CHCH News speaks with challengers running for Hamilton mayor

With 13 mayoral candidates on the ballot this election, Hamilton voters have a lot of choice.

We’re taking a closer look at two candidates, who some may consider “underdogs,” but are making quite a bit of buzz online and on the campaign trail.

While Hamilton mayoral candidate Scarlett Gillespie may not approach her run for the mayor’s office with traditional city council experience, she says that’s part of the reason her message is resonating with voters.

“Because people feel the need for a leader with lived experience and feel the need, perhaps for an outsider to take the helm,” said Gillespie. “We need someone who is a vanguard for working class rights, and as someone who has been endorsed, or rather highly recommended by the Hamilton District Labour Council, that leader is me.”

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A long-time Hamilton advocate with a background in healthcare, Gillespie pitches housing as her top priority, starting with implementing all of the tenant advocacy group ACORN’s recommendations, and then reviewing city housing.

“We need to preserve our old stock buildings and maintain them first, and before we produce and develop new buildings, that maybe sounds good on paper, but those buildings are not applicable to rent control because of Mr. Premier Ford, and the new buildings typically are inferior structurally, don’t last as long,” said Gillespie.

“Now there’s other schools, so many properties that we could have healthcare wrap-around supports,” said Hamilton mayoral candidate Sasha Austin.

Front-line worker and candidate Austin, also points to housing as her top priority, saying that she’ll work with the school board to convert shuttered schools into mental health and addiction treatment hubs, or youth centres.

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“Of course there’s all kinds of other issues, like the roads and infrastructure or other things like this, but we have the most important thing, I think, is human beings dying in front of us, on the streets, in front of our kids,” said Austin. “Open drug use, that has to be eliminated right away.”

The city has previously said that many of the long-closed buildings require extensive work, or complete rebuilds in order to house people.

Austin says the projects won’t derail her promise to keep property tax increases capped at 2 per cent.

“Because we’re going to repurpose the buildings — let’s audit all the wasteful spending and find solutions for the long-term,” said Austin. “The money is there and the constituents shouldn’t have to pay more — absolutely, it is doable.”

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Gillespie, meanwhile, is not committing to a specific number when it comes to taxes.

“I do not have a ‘number one’ in mind and I think it would be foolish to say a number ahead of looking at the budgets, especially when we don’t have Hamilton’s audited statements,” said Gillespie. “That’s a large part of my platform: fiscal responsibility and transparency.”

Both Gillespie and Austin said that if they aren’t elected, you’ll see them on the ballot again in four years.

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