Keeping the momentum vs. a change of pace
Voters to elect one of two very different candidates for mayor
Peterborough has two candidates running for mayor in the municipal election on Monday: one will canvass this weekend, the other apparently will not.
Diane Therrien, 32, has been a Town Ward councillor for four years; she said she will knock on doors Saturday and Sunday.
“I plan to be canvassing right up to the end,” Therrien stated in an email this week.
But Daryl Bennett, who’s running for re-election after eight years as mayor, has other plans this weekend.
On Saturday at 6 a.m., he’ll be at work at the Liftlock Group, the companies he co-owns.
Then he has four public functions to attend as mayor, a gettogether with friends, a Sunday morning church service and a Sunday evening dinner with family — pretty much a normal weekend, he stated in an email.
He knows what voters’ priorities are, he said in his email: Construction of new neighbourhoods, public safety and property taxes, for example.
“Their priorities are my priorities,” Bennett said. “We want to build on the progress we’ve achieved together and sustain the momentum.”
That’s been Bennett’s campaign slogan: Momentum.
Therrien’s slogan: Expect More.
Peterborough voters get to choose between these two candidates on Monday, and the contrast between them during this campaign was stark throughout the last term of council.
In 2016, Bennett voted in favour of bringing a new casino to Peterborough because it would bring jobs and revenue to the city.
Therrien voted against the casino because it would compete with downtown entertainment venues and restaurants.
In 2017, he voted in favour of selling Peterborough Distribution Inc. to Hydro One because it would bring good jobs to the city.
She voted against the sale of PDI, saying she didn’t think there’d been sufficient public consultation.
Their backgrounds are also quite different.
Bennett was born and raised in Peterborough, but Therrien was not: she grew up in Mississauga and has lived here for eight years.
Bennett has 50 years of business experience: he is an owner of the Liftlock Group, a group of city companies that includes Capitol Taxi, Liftlock Towing and several other businesses.
Therrien has worked at the YWCA, Trent University and the Peterborough Poverty Reduction Network.
Her current job is city councillor: That and campaigning, which she’s done full-time since she announced her mayoral bid in May.
Their campaign styles — and platforms — are also quite different.
Therrien’s campaign message was typically forward-looking: she proposed to bring in a carshare program such as Uber, to reduce speed limits in residential neighbourhoods and to push for a green bin program.
Meanwhile, Bennett’s campaign speeches often listed the many projects completed on his watch: approval of the Lily Lake subdivision, for example (which Therrien voted against), as well as the reconstruction of roads such as Parkhill Rd. and Lansdowne St.
At a campaign stop at Gentry Apparel downtown on Sept. 26, he promised to have police crack down on downtown drug dealers.
“We will bring an end to the abuse of our downtown,” he said.
Therrien didn’t think that would help the city’s opioid crisis. “You can’t just arrest your way out of it — that’s not going to get to the root of the problem,” she said in an interview with the Examiner later that day.
She advocated instead for a drug rehab centre to help people as they struggle with addiction.
Regarding the lack of affordable housing in Peterborough, Bennett said frequently on the campaign trail that the city built “hundreds” of affordable apartments over the last eight years.
He also said the city shouldn’t be collecting property taxes from the entire population to help those in greatest need.
“We are not in the redistribution of wealth business,” Bennett said at a round-table discussion on social issues at Peterborough Square on Oct. 2.
Therrien spoke at the same gathering about putting more money into the municipal fund to help pay the rents of tenants who are about to be evicted.
She also talked about the need to build apartments and townhouses in new subdivisions — not just single-family houses worth $500,000.
“I’ve been strong in saying we need a variety of housing types,” she said. “And we need to figure this out: Affordable is not affordable for everyone.”
But Bennett said at a policy announcement on Oct. 3 that if elected, he would work with developers to build new neighbourhoods instead of working against them.
He made the campaign promise at a construction site on Lansdowne St. W. where three new apartment buildings are under construction.
When developers come to City Hall with proposals that meet all requirements, he said at the construction site, “I am 100 per cent behind them.”
“Instead of blocking development, we need to work with home builders while protecting the interest of the overall community — yes, the overall community,” he said.
He again mentioned the Lily Lake subdivision at that announcement — and how some councillors had voted against it.
In an interview later that day, Therrien said she’d been concerned about approving a subdivision of single-family homes. Townhouses and apartments were later added to the plan.
She said she’s not against growth.
“I’m for good development,” she said, meaning “a variety of housing types ... and innovative, accessible and affordable housing.”
Therrien and Bennett aren’t necessarily polar opposites in every way.
When asked about their first order of business, if elected mayor on Monday, their answers matched: they both said they’d talk to city councillors to suss out their priorities.
Bennett said he’d “engage” with councillors to hear about their priorities and then determine how to “move forward together” to improve the city, longterm.
“That’s the first step after the election to ensure we’re productive on behalf of the taxpayer,” he wrote in an email.
Therrien said she’d organize a council retreat.
“Council used to get together for a strategic retreat,” she wrote, also in an email. “That’s something I see as an early opportunity, to find areas of common priority around the council table.”
The municipal election is Monday. Polls in the city are open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and internet voting continues all weekend.