Brian Robinson

Long time resident Brian Robinson comes to the Porch and discuss his bid for city councillor. He has a long history working history with the Saamis Rotary Club and collaborated with the City on many community projects. Brian’s vision centres on economic growth and quality of life.

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Transcript

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I'm 58 and I got lots of time on my hands. I can dedicate 100% to what I'm about to do, and, it's the right time. And so, you know, again, it's it's something I've always wanted to I've always been part of the community. I've always tried to, you know, lend my talents wherever I was needed. And, and this time, I feel that this is where I can. I can help the community the best. Now. This episode of Bring Back the Porch, brought to you by Bernie Lee, River Street Realty. Let's get you home. And joining me on the porch this morning is, candidate for Medicine Hat city council, Brian Robinson. Good morning. Brian. Welcome to the. Porch. Good morning. Brian. Yeah, nice to be here. Yeah. You and I were talking before we went on the air here about the decision you made or almost didn't make to get into this race, because you're stepping out of your comfort zone. You're stepping into something that the campaigning part of it is something that you kind of trepidation about it. How's it been going? It's been going great. And. Yeah, and you're right, it was it was, had to make a big decision. I knew I wanted to do the job, and I know I can do the job, but it's, it's the campaigning is is a total new move. You, adventure that I wasn't sure about. It's almost like a popularity contest. It is? Yeah. And it's always been there. Made me nervous. Yeah, yeah, but it's more about substance and popularity. It should be. I sure hope so. Him? Yeah. I was, the reception being on the doorsteps had been doing me a lot of doorknocking, Phoning, phoning colleagues and and business acquaintances. Stephanie, it's been a positive, positive experience for sure. Was there anything that pushed you into making the decision to become a candidate? No, not written as far as it goes. It's just something I've always wanted to do. You know, but there in the past it was busy business and all that. And at this time I was I'll be I'm 58 and I got lots of time on my hands. I can dedicate 100% to what I'm about to do, and, it's the right time. And so, you know, again, it's it's something I've always wanted to do. I've always been part of the community. I've always tried to, you know, lend my talents wherever I was needed. And, and this time, I feel that this is where I can. I can help the community the best. Now, you have a big booster in your corner. David Carter, former MLA, speaker of the Alberta legislature. He tapped me on the shoulder a couple of weeks ago in Costco and said, you have to get Brian Robinson on. He's a solid man, a solid candidate. So here we are. Yeah, I did, I did, if you follow Facebook, you know, we we've been part of Saint Margaret's Church for since its beginning. And, and David and I's 35 years we've been close friends confidence and, him and I these last few months or when we were working out there, we spoke a lot about this and my decision to run for sure. You have a history of being involved in service work. I think you were 21 years of age when he became a retiree. Yeah, I was. That's young to be getting into that kind of an environment. What what spurred you to do that? Came back from Saint and I want to I was funny, I was shy and, I'd gone into, in the class, there was a language in speech. And, you know, it kind of broke me out of the shell. And I was afraid that if I came back and I just went to work, I would lose it. So I joined rotary and gave me the opportunity that every week I had to go out of my comfort zone in my shell. And, and so rotary has been a big part of who I am and what I've done. And, as, as we, as we want to, as we grew as a business, you know, we, you know, you give your time, your talent and your treasure wherever you can, when you're, when you're in a service club or that. And and I was able to, you know, put my, my company and my talents and, and we did things like, you know, Sam's Rotary Park and we, us round up, you know, I've been the chair of us round up for 15 years. It's those two things are really important to my decision. When we did the park, we we did it with the parks department and the people of the time were were excellent to deal with. We we got along and and we achieved something, I think very good. Like Santa Rosa Parks, a gem and then when with with us round up, we work with the environmental utilities and like I've been chair for 15 years and we have a great relationship and we started out that we one of the members, not myself, went to the college and figured out that that, you know, electronics and that weren't really be disposed of properly. And so she she came up with the idea and our club supported it. And then she subsequently left town. But we championed it and took it on. And, you know, we identified that the waste needed the electronics. And then as a as our partnership grew, the city wanted us to identify other things. So like engine oiling and tires and so it became a collaboration and a partnership. And I, you know, working with those two departments has been so fun. And so I think, you know, I said I'm pretty good at this. So I, I really want a chance to to see if I can expand our, our whole that that collaboration between the departments is a great like we it's success was just perfect. There's an expression that says readers are leaders. And you were telling me before that you love to read. And if you become successful on October the 20th, you're going to have a lot to do. Yeah. It's funny, I love it's funny, I so construction so I love to read documents and I'm pretty like, you know, when you're if you're reading a document, you're searching through that document to find out what was missed, you know, and figure out, you know, how it affects you and how, you know, where's your advantage or your disadvantage in your bid. So I love to read that style. I'm not a novel reader, just so you know, but I do seem to I can read quickly. I can, I can, I can, I can retain what I need to technical documents. Yeah. So, so then as a city councilor, particularly involved in the energy and utilities division, that's a heavy weight on, responsive for a councilor. And we've had some discussion about whether maybe they should take some of that away, put it into a municipally controlled corporation. Have you given thought to that? I have, I, I, I mean, I don't I think what was, I think the, the table's been thrown in the last few years, I mean, especially the last six months. Right. The what's happened sources. The border was kind of just going and all that. So I think and I know I've, I've read a bit of some of stuff and I think that some of the, the assumptions that were made in, in doing this, are changed. So I really want it to be looked at again. And I, you know, the, the, the utility is, you know, it's, it's 115 years old, right? We've owned it that long. It's been a success. And I just I'd like to see if we can grow on it. I mean, there's I think we have time. I think we have time to to to try to to make it work. I am a history guy. Write a history guy. So I'm one for not one for certain things I would. I like to save them and make them make them good and make them usable and practical. For for today. You are a small businessman. And we've heard in this campaign people have been talking about the roadblocks and obstacles they face when they go to City Hall to try to develop something. What's your perspective been? We've, we've all had the issues. I know it has in the campaign, the campaign. I was, you know, talking to people. It's actually probably worse. You know, it's at least it's it exists because of the the amount of people that are, you know, having commenting on it. So, again, hopefully, what I would do is take the perspective that I have and hopefully get the chance to apply it around the table and maybe help make the change. Are the roadblocks medicine that made or did they come from other levels of government that impact? When the developer comes here and wants to do something, and there's this stack of documents that they have to fill out? I developed in other cities. I didn't just work in Medicine hat we around and and I'd, I'd have to say that other cities seem that they play with a different set of rules than we're doing. We have. So I would have to say that, other cities do different things than, than we do, and that maybe we should communicate with the other cities and figure out if we should be doing things that other cities are doing. So yes, I think that we need to. There needs to be a change. Yes. For years we used to hear that, it was the seniors in medicine that they didn't want to see the city grow, because that meant, you know, that there would be more people and they liked the lifestyle. But yet, I think one of the key planks in your platform is growth. So how are we going to sort of make everybody happy? Well, for that sort of business standpoint. And from the people that I talked to, growth says you can't just sit still. It does. It doesn't work that way in business. If, you know, this is how big I want to get and I'm not going anymore. The reality in business is that what you shrink it, that's you just you can't. You either follow opportunity or chase opportunity or you slowly just disappear or retire or whatever you want to call it. So and that's just a fact. And and so we have to follow opportunity when it's, it's there for us. And you know, we have lots of opportunity in medicine. You know, we're we have to sell it like we, we have great hospital, great schools. We have a great community. We have a great Stan lifestyle. I mean, I kind of like to think that, you know, in in the new trend of work life balance, we are that work life balance city in the sense that I could go to work, I could get off or you anyone you get off the job, you can take your kids to hockey. You can, you know, you you're only a ten, you know, ten, 15 or 20 minute, you know, from home, you know, you're not commuting for an hour and a half. Your, your whole team and your whole every day. Your every day is, is in the, in this nice, beautiful city. And we need to sell it and then we need to sell, you know, the advantages the, the schools, you know, look at what's happening. We have they're teaching airplane pilots are teaching drones. We're teaching, you know, the it's starting up smell is coming. There's they're teaching the new the new technologies and city needs to are we there. Are we willing that when these kids are you know, get their, their their their old growing, can we let them develop here, you know, like, agro foods. Right. A combines more combine or a tractor and that looks more like a video game now than a tractor ever did. Right? Drones. They're now using drones to spray fields. I mean, so when these and when these technologies and when these things, you know, are becoming stronger and stronger and businesses want to set up to to do that, to are we going to be open for it? Are we going to say, yeah, come on, let's let's get it done. What can we do to help you? Like, let's get this happening. One of the things that happens if you are stagnant is that the youth, your children, my children, my grandchildren have no opportunity in medicine that you were smoking, earlier before we went on the air here, that, you came up, graduated, I think, in 1984, and you always saw opportunity there. But maybe that opportunity has disappeared. When do you think it kind of turned? And what do we do to bring it back? Well, I mean, I think we were we were lucky. I mean, from 84 on, it was there was pretty much it was always a climb. Everything was everything was always up. But I just think that we have to go back to, you know, you know, where are we where, where it was. We have to just sell ourselves better and and be open for business and do what we do, what we we can to to to encourage, you know, business. But I mean, let's let's be clear, though, there's a lot of good things happening with us and there's a lot of strong businesses in Medicine Hat. It's just that, you know, we need to we need to to enhance it by, you know, some some new industry, some new new opportunities because, you know, they're the ones that keep the, you know, the build the businesses that, that support them, like the, you know, the hardware stores, the restaurants, the bearings, the, you know, the mechanics, you know, and we need, you know, these kind of that rotation of new, new to, to to keep the old here so that they're there to support the existing. Right. It's, you know, we we do see some business closing up that are, you know, the people retire and they don't replace them. And, and that's, that's bad because people are going to have to go elsewhere to look for things. Right. And so that's the growth we need. We you know, and maybe, you know, maybe a bigger industry. It would be nice somewhere along the line, you know. We've had candidates here who've talked about, you know, it's nice to try to attract new industry, but maybe we need to pay more attention to those who are here, those who are paying taxes right now. As a small businessman, do you feel you get support from the City of Medicine that on a regular basis? Tough question. Yeah, that's a tough one. I mean, as far as in my in the zone that I worked in and I don't know if it was a, I don't know if I needed that much support from it, you know, like, we, I'm, you know, we're pretty good at it. You know, we just need the opportunity. We need the fact that, you know, if something new wants to come in, especially in our construction industry, you know, you want the growth because, you know, you want to build the foundry like I was foundation contractor. So you want to build the foundation for that new business. So you know that that helps it grow. But, I, you know, homes like even home. So, you know, we're building a lot of homes here lately and things like that. So, I mean, all these all of these things are, are, you know, just just a steady, you know, a steady upward growth. I don't I'm not saying that we need to redesign the whole and rebuild the whole city, but a couple of new things in a, in a, in a, you know, kind of a growth and upward growth trend would be nice to see. That's one of the things you miss when you drive around medicine that you don't hear the hammers, you don't hear the saws anymore. I can remember a time in the 70s when Crescent Heights, one block would go up and then another block would go up, and it was just like they were marching across the prairies. And then everything kind of hit a roadblock. Yeah, yeah, we need to get back to that. Yeah. I just that's what I think because I mean, it starts with, you know, you know, come here. What can we do to make it better? What can we do to help? You know, what can we you know, because we need those new people, the new people to come to the restaurants. We need the new people to buy at the hardware store. And we need, you know, that sort of thing is it's, new. Yeah. It's if you're on city council, do you think you'd be able to work with the diverse group that you may end up working with? I think so, for sure. I mean, it again, you know, you know, in a when you're a contractor, you're construction, you know, you have a diverse group, you pretty much you all have your own personal agenda. But you, you come together and you work together, collaborate together to, to achieve the final goal. So I mean, it's it's I think it's, you know, not, you know, you're not always on the exact same page, but you get there in the end. Right? One of the things that people have been, talking about over the last couple of years is transparency, that the idea that maybe things in City Hall or agreed to behind closed doors and then they come out into their open session and they've already made their decision without any public debate. Do you favor that type of, I guess, operation? I don't know, I think that one's another hard one. I think that once you get to the table and you get to that to that level and you see both sides of it, I, you know, you have you probably have that you take in things that, you know, for protection. I mean, in the early days, the old guys with the old, the old guys who taught me would say, you know, the heart and soul of your your business is it's secret, right? And I don't mean that in a bad way. I mean it that, you know, something things that, you know, I, I just don't know, some transparency is good and some is, is not. I mean, I don't know, I mean, it's a really a complex issue. I mean, you have, you know, obviously you have all you have your confidential ability, you have these things that you have to deal with. And, you know, and I'm not one that's, you know, I'm not an advocate of just walking up and throwing the table over. So. No. Yeah. So from the outside it may look one way, but once you get, you know, into the inner circle, you can see the reasons why there's. That's that's what I mean. You gotta I just I think that like I said, I'm not one that's going to go and just throw the table. I think know. We have, an issue that we see every morning when we come into the downtown, we see the people who are homeless. We've seen, efforts to try to get, the mustard seed in a location. And so far, that has not come to fruition. Your thoughts on what might work. Again, I again, I'm it's not a level of my expertise that I, that I have. I think we discussed earlier, it's a, some days it's, you know, I come in and as you know, we're, we're downtown a lot are down on second Street and, and so, you know, some days you're angry and a lot of times you're sad. You see the, you know, you see see what what's you know, you look past the group and you see the individual and you go to the council. So I would again, hopefully, you know, we're, we're electing a nine, table of eight, you know, and, and through that, we can come up with, you know, solutions for Medicine hat on my basic so I, I, I, I, the, respect like this is our home. We have guests in our home that aren't respecting it and that, you know, so I, I mean, I'm an advocate of, of going like, you know, have a little more respect, you know, for, for, for the place, for what? You know, what we are and, and, and what, you know, what, what what we've taken to get the city to be what it is. You know, we we don't need to come in the morning and have to clean the sidewalks in front of our buildings, you know, and and I know that it's a personal experience on that. Right. So, and so that the agencies that that are, you know, that are tasked with this, this problem or this condition is, you know, we need to support them or work with them and, and try to figure it out. I mean, I get it that no one wants this in their neighborhood, but it's worldwide. This isn't this isn't a medicine. Our problem. It's it's it's a it's all over the world. When we talk about economic growth that's growing the tax base so we can afford to pay for the operation of the city and maybe make some amenities. But on the other side of that, spending that has to be under control, too. Are you a spender or are you a saver? I'm a saver. I, I want to see us try to to figure it out. And I had someone say to the other day that, you know, if, you know, especially, you know, taxes are up, the utilities are up and that and you're if you have a tight budget, you don't buy a new couch, you just sit on the one you've had for 12 years. And I think that that that's makes sense, that it's, you know, we have to we know that it's at least at this election, at this point in time, it seems to be a really it's a big issue. It's important to everyone. And I think we just stick with the old furniture we got and, and and try to manage it and, and try to find some, some savings and see if we can, can run some operations better and, and do it better. And I, I'd like to hope that, that the staff is, is wanting the same thing. I mean they still pay utilities. They say pay taxes are in the same. We're all in the same boat. And if we can do it more efficient, do it better. That's what I'd like to see for sure. Big ticket item is the same as solar project. The city has, dipped its toes into that. And, do you think that's something that should continue, or would you like to see the city divest itself of that? I'd like to see at least pin in it. Put a pin in it for sure. I mean, I understand that if you're attracting a large industry, the idea is that you can use the solar. They would be an advantage to in attracting that large industry to use that solar against their, you know, that's the that's the methodology behind it. And but I mean, I also know that in our area, we I mean, look at night, those flashing red lights, we, we have a, we we have a lot of capacity being generated already. So as far as on the basis of capacity, I don't think so. I think we should put a pin in it, but you'd have to you'd have to show the really good case of, you know, what is it? What is the advantage to the citizen, what you know, what is it really going to do for us? So I'm I'm going to put a pin in it. The type of guy. Okay. Talked about the old couch and the new couch, old couch I guess would be some of our recreational facilities that are aging. Yeah. There's talk about a new South Side recreation center. Would you vote yes or no on that? Probably at this time and with, with the proposed three and a half to 5% tax increase with the conversation that we have around these tables and stuff, I said again, I'd be, I'd be, a hold off on it person right now. We need to if we're if we're being honest about we want to save ourselves money. We, you know, are we are we about saving a budget? We both trying to find efficiencies. Are we about making it better for the citizens on their on their pocketbooks right now then I think a 3 to 5% increase is probably not the way to be talking. Okay. And another, organization with their hat in their hand is the medicine and exhibition and Stampede. They've come to City Hall a couple of times, and they've been sent back to do some more work. If you were on council and they came in and said, we need this money to expand and to, enhance our grandstand. What would your vote be in the, in the council on that? The other things that I'd use as a, as, a guide would be what, what what other sources of funding are you looking for? Where you'd be coming at it? I what other work have you done? What have you done? You know, again, you know, it's something that I know about, you know, that we, you know, we doing it. You know, we look for grant funding and things like that and not. So don't you can't come for the whole amount if you if it's a, if it's a levered and a balanced approach or, you know, if it's not too much, if it's, if it's a percentage that's a reasonable and, and you can prove, you know, prove out that, that it's going to send a really good benefit to the citizens. And, I think I probably support it. Okay. Your, campaign literature looks very familiar. It looks like something that the Progressive Conservatives used to use in Alberta back in the day. Was that by choice? No, it was by design. David Carter's design. I mean, that would be who I am. That group of that group of individuals is is is more. I'd slow with. You. Yeah. Did you have a political hero. David Carter? David Carter. Okay. Yeah. So then that would fall into, Peter Law. He did? Yeah. That that group of guys, I mean, you know, again, back in the times he lives in that group of of, you know, even Jim Hausmann as well. You know, all those guys were you know, they were they were in a time of, of, of of the greatness of Alberta, for sure of, of the beginning of greatness. And what do you think made them successful? What was the key trait that put them in control of Alberta? They worked hard for it. They got down there and they got it. They wanted it to work and they made it work. They worked hard. And that's what I hope to do too, is work hard to make make what I've been telling you, make what I believe work. You know. Listening, I think is a key skill as well. Yeah. Is that something that you are prepared to do, or are you going to tell people what you think? I don't know everything. I have to read and figure it out. So I, I like to listen to what's going on as well. And, you know, kind of kind of balance, you know, what I read and what I hear and, and then come with a decision that way for sure. Yeah. Okay. You are a candidate for medicine and city council. You have the opportunity here now to, to convince people their ex or their I guess you got the check mark on your vote here, but mark a ballot in favor of Brian Robinson. So why should I vote Ryan Robinson? Well, I again like this piece of paper says, you know, I, I wasn't born here. I came here when I was four years old. But medicine, that's my home. Every opportunity that I've had, I've, I've done to to hopefully make medicine had a little bit better. It's something I've carried, you know, throughout my life. And, I was I didn't want to ever be anywhere else. I was in Calgary for a couple of years to school and I knew I wanted to be back here. This is where I meant to live. And, and so right now, I, I, I ran a business. I raised a four children. I've had a, you know, I've had a great life in medicine and, and and now I have the time and the effort and the energy that I want, I want to give it towards to, you know, take the same thing that made me, that made this who I am, who who I am. I want to take the council and I want to I want to be a voice. I want to say something I want to, and hopefully I can say something and I can do something. Brian Robinson, candidate for Medicine Hat City Council, October 20th. Thanks for the visit. Thanks, Brian.