Forty-three year Thompson resident Colleen Smook says the incoming council need to do more to get people involved in city government and her approachable style makes her right for the job.
“We have to find way to get people and that’s the biggest challenge, find a way to get the people of Thompson out so they make the decisions, they don’t just complain about the decisions after they’re made,” said Smook, owner of McCreedy Campground for the past 21 years and the mother of seven children born in the city, and a grandmother to 18 kids, some of whom live in Thompson and some who live elsewhere. “They have to be part of it. We need to involve our youth more in our plans, we need to involve our seniors more in our plans. I think we have to go back to the people that have served us well through their work or government or whatever and get their expertise in making our forward plans.”
Smook, who came third in her campaign for mayor in 2010, says she is happy overall living in Thompson.
“I just feel that Thompson is a great place to work and live,” she says. “There are definitely a few things I would like to see different in Thompson as I go forward but in general, I’m very happy here.”
The key to being an effective councillor, and to council as a whole being effective, is communication and consultation, Smook says.
“We won’t always agree but I think if we do listen to people from all sides and let people know what’s happening before an issue gets to the boiling point or that they’re fighting on either side, I think that’s important, that we listen to both sides first before any decisions are made,” Smook says. “If I hear there’s an issue that a certain segment is having I would approach those people first before I talked about it to see what their issues are and tell them what else I’ve heard around so everybody is on the same page.”
That approach would apply to the issue of homelessness.
“I have been told that people should not be asked where they’re from because it would be like asking me when I’m in Winnipeg where I’m from but I do know a lot of these people through guiding fishing lodges and hunting camps and I do know they would like to go home to their home communities,” said Smook. “Sometimes it’s just a matter of the $400 airfare is the only barrier and when they do get back to the communities there’s nothing to do there. What we have to do is work with the outlying communities, find out what kind of support we can be to different places in order for the people, not to want to go home, to be able to go home. Or if the people want to be residents of Thompson, then we have to work with them so that the expectations and rules of Thompson are the same for them as they are for everybody else.”
