Wendy Bergfeld:
We are having interviews with the mayoral candidates in this time slot. There are nine people in the race. Carla George grew up in Alma Dam, but calls Sydney Mines home with a background in construction project management. This is George's first run at public office in CBRM. Our reporter Tom Ayers asked, why now?

Carla George:
Well, when I saw my property taxes at the beginning of January had gone up 20%, I went and wow. And I just thought, you know, nothing's changing. Everything's, you know, the complacency to me, I don't know if it's the will. I don't know if people just feel beaten down. I'm not sure what it is. But we need fresh ideas. We need to move forward with technology and understanding and bring the CBRM into the future because it's not sustainable at the moment. Like, you cannot keep breaking the backs of the people living here and think that it's going to last forever. It can't. We need to find other ways to fill our coffers because what we're doing is not working.

Tom Ayers:
And so for you, what are the key issues that you want to see addressed?

Carla George:
Okay, so for me, the key issue is sustainable solutions. Number one, we need money in our coffers to get the roads done. We need money in our coffers to support our young people so that they can thrive here and raise their own families here and not have to go to Alberta to work three months of the year or however their shifts may work. So I want to come up with sustainable solutions, and I believe tourism all year round is a way to do that. One of my ways moving forward is I would like to take the railroad tracks out, salvage all that steel, put that money back into grooming those railroads for ATV, snowmobile, snowshoeing people to use those trails. I mean, we could even have our own kind of Iditarod if we wanted to because those trails will go right up to the causeway. I want to bring back a toll to the causeway. When I was young, there was a toll on the causeway, and I know that that toll was to pay for it. Then once it was paid for, they went, okay, we don't need it anymore. But the reality is we have roads being used for all the counties that we're just not getting enough money into keeping them maintained. And they're falling away to such a point when we go to fix them. The cost is ridiculous, where if we were maintaining them, it wouldn't be such a cost. So I want to streamline things so that we're being efficient. What we're doing with our money, we're going from worst-case scenarios. Like if there's places where our roads, we have accidents where people are getting injured, then let's fix that first, because obviously that's a danger to the public, and then go from there and start fixing the worst to the worst at the moment. But that being said, I think these are things we need to think about strategically. We need to schedule them strategically. Being a project manager for as long as I have, I am all about solutions, problem-solving, and making sure that things can be scheduled properly, done within budget, done on time, and looking for any input from our communities to come up with new solutions. Because the beauty about tourism is we're only limited by our imagination. That's it. So we can come up with ways the same. If we do the trails, you know, we could have sea cans along those trails and you could have little coffee shops along those trails, and you could have people that supply oil and little different things and little stores. And there's all kinds of. We're only limited by our imagination and we need to support small businesses to get into doing this. We have grants and loans that are available by Tourism Nova Scotia. The new technology grants by the federal government are up to $150 million available. Grants and loans that we could be supporting young people into inventing and coming up with better solutions. Just our garbage alone is insane to me that we're trucking it to Antigonish. What a waste of money. I've already talked to a company that's in Chester, just outside of Halifax, that actually takes all garbage, totally recycles it, and what's left converts into fuel, and that can be funded by the federal government's new technology. So it's things we're not even paying for with solutions that are going to really help our citizens and save us money. And maybe then once we get some of that money in the coffers, we can start reducing property taxes and work together to bring those costs down.

Tom Ayers:
One other question. Nine candidates for mayor. What do you think about that? How do you approach that and try to distinguish yourself from the other candidates?

Carla George:
You know what? I've always just been authentically me. And I'm just going to go forward, spread my message because I think I have a plan. I think I have the resources and the education and understanding to effect that plan. I believe I'm an excellent team leader. I believe in the team. I believe it takes a village to get it done. And I think that will resonate with people. What the others are doing, they're going to do. I can't control it. And really it doesn't matter to me because if they have a great message and they can get something done, I'll support them, too. That's kind of the way I look at it. Well, it's true, right? I told everybody, get out and vote. I don't, if you're not voting for me, that's fine. Get out and vote. And if you don't believe in anybody on that platform like you think all nine of us are just not, not going to work for you, get out and vote a vote of non-confidence, because you can do that. You can actually go out and make your vote count no matter what. That's the most important thing. Speak up. Let's be heard. Let's make sure we're getting that message out so that everybody understands where the people are coming from.

Wendy Bergfeld:
Carla George is running for mayor of CBRM. Vince Hall is also running for the position of mayor. Hall was a CBRM counselor before moving to the mainland for a period of time. He is a social worker and a retired military serviceman. He spoke with Tom Ayers last week.

Tom Ayers:
What made you decide to run for mayor?

Vince Hall:
Well, in 2008, when I moved on from Cape Breton, I had a lot of personal issues that needed to be dealt with, and I'm glad to report that I was able to get my personal life back on track. Running for mayor of CBRM has always been a goal of mine. It's taken me some time to find a chance to come back and try again. Running for mayor in CBRM. As I said, it was on my bucket list and I turned 55 this year. So two years ago, I moved back home and started paying closer attention to the affairs and the community and concerns. And it was obvious to me we need a change in leadership at the municipal level. What I've researched and learned over the last 15 years, something's gone terribly wrong with CBRM. They seem to forget that it's a public organization and that the taxpayers own the properties and the taxpayers dictate our policies. And the taxpayers need to be totally informed the whole way to go. There's been so many closed-door meetings, deals done in smoking rooms. The municipality is almost at the point of ruin. That's how bad things are. And that's why on day one, I will be ordering an internal audit of all the budgets within the municipality, where that money is going, what it is being spent on, and I'm going to put all that, all that report out in front of the council and the public, because I know that these books are going to be a mess and I'm going to be taking over a mess. But I want the people to know exactly how bad things are in the municipality financially because we need to make a rapid change in direction and start moving this region forward. For small business. Let's just focus on small business. Let's put all of our policies and all our efforts behind small business. They've been doing it here for 50 years. We need to step up our game as a local government. It's pretty simple. It's simple economics. We support small business, support business employs people, support business makes money go around in the local economy. It's the best way to go. It's the safest way to go. The people are not going to be hearing any pipe dreams out of me about terminal traffic in the eastern seaboard and over supposedly trying to prospect business over in Asia. That's all foolishness. But it's foolishness that cost the municipality a fortune over the last 15 years. As I see it, I have to clean the municipality up. The people want it cleaned up, and I'm going to clean it up. But I'm going to clean it up with my plan that I have, which I will start revealing on Thursday. And it will be a people's plan because that's going to be a fluid document right up until election day. So the day before, if somebody enlightens me and influences me on one of our positions, I will certainly consider changing, adjusting, and amending it. The day before my plan goes before the people, the vote is going to be for. Who's the best person to be talking to Premier Tim Houston on Monday morning? Is it Vince Hall? Is it any of the other candidates? How about the candidate that has zero conflict of interest? I'm also going to have no donations for this whole campaign, and I've been working on this a year and a half. No donations. I am not accepting $1 from anyone or any business or any interest or any people with their own agendas. I am putting together the people's agenda. And to do that, I can't accept money from the backroom guys like some of the other candidates will be doing. I'm not going in there to support those backroom guys that want to buy me off for $5,000. I'm going in there for the people. So the people don't need to give me money to vote for me. They're going to know my plan and they're going to vote for the person that's going to go in there with the best education, the best energy, the best focus, and never afraid of, and never backs down.

Tom Ayers:
And you mentioned back at the beginning, open public meetings. There have been a lot of closed-door meetings. Isn't that something that you were involved with when you were a counselor 15 years ago?

Vince Hall:
Well, yeah, it was. And with learning the ropes and stuff and learning how the whole operation worked at that time, every in-camera meeting I ever would have participated in would have met the test of the Municipal Government Act. And I was the one with the Municipal Government Act in my desk all the time. That would remind counselors that we can't go behind closed doors for this reason, that reason and that reason. So it was a constant tug with the councils that I sat on, but I was always the one that insisted on being as open and accountable as possible with the public. But look, a lot of that was 15 years ago. I'm more educated now. I'm wiser, and I'm focused on improving the CBRM overall. There would be only rare occurrences, rare occurrences that we will need to do an in-camera meeting. The previous council's mayors would say it's for a personnel issue. Well, it's not a personnel issue when you're deciding on tax policy or when you're deciding on investing in the terminal or when you're deciding on investing in north side exploration of economic development in the eastern seaboard. And that's what's been going on.

Tom Ayers:
Not to be argumentative, but I mean, you're talking about how previous councils were hiding stuff from the people. Weren't you involved in meetings outside of council where you just said, wow, we're just getting together and having a cup of tea? I mean, not an in-camera session, but that would be a way of having meetings outside of the public purview, right?

Vince Hall:
No, no. Like I said at the time, and I still believe if I'm having tea or coffee or socializing with one or more of the other counselors, well, jeez, what are we supposed to do? Are we not supposed to socialize among each other? Are we supposed to go in there like robots every council meeting and know absolutely nothing about the guy sitting next to you? Like I used to sit next to Lauren Green? Geez. I know a lot about his personal life. He knows a lot about my personal life. Our relationship was strictly work and we sat next door to each other. So I believe you need a certain degree of discretion when you're representing so many people. So, like I said at the time, is there something wrong about a few of us getting together and having a cup of tea? There was no actual agenda items or any straw votes. If there were any agenda items and straw votes, that would be wrong. It would be inappropriate, it wouldn't be illegal, but it would certainly be inappropriate.

Wendy Bergfeld:
And that's Vince Hall, and he is running for mayor of CBRM. We will complete our interviews with CBRM's mayoral candidates tomorrow at this time.