Leading up to this year's municipal election, we'll be featuring interviews from the fifteen Moose Javians running for city council. Jody Chell is one of those candidates.  

Each candidate was asked the same list of questions. Here are Chell's answers.  

 

Q: Can you introduce yourself to our readers? 

A: I have been a long-time resident in Moose Jaw, approximately 36 years. I'm a single mother to an 18-year-old daughter who is currently going to the University of Guelph online, so she's still at home with me for one more year. I'm also a full-time University student so we kind of have a little bit of a dorm room situation going on here. I'm taking my human justice degree with the goal of focusing on a law degree when I'm done, and one of the things that I'm focusing on in my human justice degree is Indigenous studies for my second year. I currently work as an occupational health and safety practitioner. I've been an advocate for workers' rights for safe and healthy workplaces for just about 10 years now. And I also work as a spare school bus driver with Prairie South School Division here and there.  

Q: What do you think is the most significant accomplishment of the current city council? 

A: You know you'll find myself and other candidates who are having a tough time answering this question, and it's not saying that there haven't been significant accomplishments in City Hall. I feel, speaking as a resident, not a candidate, we just don't know a lot about what has been going on. I've had this conversation with many residents in town that aren't up on City Council as much as, say, a candidate would be, or someone like myself is, and they don't know what to answer to that question. We don't know what they've accomplished in these last four years or two years, with Eby being added in 2018. So, I mean, I think the question is how transparent and how much is being communicated with the residents to be able to answer that question quickly without having to do a lot of research. It feels like there's not a lot of accountability coming out to the residents on what they have accomplished. We've had great things happen with Mac the Moose, but I'm not 100% sure if that was City Hall driven or driven by city councillors. I know there were other organizations involved in getting that out there and getting that traction for Mac. The Downtown Business Association has been working hard on those banners too. But to be honest with you, I can't answer that question 100% and I think that it's only because there's not a lot of transparency out there for us to be able to find out what our current City Council has done. 

Q: What could be improved? 

A: You know my platform is focusing on transparency and more communication to the residents because it seems that residents are feeling like we just don't have a voice in a lot of the decisions that are made. I feel that transparency, communication, and with the residents; our opinions matter. We pay taxes here and it's time that the residents get to have their voices heard and I find that that's super important, not only with just residents but our community organizations such as Pride or the Metis Association or the Newcomers Association. Those types of organizations in our city that work with social justice and social issues need to be heard more, and I believe that their opinions really matter when it comes to big decisions that happen in City Hall. Better community organizations, committees, indigenous reconciliation, or homelessness in Moose Jaw. We have a population of homeless people and it seems to be just swept under the rug and people like that deserve to be heard. They deserve to be treated as residents. There are some things that I definitely believe that the city could focus more on other than just infrastructure and development. I think we're missing key components as to what makes the city great, and that's the residents. I also believe that there has to be better communication within City Hall itself. I've worked on some projects in town as a safety consultant and I've dealt with certain departments in the city and it feels like one hand doesn't know what the other hand is doing, and it seems like it's costing our taxpayers a lot of money. Another thing that I would like to see happen is possibly an internal audit of the system that's going on in City Hall right now. Are there better ways that we can be more efficient in City Hall and make that environment a better working culture down there? 

Q: What experience or knowledge do you bring to the table? 

A: I feel one thing that is possibly missing is the ability to translate acts and regulations and the law into human languages. Let's say people that don't deal with the acts and regulations as much as I do as a safety consultant and practitioner. I believe extensive research was done with the acts and regulations that could be answered better. I have extensive accounting and bookkeeping experience, so I'm able to read budgets and I'm able to read in between the lines; where the money is sitting and where it is going. My passion for social justice issues. The city is about our residents, and our residents should be taken care of to make it better here and to promote people to want to move here. I'm also a voice and I'm not scared to talk about topics that may not want to be brought to light. I feel like I'm the voice of the people that need to be heard, and I'm willing to listen to the citizens. 

Q: What are some of the biggest issues facing Moose Jaw right now? 

A: It's the pandemic. It's the lockdown. It's the uncertainty.  It’s what is going to happen in our near future with economic development, with bringing our communities together with promoting the city in the middle of a pandemic, I believe money is a big issue. I believe that our utility bills maybe need to be looked at a little bit better. The extent that we're paying for certain bills, its huge. I feel like again, we're missing that component of bringing the community together for a sense of belonging in Moose Jaw. We need to have leaders that make us feel like we belong here and that our leaders have our back when it comes to stuff like this pandemic. One of the reasons I'm running for Council is; I worked extensively with my clients in helping our staff at the start of the pandemic and I asked the question ‘where we're leaders in that’. I feel like we literally got left to our own devices to try to stay as a community and to try and keep our sense of belonging during this pandemic. I don't feel like we have got a lot of support from the city when the pandemic hit and we were left to fight for ourselves, and I don't think that that’s right. I think that they definitely should have brought forward a little bit more leadership in helping us create some security during this pandemic.  

Q: How do you envision the city coming out of the pandemic? What is your overall vision for the city of Moose Jaw? 

A: I think the better question right now is, as a safety consultant, how are we going to adapt to the pandemic? With the cases rising right now, I don't think that we should be looking at when the pandemic is over, I feel like we need to be working on ‘how do we adapt to our new normal right now’. This pandemic could last for another year. We don't know. We don't know what is going to happen when the winter months hit with this pandemic, so I feel instead of looking towards the time that it's done, I think that we need to focus on how we adapt and how do we help our downtown businesses adapt to this new normal of online purchasing. How do we think outside the box to work on events that are safe and could still bring money to our city? How do we develop in the middle of this pandemic? As a safety consultant, I don't see this pandemic ending soon and I would rather focus on what can we do while the pandemic is going on in our community. To have ideas and committees even, or people in the area that are experts on thinking outside the box, and focusing on how we can still keep our economy growing while this pandemic goes on. 

Q: What is your overall vision for the city of Moose Jaw? 

A: I would like to be able to say that residents have a voice and that we are heard. I am not against development. I am not against economic growth. I am not against bringing in businesses to help the economy. But what I really feel is needed - if you read the census and what our population in the city is making, 63% of our population makes under $80,000 a year. I believe in development, but I also believe in working with what we have, and I feel that if our residents and our housing and our communities are improved, then that will bring people to our community. I feel like we need better jobs here and higher-paying jobs because a lot of our population are making under $80,000. We need to work on affordable housing for the people that already live here instead of focusing so much on bringing people here. We can't bring people here right now. Our infrastructure is falling apart. We don't have high paying jobs. We do need that development in business, we need more businesses here, we need to support our downtown businesses, we need to support all of our businesses and create a culture where people do want to come here. My platform is more about focusing on the houses that we do have here, improving them, improving the lives of our residents who are already here. I'm a single mom and I probably will never be able to afford to buy my own house here, and that's unfortunate, and I'm not the only one. Our average house here I believe is up near $250,000. There's a lot of residents in this town that will never be able to afford a house like that. So, I really think that we need to focus on keeping our residents happy and working on what we have. 

 

Election day is on Nov. 9.

*(Some answers have been edited for clarity and length.)*