With Westfort Councillor Kristen Oliver leaving City Hall behind, three new faces are seeking her seat: Angel Gamble, Clinton Harris, and Stephen Margarit.

Angel Gamble

Tattoo artist, skincare proprietor, and former pipe fitter Angel Gamble was shocked to see how Thunder Bay had changed when she returned to the city a few years ago, after more than a decade spent working in Alberta.

She is motivated as a candidate by a desire to bring back a sense of safety and community.

“Growing up in Thunder Bay, it was all inclusive. Everybody looked out for everybody. You could be out until 11 o’clock and not worry about your kid… Now I don’t see that,” she says. “I’m hoping we bring that wholesomeness back to our community.”

Gamble wants to bring compassion back into the discussion around homelessness and addictions; she says she was very impressed when she toured the Temporary Shelter Village, though she maintains that it won’t solve the issue outright.

She invokes her early career history as a social worker, arguing that proactive solutions are key for helping those out on the streets.

“We need beds locally, because we send them away and they go and get treatment out there, and then they come back here and they get traumatized again. They get triggered for all their issues, and they’re compounding their own traumas for what they do, while they’re in their active addiction.”

Gamble also worries about the speed at which the Shelter Village, and the city’s programs in general, can respond to the needs of those with severe addictions.

“When they’re ready to go, you need to get them then. When they say ‘I’m ready to get clean now,’ if you don’t catch them then, they’re gone for another year, six months.”

On development of green space for housing, Gamble argues the city is better off retrofitting derelict buildings, and infilling empty lots.

“There’s infrastructure already there. We may have to upgrade it, but we’re not taking away from something that we’re world renowned for… It hurt my heart when I heard some of these old oak trees were being like blown down for some development.”

Gamble is among a very small minority of candidates for Thunder Bay City Hall with an Indigenous background: she says she hopes she can make changes at City Hall to properly represent the community, which makes up at minimum 15 per cent of the population, but likely far more when going beyond the census.

“I know we have Alvin Fiddlers, we have NAN (Nishnawbe Aski Nation), we have Matawa, we have all these agencies, but we need somebody that’s in these decision-making positions,” she remarks.

Gamble wants to see an honourary council of Indigenous People working with the municipality, and feels that could help secure a lot of new funding for the city.

“We have millions of dollars that are at our disposal for us to get programming for housing, for infrastructure, for programming. We can utilize that to help benefit not just our people, but the citizens of Thunder Bay. And that would be a benefit for the whole city for us to be able to access that.”

Clinton Harris

Though he initially joined the race for Thunder Bay’s next mayor, Clint Harris decided to change direction, instead nominating himself as a councillor for Westfort, saying the decision “was driven by the need to support my Westfort community and do the work on the ground that has become my primary goal.”

Harris has spent much of his life as a presence on boards including the Thunder Bay hospital, United Way of Thunder Bay, and the Fort William Rotary Club, and worked for many years as the publisher of the Chronical Journal.

He touts both his business experience and his education credentials, including a PhD in behavioral science, as strengths of his candidacy.

But Harris is most driven by the crisis of homelessness and addictions on Thunder Bay’s streets, and is disappointed with the speed at which City Hall is delivering results.

“Watching the current situation with encampments and how long that’s taken, and where we’re still at now, after six choices of where [the shelter village] was going to go. Some things are Nikes, as we used to say… some things you just do it and get it done, and that’s not how things are done now,” Harris remarks.

Harris argues that the process of sending homeless individuals through arrests, through the judicial and jail systems, and back out again is simply more expensive than the alternative: “Housing First is the answer,” he says.

“Housing First reduces crime. They get a safe place to live. It reduces all of the things that come with living on the streets. Drug addiction, alcohol, crime, including murder. In the simple solution, the math says you’ll save money. Housing First says you’ll reduce crime. I don’t understand how this is so difficult for people to understand.”

Harris attracted some controversy early in the race for placing some of the blame for Thunder Bay’s homelessness situation on the Nishnawbe Aski Nation, since about 75 to 80 per cent of Thunder Bay’s homeless population is Indigenous, and many of those individuals come from northern First Nations.

“They’re leaving because they don’t have anything where they are. They’re suffering. No housing, no money, no water. They have nothing to look forward to. Some of them are asked to leave. Some of them try to go home once they get treatment, they can’t get back in.”

He says many individuals he speaks to on the streets from those communities say services for mental health and addictions, and housing services either don’t exist or move far too slowly.

“If you have that many of the people living in our streets that are coming from northern communities, there’s a reason. And that should be looked into,” Harris adds.

The Nishnawbe Aski Nation declined an opportunity to respond to Harris’ comments.

Harris touts his bona fides on the issue, as a man who works in his personal time to assist homeless individuals: “I don’t blame particular individuals living on the street. I am out there helping them every day, I have been for years. I talk to them, I clothe them. I feed them. I get them blankets. I don’t care who they are, I care that they get cared for.”

Outlining his volunteer work with organizations like PACE (People Advocating Chance through Empowerment,” he says “I show up. I don’t just talk… So in the end, I’m running because I know I can make positive changes.”

Stephen Margarit

With public sector, private sector, and charitable experience under his belt, Stephen Margarit has joined the race for Westfort Councillor hoping to apply that knowledge to take on the community’s challenges.

“I have that background of really making those connections with constituents and being their voice at the council table,” he says of his time working for former Thunder Bay MPP Mike Gravel.

Margarit is hoping to see the next term of council focus on residential road maintenance, which he says “has been left behind over the years. Some of them are in really bad shape and they need to get prioritized.”

He adds that many parks also need more funding for maintenance and revitalization.

“The city last term has really made some big ticket items, whether its Victoriaville coming down, the streetscape in the downtown north core, the indoor turf facility. Now that these things are coming off the books, I think we really need to take some of those funds that come in the budget every year and put them into maintaining the current infrastructure we have,” suggests Margarit.

With public safety and crime on everyone’s lips, Margarit believes more police patrols are necessary — but he points out that crime “doesn’t just happen in downtown areas, it happens all over the city,” so he wants to see patrols out in the neighbourhoods as well as the downtown cores.

He credits Westfort for maintaining its own commercial area: “Westfort supports Westfort,” he says.

But he worries that residents “are seeing a decline in Westfort and they really just want it to be well known to have a councillor that really represents them at the council table.”

Margarit opposes using green spaces for housing development, and believes the city should be prioritizing urban infill and densification, and working to bring more residents back into the downtown core as it revitalizes dilapidated buildings.

“Housing is a big issue, and I want to support housing, but I believe we have to make the right choices as to the location,” he remarks.

Margarit says being able to listen to residents is a key part of being a good councillor, and cites improving the transit system as an example of that.

“As someone who doesn’t use a transit system, I don’t see that every day. It’s about hearing those first-hand experiences of how we can make improvements,” he explains, referencing the need to update bus routes and ensure the city “is a good employer,” to address the ongoing bus driver shortage.

Margarit promises to be a visible, accessible, and committed councillor if elected.

“I want to be someone out there who’s listening, who’s having ward meetings, really seeing what are those issues affecting people and finding practical solutions. And people might not always agree with all my statements, but I hope that they’ll know that I’m someone who’s willing to listen and work with.”

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

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