As a business owner, council candidate Duncan Wong says he'd bring a pragmatic approach if elected, believing that the most important thing of all is to make the city a business-friendly place to attract investment and improve the economy, which will benefit the city in the long term.
“Thompson is doing OK but it just needs a bit more transparency,” says Wong, originally from Malaysia and the owner of Wong's Asian Bistro restaurant as well as a construction company. “I think development is going OK but not up to what I'd like to see because I don't see any attraction for new investors coming to town, probably because of the tax reasons, or the utility reasons. If I get elected, I'd like to focus into those kinds of directions, which is to make Thompson become a business-friendly town.”
For Wong, attracting investors is the foundation on which a strong economy and city is built. New businesses create new jobs, which means there are more consumers spending money, which grows the economy and generates more tax revenue for the city to spend on projects to improve the quality of life.
“It's all a chain reaction,” says Wong. “It's all together. You can't skip one.”
Wong believes his combination of experiences would give him the tools to function well as a councillor.
“I believe I have the knowledge to do it, based on my background, which is a businessperson, my culture,” he says. “Because I came as a foreigner, I do see the different system and hopefully I can utilize some of my knowledge from back home and implement it into this society.”
Wong says he hasn't seen much positive change in Thompson recently and he'd like to help ensure that things are brighter in the future.
“I want to see some changes,” he says. “I'd also like to see Thompson turn into a friendly town that people would like to stay in when they're retired. Basically, this happened in, I believe, the past 10 years or more, people started moving away from Thompson when they retired. So there's something needs to be fixed.”
One of those things is the amount of conflict between councillors.
“There's lots of fighting, lots of ganging up, that's why I'd like to see the changes, too,” Wong says. “To me, it's not going to work if everybody is against each other, or group against small group, it will never happen. Things will never get done. So basically we have to be open-minded, work together and make the changes. Whatever needs to be changed, whatever the people want to see changed, that's what we are there for.”
Wong watches costs and revenues carefully with his businesses and says the desire to spend money on something must be balanced against the amount of money available and whether there are more pressing needs to take care of.
“The tax, I'd like to see it controlled,” he says. “And spend it in the right direction. Don't spend the money we don't have.”
