John McTaggart has been a business owner, a board member, a volunteer and, for the past two terms, a member of the Town of Fort Frances Council. Now, he is making his bid for the mayor’s seat with promises to build up the town’s economic opportunities and housing supply and give the public a clearer look at, and more input into, municipal governance.
McTaggart moved to town in 1977 and has been woven into the fabric of the community in various ways, from the business world to sitting as a board member for events like the Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship, to leading Riverside Health Care’s “Care Close to Home” campaign, which worked to raise funds to support renovations to La Verendrye General Hospital and the Emo Health Centre.
Having almost served two full terms on Fort Frances Council, McTaggart shared that advice from his late father encouraged him to take the next step and throw his name into the ring for mayor.
“I’ve thought about it for a long time, and there are some really good things happening in the town, and I think I can help with the leadership,” McTaggart said.
“My dad’s advice is ‘be kind and have no regrets,’ and I generally try to be a kind person, and the ‘no regrets’— that’s good advice. When [my wife] Debbie heard that, she said, ‘You know, if you don’t do this, you’ll have regrets.’”
In his work, board and volunteering experience, McTaggart said he has relied on others working together to help him achieve his goals, something that he said would be paramount to being successful as a mayor and working with council.
“I worked with really, really awesome people; I was blessed with fantastic people,” he said.
“I ran a business that was multi-locational, I had to count on my managers, so I depend on people to do their job. I give them freedom to do their work, but I keep an eye; I watch, and so I have the leadership skills, and I can get people to work as a team. And council needs to be one big team, and council and administration need to be another team. Those are really key points to making the community better.”
One area McTaggart sees as lacking in the current council climate is the earlier decision that was made to do away with executive committees, including the recently-returned Committee of the Whole, which he said has not led to “good discussion and decision making,” pointing to the abandoned meetings as the opportunity for council to more thoroughly and thoughtfully examine ideas or options being brought before council.
“If I’m mayor, I will push to have some form of executive committee also,” McTaggart said.
“We need to have that open discussion that allows for ideas to be brought to the agenda, vetted, discussed, tossed, advanced, whatever. We don’t have that opportunity. Our council procedural rules restrict how we can perform at council, and it hinders good and open discussions and just decisions being made. So I want to see that changed, and I think it will offer a better chance for members of the public to engage along the decision-making process.”
McTaggart said he sees the municipal government as the one closest to the people, and so he said he wants his tenure as mayor to reflect a government for the residents of Fort Frances that is engaged with, and responsive to, the community. Especially as the community is where some of the big issues that council needs to address will come from.
McTaggart hails from Atikokan, and so he’s well familiar with the decline that comes hand-in-hand with losing industry in a small town. He said he saw the decline in Atikokan when the mines left the area, and with Fort Frances losing its mill more than a decade ago, McTaggart said he will work to bring back economic independence for Fort Frances through industry for the community.
“We have been very fortunate that as the mill went down, the mine came up, and we didn’t get a blip,” he said.
“Now we need to keep the mine running, and hopefully the OSB keeps running, but we need to find that economic generator in Fort Frances for jobs, for tax assessment, and for our economic future. I think we have something to offer. I think administration has been working on some things coming for the community. The solar project, biomass, biofuel, those will give us jobs, they’ll give us assessment, they’ll give us some economic independence that we’re after.”
McTaggart also said he can see other industry opportunities for the town, but that in order to capitalize on them, the town also needs to address the housing crunch. He noted that some progress is already being made on that front with the 24-unit complex being planned for the Shevlin Woodyard development, and that the completion of the building could have a ripple effect in the wider community as the homes of those moving to the new units will then be put up for sale.
But McTaggart also sees other opportunities to address housing in the area through capitalizing on un- or under-used properties in town, suggesting that derelict, abandoned, or empty buildings could be quickly developed with modular housing into smaller, more affordable residential units. He also said the town needs to approach developers who are completing apartment units in places like Winnipeg to find out how to make that same success happen in Fort Frances and then needs to do the groundwork to get Fort Frances shovel-ready for these types of projects.
“We think there are lots around that we could be putting apartment buildings on that are going to help the service industry, the hospital, Rainycrest; they need places. We need homes in the community. We should start on homes now because the industry is going to come.”
Fort Frances is part of the larger district, and McTaggart said he’s also a believer in “what’s good for the district, what’s good for the First Nations is what’s good for Fort Frances,” and he will strive to continue to build relations with neighbouring communities and First Nations, while working together to bring in projects like the mine that benefits the wider Rainy River District.
“We’re never going to have a gold mine in Fort Frances,” he said.
“We’re never going to have farming in Fort Frances. But the District has them, and what they do helps Fort Frances. Fort Frances offers services and other things that help the District and First Nations, so it’s important that we continue to develop our relationships with every First Nation, municipalities in the District, because it works both ways.”
McTaggart said he’s excited for the future of Fort Frances, and sees plenty of opportunity for the town and its residents, owing to incoming new faces on council and in the mayor’s seat, which he believes will bring new enthusiasm, new ideas and new contributions to the town.
