Founder of the Underground Gym & Youth Centre Peter Panetta is vying for the city’s top job once more.

For almost three decades Panetta has worked to provide opportunities to children and youth through the chance to play sports, participate in arts and music, and eat free meals in a safe space.

“Last night, there must have been no less than 35, 40 kids there and they were just having the time of their lives,” says Panetta. “They’re doing whatever they want and they’re happy and they’re safe. And that’s what the Underground is all about.

Panetta has entered the mayoral race hoping to shine a light on children’s issues, which he says is “the only way we’re going to be able to stop crime, drugs, homelessness. All of it is connected in one way or another, and I think it’s through the children.”

He argues that his model for helping keep kids off of the streets, “causing havoc, vandalism, and whatever else they do,” is proven to work and should be applied all around the city, and particularly in areas where kids have less programming available, such as County Park and Limbrick.

The mayoral hopeful believes that stopping the flow of drugs into Thunder Bay is almost impossible, and thinks focusing on preparing children for the world’s challenges is a better way to prevent them from getting caught up in a life of addiction and hardship.

On public safety, he is advocating for the development of a neighbourhood watch as a model for community policing.

He even wants to see a sort “sub-police force” of trained civilians with the ability to make arrests.

Panetta suggests that in neighbourhoods, “everybody knows everybody, so if they see something that’s just not right, maybe we could stop the trap houses from happening because they’ll know that there’s a whole bunch of people going in and out that don’t belong. And that’s when you bring them in, and if they can’t handle the situation, then they call the cops.”

When it comes to the city’s response to homelessness, Panetta is not opposed to the idea of something like the Temporary Shelter Village, though he is concerned about how it will function the winter.

He believes a better approach would have been to copy cities like Minneapolis and Winnipeg in building their shelter villages indoors, inside a large warehouse or an old hotel.

“Inclement weather can affect individual buildings,” says Panetta. “If it was inside a building, it would really make a big difference, I think, and be much more controlled.”

With the housing crisis occupying much of the discourse in the election, Panetta makes clear that he is “completely and totally against” the use of green spaces for housing developments.

“These developers are building these huge apartment complexes that very few people can afford,” he explains. “It’s not affordable housing, unfortunately, and that’s what we need more of.”

One of the city’s largest capital projects over this term of City Council was the Tbaytel Multiplex, which will cost the Thunder Bay more than $36 million.

“I’m completely against the turf facility,” says Panetta of the project. “I’ve been from the beginning.”

He criticizes the fact that a small “special interest group,” the city’s soccer community, was able to leverage so much city money for a project that he worries will not benefit the sort of kids that the Underground Gym works with.

“I don’t know where and why we are not helping out the community that really needs it,” says Panetta, and points out that the money could be used for something like his neighbourhood watch model, or more shelter spaces.

“I’ll even go one step further,” he adds, “I would use that facility to house the homeless. I would put them in there and put in little houses or individual units for them to stay. That’s a perfect location actually.”

“I know it’s extreme,” he continues, “but… why is it that the well-to-do always get their way?”

Panetta suggests that the city is better off spending money on the maintenance of crumbling infrastructure and old buildings, rather than large capital projects.

“Have you seen Simpson Street? Have you seen Victoria? Have you seen May Street? That’s where they should be spending their money.”

He wants voters to think of him as the change candidate.

“If you want real change, I’m the only one that’s going to be able to give you the real change. I’m the only one that’s going to move Thunder Bay out of the crime capital of Canada,” says Panetta. “We have such a bad reputation in Canada. Put me in there, we’re going to get a reputation for the biggest turnaround a city’s ever known. I’m a very, very determined person.”

Ontario’s municipal elections are set for October 26, 2026.

More information about Thunder Bay’s election can be accessed on the city website.