The municipal elections are fast approaching, and Eric Greer of Russell Township is one of seven candidates vying for one of the four councillor seats. Although he’s new to politics, he believes his experience of working in various volunteer positions around the township will lend itself well to the position of councillor.
“I’m young, bilingual, creative, ambitious, and was raised in the community,” he said. “This is my first foray into politics, but I’ve been volunteering throughout the community and the politics of negotiating with people and coming up with solutions is something I have a lot of experience with.”
Greer has built his platform around being as communicative as possible, advocating for town hall to become more transparent and inclusive with constituents.
“I want to support the town hall becoming hybrid so that way people can watch the live broadcast and engage, in a way that is more engaging than the way it’s currently recorded,” Greer said. “Ultimately my goal is to see the number of people running in elections, voting in elections, applying to be part of councils, increase. Some of the things I hope to suggest or pass to make that happen would be lowering the voting age to 16, implementing ranked choice voting, the hybrid town hall that I mentioned so people can watch from home and dial in, and pay people to be part of committees and eventually raise the salaries of council members.”
As far as existing issues go, Greer said that “roads are the most common topic that people discuss. To put it bluntly, our community is lagging behind in its funding of this infrastructure, of our roads, and we have a plan set in place right now to increase the taxation progressively over several years, but there are also several things we can do to maximize our return on investment for our streets.”
Greer indicated that he’d like to find ways to make the best use out of what the township currently has, such as “more community activities and support for community endeavours, like the rec centre. Some examples would be densification in the urban core, making our streets more friendly to walking and biking, and exploring alternative technologies like permeable pavement and community activities like block parties.”
In an effort to be more transparent with constituents, he has a YouTube channel and podcast where he discusses local politics with knowledgeable guest speakers. The podcast can be found at https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/local-pod-eric-greer-QFhOu-v4e_H/ and has several episodes, while the YouTube channel is found at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC39OKP6PLIUKVq4TXulmiDQ and only has one episode with guest speaker Pierre Leroux.
