LETTER: Tobin Kern can bring 'fresh perspective' to city council

SooToday.com has received the following letter to our readers from Selva Rasaiah, who believes that mayoral candidate Tobin Kern could better address local and environmental issues in the city.
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Tobin Kern might appear to be a mayoral candidate only for the environment, but he is also a candidate that could bring a fresh perspective to a city council that struggles to address local issues. He has a keen awareness and the experience to deal with key social issues that have impacted many other communities in Northern Ontario.

Social issues are often tied to widespread problems like housing affordability. Our current city council emphasizes the need for more affordable housing, but the public sees regular media coverage where new housing developments receive an exemption to the affordability requirement. The housing issue is exacerbated by absentee property owners and out-of-town developers buying excess amounts of properties which function as tax write-offs or overinflated property values to increase their portfolios. I do not believe that waiting for the provincial or federal governments or a municipal strategy and expecting developers to be “wooed” to build affordable housing through “alternative incentives” is effective or realistic. Most developers are more concerned with maximizing profits and promoting the exclusivity of their developments than how they can combat the issue of affordable housing.

To deal with environmental issues, Kern has conveyed viable solutions of how the Sault can help fight the climate crisis but did not directly address the critical issue of our role in environmental protection. The issue with the public embracing environmental initiatives is hindered by the nature of a community based on its industry. It is difficult to promote the use of public transit in a community where big trucks dominate the roads as the common mode of transportation.

Kern’s solutions for the environment are necessary to fight a global climate crisis but ensuring local accountability to protect the environment needs to be the focus of a new city council and mayor. We need to recognize that a transition to greener production methods to cut global greenhouse gas emissions does not ensure accountability for the damage caused when industrial operations fail that threatens our health and the local environment.

Bringing more awareness to protecting our air and water quality is vital beyond discussions limited to reducing our carbon footprint. Resolving local impacts and issues needs to be the focus of local government while considering the broader regional or global impacts as a secondary consideration.