By paNOW Staff

P.A. Civic Election 2016: Meet Josh Morrow

Oct 18, 2016 | 5:00 PM

Josh Morrow is a candidate for mayor in Prince Albert’s upcoming civic election. paNOW will post interviews with all four candidates before the election, Wednesday Oct. 26.

Recently the federal government announced each province will be required to institute a carbon tax by 2018, with the revenue generated going back to the provinces. As mayor of Saskatchewan’s third largest city, how would you like this additional revenue used?

I don’t believe that the carbon tax is gonna help our energy industry here in Saskatchewan, which is such a huge play. And as mayor all I can say is that I’m gonna be making sure that I fight as hard as I can to make an effort to get our fair share of the pie. And what I believe is that we haven’t really been fighting hard enough to represent Prince Albert in a way that we are getting our equal fair share portion of the pie. So as mayor, what I’m gonna do is make sure that I’m looking out for the interest of the citizens in the city, and if there is available revenue, I’ll be going after that.

And where I’d personally allocate that, I mean, we’ve got a lot of issues here in the city, and that’s something I’d like to really sit down, look council and decide on it as a team, because, again, it’s not my way or the highway. We need to work together and we need to build that team atmosphere in there and listen to the people (so) that city make the best decision possible.

The city has three streams of revenue of raise money for programs and infrastructure (user fees, property taxes and levies). If during your term as mayor a tax increase is required which of the three streams would you raise and why?

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Well I think this gets back to the point of over-taxation. I mean, our water bills are sky-rocketing. Our property taxes are going up. Our economy here is stagnant. And I think the most important answer to that question is getting more industry and creating an environment here that’s conductive to business and attracting business and offering things here in Prince Albert that no other jurisdiction can. And that’s the thing that we are gonna do to attract people, good people, entrepreneurial type people to our city, and in turn, I believe that’s gonna grow our tax base.

So I’m gonna fight hard to keep the taxes where they are. And everybody works hard in this city, and I wanna see those people keeping that money. And I believe that the city is not working for the people. And at this point I think that the city’s working against some. And I’m here for the people to make sure that their taxes are staying at the same level, and we’re gonna open up our economy and start getting some interest generated from that. 

As mayor, what would you do to address homelessness in the city?

That’s a great question as well, we… our office is downtown and I’ve had a great opportunity to meet a lot of the street people, and a lot of the people (are) struggling to define different ways of just getting by. Guy like me, you know, thinks in next week, the next year, and they think just day to day, and they think hour to hour. And one of them said to me, it was amazing, that why would I worry about tomorrow when I don’t know if I can get through the day? So what they’ve said to me is that they just want a place to go, they need a place to have a shelter. And I think that we really need to start looking at providing a place for them or looking at avenues to, just to have consultations with them, because it seems that nobody really wants to listen to what they want and take the approach from the street level up, it always seems to be coming from the top down. So what I believe is…just relationships and get on the street and understand the issues. And that’s something that I’ve really taken pride and throughout the summer, is meeting these people and listening to them. 

Does Prince Albert have issues with addictions?

Absolutely it does. Yeah, there’s no question about it. …In the next year or so we are gonna have over a million miscellaneous needles scatted throughout our community that haven’t been cleaned up. And that’s in your playgrounds, that’s at the street corners. And I think that what the most important thing…that we need to focus on is if we are helping these people, they need an avenue to excel through. And at the end of the day I don’t believe the opportunity is there that when people are working so hard to try to get these people helped out and encourage them to do better, at the end of the day we don’t have the opportunity for them to do anything different. And it’s just too easy to fall back in that trap.

So, yes we do have a huge problem with addictions, and that would be something that I would really like to start focusing on, is as a community, as a whole, and I mean that’s, the amount of support that we can get as a city just start curbing the addiction issue, it’s not gonna be done by one man, 10 men, 30 men, it’s gonna be done by our community effort. 

The federal government has announced that recreational use of marijuana will be legalized in 2017, with its distribution regulated by the provinces. As mayor, do you believe that legal marijuana will ease or increase Prince Albert’s addiction issues?

Another interesting topic. I mean, we can look at it from a point of, if you get 30 people in a room drinking, you know, there’s a good chance you are gonna have a fight. I don’t know if many places were 30 people in a room and smoking marijuana, that they are all fighting and being disorderly. So again, if it’s a federal law that’s mandated and comes down through the system and it’s legal… (it’s) something that our community needs to decide on is what’s our approach to it, and are we gonna accept it or we gonna deny it, and are we gonna work with it or against it. And that’s something, again, that’s gonna have to be run through council and decided on as a whole, as how we are gonna embrace the change in legislation. 

In light of this summer’s oil spill on the North Saskatchewan River, what will you do to ensure Prince Albert’s drinking water is secure in the event of another incident on the river?

I think that, I mean, I got to give a high five and a thumbs up to the city manager. I mean, he acted quick, swift, he did excellent job in mobilizing everything together, and obviously if that ever happens again, I think we are more prepared now than we’d ever been, because we’ve had the experience, we’ve learned from it, and I’m sure there’s a lot of improvements that are gonna be done because of this incident.

What I’d really like to see also is just the environmental regulations and, it may be pipeline inspections stepped up a little bit to hold those companies accountable, and make sure that they are following through with the regulations regarding, you know, pipelines and… Moving ahead I just want to be thankful that it never happened in winter, because if it did, we all being one heck of a predicament here.

So all in all, you know, short term, long term effects I think are still gonna be ongoing, and…it’s something bad had to happen, but we are gonna grow from that and I think everybody had a good taste to reality, to realize how precious water is and how important it is to make sure that our water ways are kept unpolluted. 

–EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was changed Oct. 19 at 10:59 a.m. to correct an error. The word ‘exile’ appeared where ‘excel’ should have been.

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