Mayor Bryan Paterson has been involved in local politics for the last decade, and now that the 2010s are nearing their end, Paterson is looking back at the last decade and looking forward to the next.
Paterson was first elected mayor in 2014 and re-elected in 2018. Prior to serving as mayor, Paterson served as councillor for the city’s Trillium District in 2010.
As part of its 10 Questions series, Global News sent questions to the mayor to see how he felt about his past political career, where he stands on Kingston’s housing crisis and what he would like to see for the city in the following 10 years.
Q: What were you doing in 2010?
A: So in 2010, I was teaching full time at Royal Military College, and then I got this crazy idea about running for city council.
Q: So you just ran for council in 2010. That was your first year?
A: That’s right. So that election was in the fall of 2010. I think it was probably a bit early in 2010, where I first started thinking about it, knowing that the election was coming up.
Q: What were you hoping to accomplish as a councillor?
A: Well, I think what actually got me thinking is, I just was looking at some of the decisions and discussions that were going on around the council table and I thought it might be useful to have somebody with an economics background, being able to join in those discussions and provide some input and different perspectives.
So it was really more, I think, looking at what I thought was our potential to attract more jobs and investment to the city. That’s really how it all began.
Q: Obviously you’re mayor now, so we know it worked out, but do you feel it what is the right decision? Were you wrong? Are you happy with the way things have turned out?
A: I have no regrets. I always tell people this is the most interesting job that I have ever had. It’s very good. I’ve never been busier in my life, but it’s the most interesting job I’ve ever had.
I would say that although it was the economics piece that got me into this job, I’ve learned so much about the social services and about the cultural vitality of our city and about the environmental pieces going in.
I feel like my perspective has broadened tremendously, just being able to meet and to learn from so many people across our community in many different spheres.
Q: What do you think has changed the most in Kingston over the last 10 years?
A: I think it’s just the growth that’s happened. I look at everything from the Leon’s Centre, the expanded airport, the new international businesses that are here, Breakwater Park, the community centres we’ve built, all the new housing that’s come up, it just feels like there’s a lot. I bet if somebody hadn’t been to Kingston the last 10 years and they came back to the city now, I think that they would be amazed at just how much has changed.
Q: What do you think has been your biggest win over the last 10 years?
A: From my perspective, I think that the biggest win is securing the funding for the third crossing. I think that for many years that it was seen as a pipe dream and an impossibility. So to be able to secure that was, I think, a big win for us.
Q: What do you think was your biggest disappointment or miss?
A: I would say probably, it’s a disappointment — and it’s a miss, but I think we’re on the right track — would really be just getting downtown development right. We’re seeing housing and development all across the city except in the downtown, and so I think that that’s been a disappointment. At the same time, I’ve learned through the debate and the controversy about how we can take a better approach.
And to be honest, when we first started down this road, we were always just talking about the height of buildings and now we’re talking about the design and how they feed into the streetscape and how we can design buildings to enhance and improve the downtown.
I think we’ve grown a lot. I’ve grown a lot. I understand the issues, I think a lot better. I’m hopeful that we’ll make some great progress in 2020.
Q: What was the biggest thing to happen in Kingston over the last decade from the mayor’s point of view.
A: I mean, I think that there’s been a number of really big local debates. I think the downtown intensification, there is the debate over the Leon’s Centre when it went in, there was a debate over the casino, these are issues that have roiled our community for years at a time.
The one thing that I would say, though, that I think comes to the top of my list is basically housing. I can only say that because housing was a big issue when I first got onto council 10 years ago. It shows how it’s just one of those issues, it hasn’t gone away. It’s receded somewhat and then come back to the forefront, but it’s always been one of those issues. Housing is one of those things that I’ve been talking about for 10 years, and probably we will continue to talk about it for another 10 years.
Q: How do you think the makeup of Kingston has changed over the last decade.
A: I think just the number of new immigrants and people that have moved to the city, I think it’s changed the viewpoint of our community. You have people that have lived in other countries and all other parts of the world that are now residing here in Kingston. I think it’s created a more open-minded and a more progressive community where we’re just open. We’re thinking globally in Kingston, where I think maybe in the past it was more just thinking regionally.
Q: Looking forward, what do you hope for Kingston and the upcoming decade.
A: My biggest hope, honestly, my vision is to see Kingston as as a leading city in the country and beyond. And I honestly believe in that — just progressive, constantly on the forefront, new ideas punching way above our weight in terms of our size. That would be my biggest hope.
Q: What do you think the biggest challenge is facing Kingston in the next decade?
A: Probably the flip side of that. I just feel that and that with a globalized economy, as the world continues to shrink in that sense, I think that the competition among cities for people for business, for ideas, I think it’s going to become increasingly fierce. So I think our biggest challenge is going to be staying relevant on the global radar, and I think that’s something we can’t be complacent with.
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