your... So what did you do in your former life? Yeah. Well, I had three key careers.

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First one in broadcasting. Okay.(...) So I was with the Sudbury star as an editorial writer and photographer when it was a real paper. Yeah. We had the presses in the back and we were on Mackenzie Street and we were the center of news in Sudbury. I could see that dying. I jumped into broadcast(...) and built my team built CQNCTV up on Fruit Road, the new yellow building up there, which was new at the time. We built it up.(...) It's right at the melee bypass or the little cell extension now. Okay. Is that where MCTV is today? Where everything is today. Okay. So then(...) as soon as about 20 years in, I guess, as we grew that with two stations in Sudbury, basically,(...) I could see that dying. Really? Well, simply because when you go from two stations to 200 stations with cable TV coming in,(...) it doesn't take a genius to go, "Oh, oh." Competition, writings on the wall. Well, it's fragmentation. That's right. Absolutely. So(...) I then scrambled, I always did, to try and save the business.(...) I started acquiring other broadcasters. So North Bay, we put Timmins together in our network. It was original.(...) Then I acquired Pembroke and got into downtown Ottawa. So we built a private microwave system feeding the whole network back at the time. Interesting. So once that, it was still not enough.(...) And(...) so today you've got Sudbury Star working from home now.(...) It's a long way down from 200 people on Mackenzie Street.(...) And you see the(...) death of radio. It's all networked now into Sudbury in Northern Ontario.(...) CBC is all networked, so you don't even know where they're talking to you from.(...) So I could see that was collapsing. So at the time, my best friend was the franchisee of McDonald's, which was cool at the time. And I said, "You know, that's something I can make a good living out of."(...) So I jumped to that and(...) for 28 years built that across Ontario.

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Had three here in Sudbury, North Bay, down all the way to Hamilton, Burlington, across to Kingston, Ontario. And which restaurant was that? That was Burger King. Burger King, okay. And the home of the Whopper. Yes.(...) And then after 28 years of renewals and renewals and expansion,

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that corporation changed hands. So at one stage it was owned by Pillsbury, the big doughboy. Yeah. It was owned by Diageo, the biggest liquor company in the world. Okay.(...) And it just kept changing hands to a point where the(...) newest owner,(...) excuse me, restaurant brands, actually bought up Tim Hortons, for example. So they're all part of the family. And he went from being, I was president of the Canadian franchise group on the board in Miami, back and forth to Miami every couple of weeks on strategy and so on.(...) Went from(...) this type of friendly relationship to one of a new executive coming in as a bean counter. And your name is? Who are you?(...) I had a hand in building this company.

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Anyway, so we had a legal battle, ended up settling it very favorably, I must say.(...) And then I was, I went into retirement and I was recruited(...) by AYR1, which was originally called All Your Retail, here in Sudbury. Okay. And as CEO of that, I built it(...) to the world's largest e-commerce provider for independent furniture and retail and furniture and electronics stores, appliances and that. So I used my(...) marketing. Through it all, I taught at Laurentian in their MBA program, their master's in business program. And I was a business consultant. So I've got a lot of experience in developing(...) Northern Ontario relocation programs for governments.(...) And I have put out a lot of(...) consulting reports on the inside of government. So I know how it works. And to this day,(...) I'm(...) vice chairman of the committee of adjustment here in Sudbury. So I(...) sit in the mayor's chair at public hearings. And(...) that you can see in the double tape spread that's there. So my world is still very active. I'm still giving back to the community. I was part of the team that built Science North.(...) I was part of the team that built Walden Industrial Park, all sorts of civic things, including in the flour mill.(...) Dr. Ricardo de la Riva, a counselor at the time,(...) and approached me and said, could I help him establish a business improvement area in the flour mill, which I did. And to this day, that is responsible for a lot of the beautification of flour mill. And one of my(...) campaign proposals is to refurbish the(...) sad state of the flour mill silos,(...) and light them up as a as a as a as a monument, if you wish to the path, the history of the flour mill competing with the water tower. Yeah,(...) probably a little classier than that. Yeah.(...) Um, it's a really funny(...) side because first time I'm going to announce it publicly on your show, but

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when we formed the BIA, which is a business improvement area, which means

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my attitude in business is let's do it physically responsible. You can't just say, hey, let's build more bike paths. Let's, let's more throw more money at the homeless, all this sort of stuff(...) doesn't work unless you have accountability, but the public(...) shouldn't be asked

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to keep spending more money. Like, you know, we got an idea. And we want you to pay for it. Yeah, ideas are great. It's like there's always, there's always a challenge between(...) architects and engineers, architects can dream up something fantastic.(...) In reality, how the engineers have to put it together? How's it going to work? And so this so this is a direct correlation to what you're saying. So what we did in the BIA was a BIA means that businesses, yeah, like yours here,(...) end up paying more taxes, okay, improve the area that they do business in. Okay. And how's that working? Well, it's been, I formed it, what's it 20 years ago with Dr. Delariva. Yeah. And since that time, the business community in the flour mill have been taxed a premium tax(...) to fund beautification, the flour baskets and the planters and the entry signs. How are the streets in that area? Well, they're probably about the same because this money doesn't necessarily, this money is for beautification, making a place, a nicer place to do business in, shall we say. So is it having a net positive effect? Well, I would have,

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I remember I've been out of that now for a while for quite a few years. And I'm not even sure that like those, there is one in downtown as well. Yeah. Which hasn't been particularly some people love it. Some people really love it. Yeah.(...) But the story I wanted to tell you on the BIA was my, I got a phone call shortly after we formed it(...) from an executive marketing team at Pepsi-Cola. Oh. And they said, you know, we got a lot of money for you guys.(...) And what we want to do is we want to

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take like the silos, like they were in a arena, you know, you have naming rights in the arena. Well, we want to paint the six silos as a six pack of Pepsi,(...) paint them all up and make them a six pack of Pepsi. And I went, you know, guys, I'm not going to take that to my board. I mean, this is, it's like painting the parliament buildings with(...) peppermints.(...) It could be any, anything that comes in a can and wants to put, it will be a perfect six pack for anything. Yeah. But I wouldn't even, I'm just saying it's a funny story because when you get into an executive role, you can immediately see the naivety and ideas. It may be a great idea from their side of things. Yeah. But that's why ironically, all these years later,(...) I want to do some, take the fountain that's there that's been closed up. They built a fountain. Where's the fountain? It's behind(...) orange fencing. At the silos? Yes. It's not on the roadside. It must be on the back. It's on the roadside? No, it's on the roadside, but it's buried right under the fountains. And unfortunately, during construction, all of this, one of the workers got seriously injured from pieces falling from the silos. Oh, okay. Yeah. Everything was shut down, but it was a granite. It's still there, but it's just got to all be pulled together because it was a good idea.(...) But it wasn't back to your analogy of the architecture and engineers. It just wasn't, those fountains have got to all be redone, reshot, created and finished. Is it practical to bring them back or should it just be buried? I, what, the silos themselves? Yeah. Well, no, the fountains. Oh, I don't see. That's where we need the engineering report and it may have been done. I know that the BIA(...) has continued and the quest for improving the silos is not my initiative. It's the community's desire to make the fountain or the fountain and the silos cleaned up for the good. Right now, it isn't the prettiest site on Notre Dame. And so if the flour mill folks, and I'm very supportive of it and will continue to be, because there are a lot of grants for that.(...) I have a slogan, an election slogan,

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as someone who's been in the city for 70 years, yeah, a few years,(...) that, you know, the seniors and our residents shouldn't be taxed out of their homes with income, you know, increasing taxes. Yeah. We've got to have my election slogan is(...) no new debt without offsetting new revenues,(...) which is something that I'd be happy to talk to you about on the specifics if you wish. So expand on that because I guess that ties into taxes, the whole affordability, everything all rolled into, everything's all interconnected.(...) Nothing within the city runs with, nothing should be running within a silo because it's all connected. So,(...) yeah, the silo is no pun intended. No pun intended. But how, so expand on that, where you said that,(...) you know, don't incur any more expenses unless you bring in money somewhere else. Practically, how is that going to run? Because the opinion of most of the constituents across the city is,(...) money is just going down the drain. Yeah. And I can see that perception and I(...) disagree, by the way. I have as a both a taxpayer and a business person and a consultant,(...) I watch and by the way, as a participant in the city as vice chair of the committee of adjustment, which meets a short while ago at City Hall, at Tom Davies Square, we're now out in Azilda. That's a city body? That's a city, yeah, a city panel. I don't know if you have the ability to(...) place in things into the video, but that's the, yeah. Okay, right here. So that's me sitting in the mayor's chair in city council before we move to Azilda(...) with the city planners and city staff on each side of me. So my point is that I kind of know

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what's going on in the city as a quasi outsider, but as an informed outsider. Okay. And the whole idea we got onto this business of tax and we could, we can deviate from the auditor general issues right on through to the event center,(...) all of which I have a pretty reasonable working knowledge of. But to go back to your question being,(...) how do we offset our taxes and Sudbury against the things we got to do? Yeah. How could we, how can we, at the end of the day, how can we just be more efficient? Just get down to it with all, because(...) everyone can say anything they want.(...) And then once they're in,(...) they're in, but in, in reality, what can we do to make things more efficient, effective, attracting new businesses and getting all the other social things worked with? Because, and really that's, see that those are the strategic questions of(...) anybody can, can say, throw more money at the homeless, throw more, more money at, at parks, whatever it may be. You can spend yourself into oblivion. And at the end of the day, you have nothing.(...) That's where someone like I come in as a visionary. And so I was part of the team that built Science North, for example.(...) That's a long story in itself. But(...) I was involved in the discussions with INCO at the time about us being the city, quasi city(...) development group. So the city doesn't directly own Science North, but it's an independent body under the government structure. But it was initiated by the city. And so(...) things like Science North(...) are great examples of how visionary people who say,(...) you know, what can we do to address the need in the city? And then how can we finance all of that? So it's not a drain on the taxpayer. Okay, that's good. That's a good start. It is. And now, for example,(...) I moved from my learnings with Science North and many other projects(...) in as a consultant for the Ontario government. Now, this is going back 40 years.

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And I'm sure it's no coincidence that at the time a group in North Bay was leading a secession movement to break Northern Ontario away from Southern Ontario because the feeling was, just like Alberta, that Northern Ontario is getting screwed. We've got the lumber and the resources and so on. And all the money is going back to Southern Ontario.(...) So the Ontario government in their wisdom said, you know, maybe we should throw Northern Ontario a few crumbs. A few crumbs. Because(...) the GTA is drowning in traffic and population and growth and can't build the subways out fast enough. What are we doing? Some of those things are head offices for Northern development in my insight. In Southern Ontario. That's right. And so smart people say,

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wow. So my firm, and I was the lead consultant on this, so I was granted unprecedented access to the deputy ministers and their staff in Toronto for weeks and weeks and weeks of meetings.

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And we together looked at the economic multipliers of what's called the Northern Ontario Relocation Program.(...) And the government in their wisdom(...) said, let's see what we can easily flip to Northern Ontario.(...) And so I'll give you one example. Crumbs. Was from Sault Ste. Marie. Okay. Doesn't matter. I can tell you a separate example, but Sault Ste. Marie example is a little cleaner.

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It was decided to move the Ontario Lottery Corporation. Oh yeah. Sault Ste. Marie. Yeah. Build a beautiful new building,(...) transfer all the staff, including the president, the whole thing. And(...) they would say, Ron, can you find out all the economic multipliers of that move? Meaning not just jobs and all the spending that people have when they're, you know, I mean, you can, you can sell a home in Mississauga for $2,000 and buy that home in Sudbury for 60% less. Yeah. So there are tremendous advantages to the family's quality of life and so on. Anyway, I won't go into the, that's a(...) show in itself.(...) But what's interesting is(...) when you move,(...) and the same thing happened with Jim Jerome, who's an MP in Sudbury at the time, who got the Taxation Data Center. Okay. Put here. Put here in the corner on LaSalle and Notre Dame.(...) Those are examples of how, and by the way, it was opposed by the opposition. No, we got to leave it all in Ottawa and Ottawa. So I'm familiar with all of those smart ways of doing things. And in Sudbury, we now have the, you know, the Willett-Green Center up at Laurentian. Yeah. And that includes some rope testing centers and things that were part of the Northern Ontario relocation program. Anyway,(...) the point is that(...) when the government builds(...) or transfers 400 people, 500, it just happened. WSIB.(...) Very good. You know, full credit to Paul Lefebvre. I mean, that is another $100 million(...) transfer. Out of our economy? No, into our economy. Into our economy? That's what you got to remember. Okay. WSIB(...) is actually a whole new for Sudbury. Yeah. Right across from College Boreal up in the rocks. They are building a new mine rescue training facility. Okay. It's going to have, I don't know, I don't want to grab the numbers or Tyler Clark will be on my case here. But

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something, you know, there's(...) more than 50, maybe 100 employees that are going to be training mine rescue people from all over,(...) maybe even the world, but certainly all over Northern Ontario. Okay. And it's going to be built right here in Sudbury. Well, it should be. Well, sure it should. Either here are Timmons, but better here. Yeah. Well, North Bay has been getting a lot of stuff. They've got the right representation as well. Yeah. And so they've had a large share of mining related(...) development, shall we say. Right. So regardless, the point is that when we can recruit(...) new businesses because we are(...) ready for it, infrastructure,(...) Sudbury, as you know, is the largest city in certainly the province, maybe the country, by geographic. So we're having to fund buses going out to Lavec.(...) We've got a big territory of snow plowing and road maintenance to do, which I'm not satisfied we've been fully compensated for because that was thrown at us when amalgamation occurred. Yeah.(...) And Don Collins, the regional chairman appointed by the province,(...) pulled this whole thing together and unified police and fire and everything else all over the region. Well, when it comes to it, just to go off on an off-ramp for snow plowing, wouldn't it be better to just(...) give local autonomy to the residents of each other? Let Lavec, Anapeng and even Dowling call the shots. Which is where it used to be. The risk is where does the snow plow stop and turn around and go back down the highway? Draw a line. But efficiencies, there are efficiencies, be it whether you contract out or whether you have more modern equipment or whatever. There are efficiencies for plowing highways like they do in the province. While the whole province. Yeah. So, but I wouldn't,(...) here's, I approach this as both a business person, meaning what are the economic multipliers, what are the tax implications, what are the long-term implications. If we have to take on debt, are we going to get a return on that investment? Are we going to be able to build it efficiently? 12 points you made earlier. Yeah, I think looking at it from a business perspective is top-notch because any business, any private business is not going to survive if it doesn't bring in money. So,(...) government is not a business. Government is,(...) it's like sucking on the cow. Well, let me turn the question on you for a second. Give her. I don't mean to. No, no, bring it. But tell me this, what do you think your estimate is of the city of Sudbury's annual cash budget? How much money,(...) this election, what is this, what is the council that we're electing in the mayor?(...) You're on the board of directors of the city of Sudbury.(...) What kind of a budget have you got to make an approval on? Can you give me a ballpark? What do you think that is?(...) So, you're asking me right now, so all I know is for 26,(...) the overall budget was $870 million. Okay. Thereabouts. You've nailed it perfectly. But that was for 26. That's fine. That's what we're in though.(...) But 27, so whoever's sitting in the seat, and if you're sitting in the seat come December, so the budget for 27 has already been tabled. It's already been basically. We're in the year.(...) So yes, you're right. And by the way, you're(...) one of the very few people and anybody who's doing this, when you say $850(...) million plus,(...) you're bang on. But you're not a typical Sudburyian because you're very knowledgeable to answer that question. But it's just a number. What I would do,

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and this is naively, but I'm(...) sitting on the outside.(...) I would look at what needs to be done and then what's redundant. You got to slash, you got to trash and get rid of the stuff that doesn't need to be there because I look at it as running a business. And I know for any business out there, any private business that's never taken(...) government money, you have to.(...) You got to be careful with every dollar you spend because if you spend it correctly, you're going to be out of business. And then what are you going to do? However, government,(...) the only time that government should really be running a deficit is maybe in a recession or a depression. Other than that, get your house in order. That's my two cents. And I wouldn't disagree with you at all, although arguably when all of us even take out a mortgage for a home, there are times,(...) there's an ROI. And so you have to look, even with a business, if you're going to take a bank loan to redo your business, what is the assessment of the return on investment, which is where I was at. Yeah, taking out a mortgage isn't always better long-term than renting and investing in other means. Depends on the interest rates and the capital depreciation. There's a few variables. But anyways, getting back to where we were,(...) pick up the torch.

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So the next thing is to have the citizens of Sudbury realize this is not a flippant job. This isn't a job where you go to a meeting and all in favor and you're voting on things that you haven't had the academic skills to actually analyze. There's a paperwork. You've got to go through it. You should go through it. And if you've got another, even another career going, this is tough if you've got a family and other things to do. I'm lucky in that I've got, I'm giving back to the community and for me this will become a full-time job of working. Because by the way,(...) most of the quality meetings you have with city staff are during the daytime. Okay.

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How do you go to the meetings during the daytime?(...) So if you've got another gig going on, the city staffers are, they work, you know, they work days. That's it. You have to, you should be meeting with them. So that's, I think that's a good point you bring across. Thank you. So what I'm saying is that I don't think that(...) what I've seen at the all candidates meetings and so on, that some of the agendas are, some of the candidate agendas are very shallow in that they don't have the vision of running an 800 million dollar corporation. By the way,(...) the assets of the city of Sudbury are over a billion six hundred million of assets. So 1.6 billion? Yes. In assets? Yes. That means equipment plus land? Yes. Okay. And like this is not,(...) it's not like joining the board of the Red Cross, you know, this is, and not, not putting any of that down, but I am saying that I don't think that council has, has hired as, as I'm saying, would you hire the best lawyer if you could, you know, and when you look, it depends on the charge. Yeah. Well, in this case, the charge is fixed.(...) So the point is, I'm talking about the, the councilor, but(...) the point is here that what you're, you've got to do is realize, first of all, this is a serious job. This isn't a job for pushing your own personal agenda.(...) This is a job of understanding that most of the things that affect Ward 12(...) affect the rest of the city.

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Yeah, they're all interrelated. Some of them are, some of them are like the flour meal silos that I spent a little bit of time on because it's specific. Some of them are like the Mount Rose issue of Delran building a giant subdivision at the top of Mount Rose and the city wanting to make it a shortcut to Maley drive right up a beautiful, green,(...) you know, residential road. Can't do that. I'm sorry. You know, we can't let that happen. So there are some Ward specific things. So I don't put that down. I mean, yes, you got to deal with those. Yeah. Every word has its own specifics. Right. But they're generally a list that you can count on one hand. They're not endless. The big picture that makes a big difference in the city, like taxes,(...) like the expenses and, and you're absolutely right. I grew up in a day where governments followed a, a(...) ZBB

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program. Zero based budget. That's it. Wow. Okay. Tell me more. I'm just.

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And so(...) when you say to the department heads,(...) you've got a budget of five and a half million. I want you to justify that. That's fair enough. And we're going to start five and a half might be too high. But(...) you got to be realistic depends on the case. What, what it is you're dealing with. Absolutely. And you can't be naive that there are surprises and so on. The problem is the city, the city or like any, any government, if you get in the habit of getting a budget and if you don't spend it(...) next year, they take it away from you. That's right. And so they all give a shit and get rid of the money. That's it. And that, that should really be curbed because that's hurting the residents.(...) You know, there's a hydro company(...) that operates in Ontario.(...) And the thing is,

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the philosophy is we can just get whatever we want. We don't have to worry about it. You know, who are they accountable to? We'll leave that up to them. But it's, you know, if you don't spend the money, you know, I see that in education as well. The departments,(...) I used to work in education in a former life and departments, the departments would go on the spending spree at the end of the year end and get whatever they needed to get. Because just like you said, if they didn't spend the money, what would happen? It would get clawed back and then it would be so(...) anyways. So I think anyone who's coming to council, if they have a little bit of business background to start off with at least, not just a warm pulse and a heartbeat, a little bit more than that, then at least they can(...) work for their work for the citizens of their ward. And I think that's all that anyone is really asking for.(...) So it makes sense.(...) It makes complete sense.

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Where were we?

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It's a big world out there in the of just city council. When you drill into it, like you and I are drilling into this thing. Yeah. Every one of our topics, we could make a whole show on, on government relocation on ZBB. You can make a whole book with sub with chapters and sections. That's right.(...) Time permitting.(...) So rolling along, what(...) overall,(...) what do you want for your ward? Like what do you,(...) you get, you win the hot seat. What, where do you want to help? Because you're only one vote of 13.(...) You've got to work collectively with everyone else to move things along for the, you know, for the city.(...) Where would,(...) do you have any priorities that you want dealt with for your residents? Yeah, I think we covered pretty thoroughly the the flower mill issues, some of them. Specifics. And the mount rows, or the silo, you know, the the lighting and cleaning up of the silo area. And there are other smaller, smaller issues that are, you know, we don't need to deal with, with this(...) microcosm. But the big, the big thing is I'm a team builder. Okay. All my life, I have been able to and on my website, dozwell.ca. Okay.(...) I have put together

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desperate different groups. So for example, there's a picture on my site of(...) Ron McDonald, the president of the steelworkers. Okay. Right.(...) In a picture with me, with the president of Inc. during the days, was, they're shooting in helicopters and they're, was that Ashcroft at the time? No, no.(...) But the, the issue is really, I put together to build Sudbury, like I had a program I was running for the city called make Sudbury proud. Let's, it was bad time. Okay. And, you know, this smokestack and Sudbury has no culture and all sorts. People were down and the fighting of between the union and the, and the company of Inc.(...) to a lesser extent, Falklebridge(...) was, was high and was animosity running. Anyway, I managed to put with way hard hats, put these guys together in a, in a, and work as a team to work with a program I was doing as a volunteer, by the way, all this stuff was trying to help get signs north moving. Or I was on the board of directors of the Sudbury theater center when we were at the ankle club. Okay. On Froude road, running plays. Yeah. Is that for the wrestling ring to remove? Was that the place that burned down?(...) The ankle club or is that the steelworkers hall? Yeah, it's the steelworkers hall. Okay. The ankle club was very close to that on Froude. And it's been repurposed. But the reality is that(...) over my life, there have been so many groups where people say, Oh, they don't talk to each other.

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So I'm answering your question in one way. And that is when you ask what is good for my ward? Well, the greater good is a greater separate. Okay. And so I see that, and you're right, I'm one of 13 votes on that group(...) with the mayor being the 13th. Yeah. That(...) if we work together, I mean, there's been so much dysfunction on council with bickering and so on. And I'm disappointed that it gets to that. Right.(...) Because these people should be understanding the common good. And I believe I'm one of these people who can sit like you and I are, and people will listen to my experience. And I do know what I'm talking about. Yeah. Okay. I've been there in the halls of government and in business, and I failed. Yeah. One. And you need to have some failures in your life too. You need to, and hopefully you learn from those failures, but failures are good. They are. And, but you can't do a shortcut(...) to do a board of directors. And I compare it, the city is closer to a business because they do a payroll. There are 2300 plus employees of the city of Sudbury. That's a pretty big payroll. I thought it was over 3000. Yeah. Well, depends on whether you slice part-time. Yeah. Okay. You know, people are in for the rinks in the winter and so. The revolvers. Yeah, that's right. But a full-time it's certainly plus 2300 plus, right? But the point here is between the responsibility. This is, I keep saying to everybody out there, this is a serious business. This is not, gee, I think I'll take a shot at this.

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Honestly, I wish there was some kind of a pecking order that said, you got to earn your way up to this. You can't just say, oh, I'll throw my name in because it cost me a hundred bucks and I get the hundred bucks back. Oh, do you? Oh yeah. Oh, I'm surprised they didn't have more people running. Well, that's it. You put a hundred dollars in and you get your, as long as you file your financial statement.(...) But by the way, that's one thing that just a little aside.(...) I chose to do the most unique campaign in Sudbury and that you're not going to see my lines, lawn signs all over the place. Why? Because(...) I'm self-financing. I do not believe in people saying, hey, I'll give you 500 bucks.

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You know, I was wondering when you, when you, when I saw your name on the next person to come in, I hadn't seen any signs. Do you have, and I saw, I wanted to ask you, how are you getting your message out?

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Through here. Okay. This book,(...) which journal printing printed for close to $6,000(...) for the ward, everybody in the ward getting one. Okay. This book,(...) I believed in the campaign of who am I? Yeah. If you're voting for somebody, can you really tell me(...) what their experience is? Why did they deserve, look at this. It's a job interview. It's a job interview. This isn't a vote. This is a job interview because I'm representing you.(...) So I made a decision(...) that I wasn't going to go for name recognition.(...) Oh yeah. So I saw his name on a sign. I'm going to vote for him. Right. Whoa. That violates the whole idea that we're dealing with(...) an $800 million. Correct budget. So I've run what is called(...) a logical qualification, which your partner, who we were talking about earlier, it's, are you qualified to do this job? Would you hire

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that person?(...) And that's why if you look here, I list what I believe matters.

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It's not the name recognition at all. The more signs I would say that's the less you're, you think that I'm going to vote because I'm seeing your signs all over the place. Well, it certainly isn't supposed to be a popularity contest. Getting the president in high school,(...) yeah, your class student council, whatever it is. And that's when, and you know, it's funny, you should mention it because I've had other people say to me about class presidents or so on. It's a popularity con. And if you're voting for somebody,(...) just because you recognize the name,(...) boy, we're, you're getting what you deserve. Yeah. You got to at least figure out(...) who you vote for based on what the policies are that they, they're looking to promote to their constituents as well as having a little bit of a background on how things work. Yes. And have that experience to know(...) where the bullshit is and where the reality is and challenge those things from a point of view. Naivety is a dangerous thing because as we talked about failures, you can't afford too many failures in big business. Well, in really in any business, yeah, you can have failures. You got to learn if you're going to fail, fail fast and keep on going, but you have to learn as quick as possible. Otherwise,(...) uh, anyone who thinks about doing something, you can think until you're in oblivion.(...) It's(...) the doers that win. So there's a commercial on TV for a, uh, they sell home improvement things and doers get it done. I think it says on the bag after you leave with, when they fill your paper bag, but it's, that's how it is. You have to do. Yeah, that's absolutely right. And I think, um, when I talk about qualification and relevant experiences and the slogan of no new spending without offsetting new revenues, what it, what it really is meant to do is say that this is your kid's future. Yeah. And, and your taxes and this is not something that should be(...) treated lightly.(...) Not at all. And that's why when you ask, what am I going to do for the ward?(...) And I answered you with here are some specifics for the ward,

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but the common good of the success of Sudbury.(...) And by the way, one of my press releases is going out tomorrow is going to be copied to the mayors of all Northern Ontario, which is the Northern Ontario relocation program number two, because it's been 40 years. And don't you think the GTA can afford to let go of a whole bunch of towers into Northern Ontario and those people in Mississauga can buy a home for half the price in Sudbury and raise their kids in, we're all part of Ontario, but these people live in Toronto would make the decisions.(...) So I'm saying to you, I do have a vision for Sudbury, including some ideas that are going to make us the capital of Northern Ontario. De facto, we already are with education referral, health referral, and so many other areas. But to make us a free, a true capital, we need to be a cultural capital as well. And it's got to have a quality of life in Sudbury, which is not forgotten. And people may be watching this saying, well, it's not a business because you got to worry about people's quality of life. Well, in many ways, that's your brand. Yeah. And if someone says, and I know when I was in broadcasting, a few times people would say to me, you're up in Sudbury, what are you doing up there? You kicked out(...) like you got a drinking problem. Right.(...) And so the reality is that the perception of quality of life, and I could go on the cultural bend very quickly before we wrap up. And I know you're watch your time. But(...) on the cultural side of things,(...) one thing I've personally been working on as a volunteer for the past three years(...) has been a new performing art center for Sudbury. Now, people go, we don't need that. You know, our kids can watch the Toronto Philharmonic on YouTube. Okay. You can watch the National Ballet's Nutcracker on YouTube. You don't need a culture center in Sudbury. Well, what's the plastizare that we have? And what's isn't the library going to have something else in there? Oh, the multicultural center. Great push backs, because this one that I'm working on is called Sontre de Nord.(...) But who goes there?(...) Really goes there. Do you know what the slogan for the new center is? Something for everyone.(...) Those are dangerous words, something for everyone. Well, you can't pigeonhole everything into what kind of music do you like?

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So you're asking me what kind of music do I like? I'll listen to almost everything. Okay. But most people will say, well, I listen to the country station, or I like rock, or I like blues, or something. I'll listen to it all. Okay. So then you are probably a candidate, including by the way, comedy. What kind of entertainment do you like? Well, maybe I like comedy. But here's the story. I'm watching you right now.(...) Here's the story. And comedy is probably an easier one, because off the top of my head, the blue rodeos and so on, I don't have the list that's easily but take a one that's in tour right now(...) is Howie Mandel. Okay. Now,(...) Howie Mandel is going to come(...) through Ontario. Okay. And the group that(...) our organization is a member of is called Ontario Presents Network. Now what they do, are they a promoter?(...) They're a back, they're a public company. Yeah. That is backed by the Ontario government, and the federal government, for culture. Okay. And what they do is they have a whole full time staff in Toronto.(...) And they book everything from the P King acrobats to the Moscow filler monarch orchestra for all the performing art centers in Ontario, of which(...) in every city our size, there is one there is one. So we don't have one. We don't have one. Because you mentioned Plasté's art, which is a wonderful place. What do they do there? There's 300 seats. That's why. Who built that?(...) Well, I don't expect you to have the answer but(...) what's it(...) for?(...) Well, it's for the culture of Sudbury, but it's a 300 cedar, which is was blocked for plays and theater. It was a straight competitor to Sudbury. Theater center? Okay.(...) But it was more skewed to the Francophone(...) group as well to make sure their culture

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it's open to everybody, but it was just skewed that way. But the point is, this facility is called the missing link.(...) And what you have, and I don't bring the graphs because it's a show in itself, but what you have is Fraser Auditorium, Sudbury Theater Center, Plasté's art, Sheridan Auditorium, you have that group of small theaters.(...) And then over here we have the new event center at 6,000 people. 6,000 seats? Yes. Yeah. And then in the middle you need a 1500 seat performing art center. By the way, Thunder Bay,(...) the capital of Northwestern Ontario, built their performing center 50 years ago. Is it still in service? It's going and it's a gorgeous. How many seats?(...) 1500 seats. So why did they build Plasté's art with 300 seats?(...) And you somebody else will have to answer that.(...) But that was the decision that it balanced against Sudbury Theater Center. And there was that niche. Are they in competition with each other? Well, indirectly everybody is in slight competition, but not they're in competition when you both have 300 seats. Yeah. Because there's only, so you understand that again, when you bring in a tour, say Blue Rodeo, you amortize the cost per seat against the artist's demand. So if the artist wants $20,000 for a night(...) and you divide that by 300,(...) I can't charge 200 bucks a seat for for that act. Yeah. And I'm going to go under and there's no place in Sudbury to bring in(...) the Toronto Philharmonic Orchestra or the National Ballet of Canada, all of which are subsidized(...) to see, so are kids. And they have afternoon programs for the kids and they can experience, and it valets a bad example, but certainly Philharmonic Orchestra is not going to compete with the Sudbury Symphony Orchestra. Ron,(...) can't they shove them into the new event center?(...) Well, the event center is, and that's a whole discussion in itself. Is that just for hockey and basketball or is it for(...) Canada Day? They have acoustic(...) issues.(...) And sight line issues. Just remember, if you're in a(...) hockey rink, your sight lines are focused there, not sort of well the stages at the end of the, you know, and even the raking of the thing is different and the environment is every city in, Barry's building one right now, right? The city of Barry. Every city in Ontario has a performing arts center and a hockey rink.(...) Because it's two different uses, but yes, there are stadiums that are football stadiums, but Taylor Swift goes in there. Yeah. You see, so you have a multi-use facility, but it isn't structured with the class

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of an evening out. Right. Gowns and suits or whatever it is you wear. And if you're going to hold the Liberal Party's convention for Ontario,(...) well, six thousand seats is too much, even if you can cut it back. Can't you just hold it at the Colson? Yeah, that's the other extreme.

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Ron, I want to thank you for coming in.

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Have to do it again. Okay. And by the way, I'm impressed with your broadcast facility. Yeah, we're,(...) we're making changes as we go along. I'll tell you, we, so this TV here, it was up there,(...) but we had to move it down from up there because(...) sometimes, uh,(...) it was just easier to move it down here. It was just easier to move it down. But now, now that it's down here,(...) some people just watch themselves. Oh, my. They're going like this.

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Well,(...) so yeah, they're watching themselves up there as well. It was, it was, it was kind of funny.(...) It was funny. Hey,