Longtime incumbent of Current River Ward Andrew Foulds is facing a new opponent in Stéphane Kuziora.

Andrew Foulds (incumbent)

Current River Ward’s representative, Councillor Andrew Foulds, works as a vice principal with Lakehead Public Schools when not at City Hall.

Foulds has been a fixture on council for twenty years, but still feels he has more to offer.

“My family and I have been such beneficiaries of the city… I feel it’s my duty to give back because I’ve been so lucky,” says Foulds. I think that everyone deserves happiness, success, joy, and a quality of life. And I really want to be a part of that.”

He says residents are living through a time when democracy is declining around the world, and people are losing confidence in governments.

“There will be some that are critical of debate and sometimes decisions taking a little longer than they should. And I would say, sometimes that is frustrating. But, democracy is messy and different views are good. Sometimes decisions may take a little longer, but often they come out a bit better,” says Foulds.

But he acknowledges that there are exceptions, such as the Temporary Shelter Village, which experienced a long back-and-forth of debate over its location; Foulds believes there were better choices for the village, though he also admits that the debate is now in the past, and the city can finally move forward with the location council ultimately chose.

“I know people are starting to move in and I’m looking forward to a little bit more dignity for those individuals,” says the councillor.

Foulds is proud of much of the work done by city council over the past term, and hopes the largest capital project on the docket, the indoor turf facility, will become an iconic spot over the coming decades.

“I know it is a bit controversial, but I’ll tell you, I look at the Canada Games Complex, and the tens of thousands of people that use it every year — we are so lucky to have that as a municipality,” he says. “Although the indoor turf facility may be controversial now, I’m hoping 40 or 50 years from now, people go ‘man, that was a good decision.’”

In Current River Ward, he is happy with upgrades done to Centennial Park and Boulevard Lake, with accessible playgrounds set up in both locations, as well as development on walking trails and roads.

But the new development at 791 Arundel Street is an animating controversy for the ward: Foulds opposed the rezoning and has many concerns about the project.

In general, he says that “we should not be developing in terms of urban sprawl. We have a huge geographic footprint given our population, and it is very expensive and inefficient to deliver services to such an expansive city, so we do need to develop on existing services.”

Foulds argues that tax increases can be more modest when the city builds more densely, as it doesn’t need to expand services like water and sewage to new areas.

Because the candidates for mayor in the election are themselves split on whether they would use Strong Mayor Powers, Foulds warns voters to think very carefully about how they vote.

He warns that a candidate might end up winning with 20 per cent of the vote, or even less because of how many choices there are, and could deploy “extraordinary powers… hiring, firing, vetoing budgets,” without an extraordinary mandate from voters.

Looking ahead to the next term, Foulds says “I don’t want to be the person that just festers on the negative. We have challenges and I’m up to meeting those. But I also want to be aspirational and hopeful. I believe this city is on the verge of greatness, and I would like to be a part of that.”

Stéphane Kuziora

After returning home from almost a decade spent completing a master’s degree and a PhD in Norway, Dr. Stéphane Kuziora, who wants to unseat Current River Ward’s incumbent councillor, was shocked by the homelessness crisis that has come to dominate Thunder Bay’s political landscape.

“It really spurred me to think about the ways I could help the city because it’s my hometown. I grew up here,” he says.

Though homelessness is casting a large shadow on the election, Kuziora is also very passionate about efficient transit planning, thanks to his engineering background.

“There’s so many inefficiencies in our transit system. It costs Canadians so much time sitting at a traffic light,” he remarks, adding that a friend of his jokes that “people live 60 years in Thunder Bay, have a great life, and the 10 of those years are spent sitting at a traffic light.”

Kuziora wants to see the city adopt roundabouts to replace many traffic lights, and if up to him, he would work to slowly build them out at key intersections all over the city, over time.

“Hopefully in the long run it will translate to people driving from point A to B in a quicker amount of time. And that quicker amount of time translates to people having more time to work, more time for leisure, just more productivity and happier, healthier lives,” he explains.

On the other side of the coin for transit, Kuziora is also looking at rethinking many bus routes in Current River, which he believes are “basically outdated. I’m going to push really hard on administration to justify why these routes are structured the way they are.”

Kuziora has made his own suggestions for ways to reroute certain bus lines, such as having the southbound path of line 17 go straight south down Grenville Avenue, rather than snaking back and forth through side streets.

“The more our busses are better at connecting to people and being efficient with the flow of people from point A to B, the more people are going to use the bus,” says Kuziora.

Though he approves of the idea of the Temporary Shelter Village, he has some serious criticisms of the way it was implemented.

Kuziora believes the village should have been built in an indoor warehouse, which would improve the quality of life of the residents inside.

“It prevents individuals from kind of socializing in more of a common area.. the only place that these residents can communicate is in the very specific community building that they’ve built, unless it’s a very hot beautiful day,” he remarks.

He also points out that with only six bathrooms for the 80 units, there may be problems, and moreso in the winter since those bathrooms require a user to venture outdoors from the warmth of their unit to use them.

“It’s going to be very inconvenient for these people who are already socially distressed, so I think we’re going to see a lot of bathroom use in the units or just immediately outside.”

Kuziora is strongly opposed to the development at 791 Arundel Street, and on a more general note, says “I don’t think we need to trade green space for housing when there are other places across the city that we can develop,” adding that “I want to be crystal clear, I’m not against development. I do think the city needs more highly concentrated housing developments, but not at the cost of green space.”

Though he initially stated he was in favour Strong Mayor Powers in some cases, after thinking more about it and speaking with other candidates for council in other races, Kuziora has decided that with a few very specific exceptions, like extreme emergencies such as from wildfires, he would be opposed to their use.

Kuziora hopes voters will support him because he believes he has a very clear and distinct vision for the ward, with plans such as designating the western forest of Boulevard Lake as protected space, paving new walking routes through the ward’s parkland, and the aforementioned ideas for redesigning bus routes and building more roundabouts to replace lights.

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

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