Municipal District of St. Stephen Ward 2 Candidate Aelia Virdaeus
1. As candidates, what would be your key priorities over the next four years in your community?
My biggest focus will be on exploring ways to make life more affordable for the people in and around St Stephen. I would like to help push the provincial government toward establishing publicly-owned alternatives to for-profit grocery stores. The cost of living is becoming untenable and will continue to stagnate our economy as people are forced to devote more and more of their income to just the bare essentials.
I also believe building community is more important than ever in the current economic environment. Our community contains a diverse collection of people with a wide range of skills, experience, and knowledge and I believe we can be a healthier, more robust community by fostering connections and helping people help each other.
Finally, I would like to continue to help improve life in the St Stephen area by supporting investment in improving critical infrastructure.
2. How would you achieve those priorities within your mandate?
New Brunswick already has a logistics network to support cannabis and alcohol distribution across the province. I hope to build support by connecting with mayors and councillors across the province to advocate for this idea. Part of that advocating would be researching as much as possible about what implementation might look like.
To help build community, I want to continue to support the existing programs in our area that brings people together. Programs like the Charlotte County Time Bank, Neighbourhood Works, and the Fall Fair are a few examples of programs and events that bring people from our area together. I want to support those programs so that they can continue to foster community. Public spaces like the Garcelon Civic Centre are also critical to strengthening our community and I want to support them in any way I can.
3. How will you ensure transparency and accountability in council decisions and communication with residents?
I believe that everyone should have easy access to the information shared and decisions made in their municipal governments. I want to stay accessible and approachable to the community, so I’d like to try to attend as many public gatherings as possible and speak with the members of our community. Our democracy has weaknesses when it comes to accountability after the election is over, and I never want to take the trust of the people of our community for granted. I work for them, so staying connected to the community is extremely important to me. I can’t represent people that I’m not connected to, so I plan to be out and about and always ready to chat and listen.
4. What is your approach to managing growth and development while preserving the character of the community?
It’s always going to be a bit of a balancing act. Our downtown corridor is absolutely beautiful and it’s been a shame to see some of the older buildings torn down. If possible, I would like to try to preserve and maintain our older, defining features as much as possible while still bringing in the things that encourage a healthy community such as locally-owned shops and beautful public spaces. I don’t think there’s any one way to strike that balance, so it’ll need to be approached on a case-by-case basis with long-term impact taken into consideration.
5. What is your position on property taxes, and how would you balance affordability with maintaining services?
Property taxes are clearly a necessity to help maintain our public infrastructure and perform maintenance, but we’re also living in a time where affordability for the working class is at an all-time low. I don’t want to see property taxes increase, so I think it’s more important than ever to be mindful about how we spend public money to ensure we’re getting the most value for community members. Modernizing and building robust infrastructure that will last is my priority over short-term solutions that inevitably cost more in the long run. I think it’s also important to invest in programs and services that will help those who are at the most risk due to the current economic climate.
6. Why are you the best candidate to represent your ward, and what experience do you bring to the role?
I wish I could say I’m experienced in the realm of politics. I’m not. I try my best to stay current with what’s happening at the municipal, provincial, and federal levels because those are the places that have the most immediate effects on the day-to-day lives of me and everyone in my community. I spent close to a decade as a teacher, so I’ve developed skills and experience in communicating with and educating others. I also have a background in technology. I have worked as a programmer for the past few years where a big part of my job is trying to find creative solutions to problems that balance a variety of competing factors. I hope to bring these skills to council to find solutions to the problems faced by our community and effectively explain potential solutions.
Each candidate was provided with the same six questions and equal limits on response length and time. Candidates who did not have publicly available contact information through Elections New Brunswick were required to contact The Courier in accordance with its Municipal Election Coverage Fairness Policy. Candidates who did not respond or declined to participate are noted. Failure to participate will not result in additional coverage elsewhere in the newspaper.
