Greater Sudbury Municipal Election, 2006 - Results - Councillors

Councillors

• Jacques Barbeau was president of Walden Minor Hockey before entering political life. He opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and wrote a letter supporting Canada's decision to remain out of the war. He was first elected to council in 2006, defeating incumbent Terry Kett in the city's second ward. Barbeau centred his campaign on improvements to roads and infrastructure.
• Terry Kett was a high school teacher in private life, and worked as a management consultant after his retirement. He was a councillor in Walden for six years, and was its mayor from 1991 to 1997. He also served for twelve years on Sudbury's regional government, and was a board member of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities from 1992 to 1997. In this period, he defended the interests of municipalities against the province on the issue of road maintenance. He opposed the amalgamation of Sudbury with neighbouring communities, as enacted by Mike Harris's provincial government in 2000. He considered running for Mayor of Greater Sudbury in 2003, but withdrew in favour of Paul Marleau. Kett instead sought and was elected to a seat on city council, representing its first ward. He was later named as Greater Sudbury's representative to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, and was re-elected to the board of that organization in 2005. In December 2003, he was appointed to the board of Greater Sudbury Utilities Inc. He opposed a money-sharing deal between the federal, provincial and municipal governments based on gas taxes during this period, arguing that the price of gasoline fluctuates too much to be a stable income source. In early 2004, he spearheaded a change in the management of Sudbury's airport. He opposed borrowing money for infrastructure spending, and recommended a cut in the 2004 police budget. He also led a successful campaign for greater community control of mental health facilities. In 2005, he argued that Sudbury councillors needed to be upgraded from part-time to full-time workers to maximize their job efficiency. Kett was narrowly defeated in 2006, losing to Jacques Barbeau in the city's restructured second ward.
• Doug Craig is retired teacher and principal, and a veteran city councillor in Sudbury. He was elected to the city and regional council in 1994, and was returned in 1997. He served as deputy mayor, and was acting regional chairman for part of 1998 following the death in office of Peter Wong. Craig supported Sudbury Mayor Jim Gordon's plan for the amalgamation of the Greater Sudbury in 1999. He also supported plans to build a multi-pad arena in downtown Sudbury, and opposed full deregulation of municipal shopping hours. He supported the construction of a Wal-Mart in Sudbury in 2000, and criticized subsequent legal delays to the project. Craig served on the executive of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities in the late 1990s. In 1999, he opposed a proposal for taxpayer relief of National Hockey League teams in Canada. During this period, he was also known as council's most vocal supporter a fundraising campaign centred around long-term health services. He supported the provincial workfare program, introduced by the provincial government of Mike Harris. However, in his capacity as chairman of the regional municipality's health and social services committee, he opposed the Harris government's harsh punishments on persons convicted of welfare fraud. Just before the 2000 election, he vocally opposed a plan to ship garbage from Toronto to the Adams Mine near Kirkland Lake. He was elected to the new council of Greater Sudbury in 2000, and was chosen as deputy mayor of the amalgamated city in January 2001. Craig underwent heart surgery the following month, but recovered quickly and returned to work in March. He was appointed to the board of Science North in July 2001. In November 2002, he was honoured by the Sudbury Multicultural Folk Arts Association. Craig contemplated running for mayor in the 2003 municipal election, but declined and was returned to council instead. He was appointed to the board of Greater Sudbury Utilities Inc. in December 2003, and became its chair in March 2004. Unionized workers at the utility went on strike later in the year, over the utility's plan to cut benefits to retirees. Craig argued that the change was necessary due to increasing health costs, and said that it would not impact on current employees. At one stage in this dispute, Craig accused two councillors who criticized his approach of being "in the pocket" of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represented the striking workers. A national CUPE representative responded that Craig was thwarting democracy. The strike ended after four months, when the union and utility agreed on a new benefits formula. In June 2004, Craig was presented with the Ontario Medical Association's Community Service Award. He also served on the board of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario in this period, and supported a 2004 agreement for AMO representatives to be present in federal/provincial negotiations pertaining to municipal services. In 2005, Craig led a successful bid for Greater Sudbury to host the next Ontario Aboriginal Summer Games. He was reappointed as a deputy mayor in July 2005. In August of the same year, he called for the province to sell local Hydro One assets to the GSU, arguing that prices were too high under the existing model. He was re-elected again in 2006, in the city's restructured ninth ward, and was confirmed to another term as chair of Greater Sudbury Utilities after the election.
• James Austin Davey is a chartered accountant and financial planner, and is an assistant professor at Laurentian University. He organized the Sudbury Save The FlowThrough Committee in 1988, taking part in a successful effort to oppose federal tax changes detrimental to the mineral exploration industry. He was elected as a city and regional councillor in the old city of Sudbury in 1994, and was re-elected in 1997. He initially supported the principle of a one-tier amalgamated municipal government for Sudbury, but opposed the provincial government of Mike Harris's decision to set up an unelected transition board that would carry out the process. During one council debate, Davey referred to the unelected board as "a committee of Conservative factotums". He later described the Harris government's amalgamation policy as a "failed ideological experiment". Davey was elected to the board of the Sudbury Arts Council in September 1999. He voted against a hiring freeze on full-time city employees later in the year, and supported an unsuccessful motion to deregulate Sudbury's shopping hours. He was a vocal proponent of an initiative to create a Ramsey Lake Community Development Corporation in 2000, and called for a tract of land on its eastern shore to be targeted for development. Like most other Sudbury councillors, he opposed a proposal for Toronto to ship its garbage to the Adams Mine near Kirkland Lake. He was elected to the new council of Greater Sudbury in 2000 following amalgamation. When the new council met, he strongly opposed the transition board's recommendation to have an appointed rather than an elected board lead Greater Sudbury Utilities. He also criticized Mayor Jim Gordon's campaign to remove the utility's chair, and called for an inquiry into the matter. Davey was the only councillor to vote against a "strategic business plan" for the GSU, arguing that the plan failed to take changes in the telecommunications and technology sectors into account. In May 2001, he supported a shift to a user-pay system on water and sewer rates. He coordinated the city's bid to take over Sudbury's Union Gas distribution system later in the year, while also calling for the city to sell Greater Sudbury Utilities. Perhaps somewhat ironically, he was elected to the GSU board as Treasurer in December 2001. City council narrowly voted to end the Union Gas purchase in March 2002 after an unfavourable court ruling; Davey described this as a "huge strategic error". He opposed the Harris government's changes to the Ontario municipal act in 2001, and criticized the government for not holding any public hearings in Northern Ontario. He also argued that councillors had become overworked following amalgamation, and called for an increase from 12 to 20 councillors. Davey chaired Greater Sudbury's budget talks in 2002, and introduced a long-range financial approach to deal with new costs following amalgamation. In 2003, he served as vice-chair of the financial & program accountability committee. He criticized Union Gas's bid for a rate increase in July 2003, and called for Northern Ontario to have permanent representation on the Ontario Energy Board. Davey was defeated in the 2003 municipal election, narrowly losing the second seat in Ward Five to Frances Caldarelli. He was re-appointed to a two-year term on the Greater Sudbury Utilities Board as a community representative in February 2004, and was subsequently reconfirmed as its treasurer. He was also elected to the boards of the Sudbury Metro Centre and Downtown Sudbury in the same period. In November 2004, Davey wrote a detailed opinion piece on improvements to Sudbury's budgetary process. He was appointed as chair of the Northern Ontario Grow Bonds Corporation in February 2005. Davey sought re-election in 2006, but was defeated.
• Janet Gasparini (born 1957) worked as a nurse for twelve years, and became executive-director of the Sudbury Social Planning Council in the late 1990s. In 1999, she championed a pilot project to help low-income pregnant teens use the internet to assist their pregnancy. During the same year, she was award a peace medal by the YMCA for her role in conducting workshops on racism and stereotyping. Gasparini was also elected to the Sudbury District Roman Catholic Separate School Board in 1994, and returned in 1997. She was its chair in 1998-99, when it was restructured as the Sudbury Catholic District School Board. Near the end of her term, she wrote an editorial piece criticizing the Youth News Network, which offered free computers to schools in return for requiring that students watch ten minutes of its news programming and two minutes of commercials every school day. She also supported the retention of junior kindergarten, as the only universal accessible program available to the children of low- and middle-income parents. Gasparini first ran for the Greater Sudbury council in the 2000 municipal election, and was narrowly defeated for the second seat in Ward Six. At a speech to the Elizabeth Fry Society in 2001, she argued that homeless, mentally ill and criminal persons were being "targeted for destruction" in modern Canadian society. She was strongly critical of the provincial government of Mike Harris in 2002 following the death of Kimberly Rogers, a pregnant woman who died while under house arrest for welfare fraud. Gasparini noted that the activities leading to Rogers' arrest (collecting welfare while also receiving a student loan) were not illegal until the Harris government came to power. During this period, Gasparini was social policy director for the group Justice With Dignity. She ran for council a second time in 2003, and won a seat in Ward Six. She was appointed to lead the Sudbury and District Board of Health in January 2004, and was later appointed to lead the Mayor's and Council's Roundtable on Children. In 2005, she co-chaired a panel that brought forward a comprehensive plan to improve Greater Sudbury's health by focusing on the promotion of healthy lifestyles and poverty reduction. She called for a pan on cosmetic pesticides in June 2006. Three months later, she declared that September 18–22 would be declared Sexual Assault Prevention Week. She was re-elected to council in 2006, in the redistributed eleventh ward. Gasparini was strongly critical of mayoral candidate John Rodriguez in this election, saying that his pledge to end homelessness was unrealistic and irresponsible. Rodriguez was subsequently elected over incumbent David Courtemanche, and Gasparini later criticized Rodriguez's decision to downsize the board of Greater Sudbury Utilities. She was re-elected as chair of the Sudbury and District Board of Health in January 2007, and urged the provincial government to provide assistance to residents unable to afford proper nourishment. Although she opposed a fair wage policy for Greater Sudbury in 2005, she supported it when it was passed into law in 2007. Gasparini was chair of the Ontario Social Planning Network during the 2007 provincial election, and lobbied politicians of all parties to devote more attention to child poverty issues. She remains the executive director of the Sudbury Social Planning Council as of 2008. In 2009, she announced that she will stand as a candidate for the Liberal nomination in the federal riding of Sudbury in the 2011 federal election.
• Mike Petryna has a military background, and was an employee with the Canadian Corps of Commissioners in private life. He was elected to the old Sudbury City Council in 1997, also served on the Sudbury Regional Council, and was deputy mayor of Sudbury for a time. He was elected to the board of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) in 1997, and again in 2000. He chaired the regional council's Public Works Committee in 1999, and complained that provincial grants had declined significantly in recent years. He also chaired an ad hoc committee to open an indoor soccer centre in Sudbury, and helped convince council to fund this project prior to the introduction of a spending freeze. He oversaw the city's budget talks for 2000, and in the same period chaired a committee to permit expansion for one of two competing arenas. Petryna was elected to the new Greater Sudbury Council in 2000, winning the second of two seats in Ward Six. Over the next three years, he chaired the Sudbury Metro Centre, the Downtown Sudbury Farmers' Market, the Greater Sudbury Accessibility Advisory Committee, the cemetery advisory panel and the Transportation for the Disabled committee, and served on the boards of the Nickel District Conservation Authority, the public library, and the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation. He was also re-elected to the AMO board in 2001 and 2002, and was appointed to the board of the newly-created Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC) by the provincial government of Mike Harris. In July 2002, he spoke in support of a proposed wind energy farm in Sudbury. Petryna initially sought the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario's nomination for Sudbury in 2002, but withdrew before the nomination meeting. He became Deputy Mayor of Greater Sudbury in 2003. Petryna was narrowly defeated in the 2003 municipal election, losing to Lynne Reynolds by fewer than 300 votes. He applied for a position on Greater Sudbury's Police Services Board in January 2004, but was passed over in favour of his brother, Dave Petryna. He sought a return to council in 2006, but lost to Janet Gasparini in the city's redistributed eleventh ward.
• John Caruso was born in Barrie, and moved to Sudbury for his education. He is a businessman in Greater Sudbury. Caruso served on the Sudbury Regional Development Corporation, and became the first chair of the Greater Sudbury Community Development Corporation in March 2001. In a December 2001 interview, he said that the group's key objectives included local education and training, support for local conventions, and tourist promotion in francophone areas. He later endorsed a local wind turbine farm, and called for Greater Sudbury to be declared a centre of excellence for mining technology. In early 2003, he called for the deregulation of Sudbury's shopping hours. Caruso introduced a comprehensive strategic plan in June 2003, entitled "Coming of Age in the 21st Century, an Economic Development Strategic Plan for Greater Sudbury 2015". Shortly thereafter, he announced his candidacy for Mayor of Greater Sudbury in the 2003 municipal election. He promised to make council function more effectively as a team, and called for key strategic investments in infrastructure. Caruso also said that he would negotiate with the provincial government for lower hydro rates, and would be willing to borrow from the province to conduct road repairs. He was endorsed by the Sudbury and District Labour Council. On election day, he received 4,693 votes (8.71%), finishing fifth against David Courtemanche. In late 2004, Caruso helped spearhead an image branding campaign for Greater Sudbury. His term as chair of the development corporation came to an end in June 2005, although he continued as a member of the board until 2006. In July 2005, he joined the board of the Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce. He was also chair of the Northern Consulting Group, and wrote an extended piece on First Nations housing needs in 2005. He was 54 years old during the 2006 campaign, and was working as an adviser to the town of Smooth Rock Falls. Caruso was skeptical of the provincial government's plan to increase the minimum wage in 2007, arguing that other means could be sought to transfer wealth to lower-income Canadians.