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Mitchell C. Howse thinks there needs to be a new perspective leading Regina.
“I just found that the local mayor and council, they wanted to put further restrictions on businesses in regards to lockdowns. They wanted to close further businesses above and beyond the provincial government and I disagreed with that,” Howse said.
“I pretty much disagree with 95 per cent of what city council and the mayor proposes and puts through. Just with what happened with Capital Pointe, the taxpayer got stuck with a $4-million loan because of some issues with the development not going through.”
Howse, who was born and raised in Regina, believes he would make a good choice for the next mayor of Regina because he would bring a different mindset to the leadership of the city.
“I’m not afraid to go against the grain,” he said. “I’m a fresh start. I think outside the box. I’m not scared to make tough decisions and do things that are unpopular.
“I’m going to do the right thing for the Regina taxpayer because the taxpayer can’t do everything. That’s why I want to get more community involvement so the community can get into the nooks and crannies that the taxpayer just can’t get into.”
One of those ideas involves how the city will pay back the $100-million loan from the provincial government for Mosaic Stadium. Howse said the city is losing about $6 million a year on the loan.
He would start with trying to renegotiate with the province for a better rate.
“Right now, the rate is 3.99 per cent. In 2014, that was considered cheap at the time but now it’s expensive in 2020. We can renegotiate and if (provincial officials) are not willing to budge, then we could do municipal bonds and then the fans and the public can voluntarily buy the debt of the city,” Howse said.
“That’s something we can look at further or we can go overseas with negative interest rates. We can go to other financial institutions over there and they would actually pay us to take out a loan so we could get a better rate and an even longer term.”
He also wants to lower taxes to help people and businesses recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This is a new economic environment that we’re currently facing. The lockdowns were the wrong decision as far as I’m concerned and people and businesses are suffering from that still and they’re going to continue to suffer in the future,” Howse said.
“Lowering taxes is just something we can do to help support them. In any bureaucracy there’s plenty of waste and we can go through department by department.”
Masks have become a hot-button issue in Regina and the province, with people for and against a mandatory mask mandate during the COVID pandemic.
Howse said he’s doesn’t want masks to be mandatory not because he’s against them, but because he believes people should have the choice.
“I think the smart people of Regina can figure out what’s best for them regarding their own health because health starts with the individual first. I think the smart people of Regina can decide what risks they’re willing to take and go from there,” Howse said.
And about those out-of-the-box ideas? Howse was trying to come up with a way to get an Indigenous statue, so he decided to have some fun and look at another campaign to get a statue in Regina from a few years ago.
“I know Deadpool’s a popular thing and I was trying to come up with creative ways to get an Indigenous statue somewhere in Regina,” Howse said.
“(Actor Ryan Reynolds) was willing to fund (the Deadpool statue) it sounded like, there was a petition going on, just a lot of popularity around that so I thought I might as well reach out to him through Facebook and say, ‘We’ll give you that Deadpool statue if you pay for it as well as an Indigenous hero to celebrate an actual real-life Indigenous hero from history.’
“It was just a creative way to find ways to do what I want, which is put an Indigenous statue up somewhere.”
He would also like to work on the city’s crime and drug issues as well as support businesses.
Howse, who graduated from Thom Collegiate in 1998, said he is self-studied in finance, language and law. He also said he has partial ownership in mining companies across North America.
But being from Regina, he wants to do what he can to help the Queen City.
“I feel like I have a good pulse on the city. I understand the city and the people fairly well. It gives me a definite edge,” Howse said.
The Regina civic election is set for Nov. 9.