Bob Pearce

Hometown: N/A

Embarrassing playlist song: I’m not really embarrassed. I’m just sort of out there. I’ll dance to anything I tell the kids, just play a song. I’m sort of a freelance, I don’t choreograph nothing anyways, so just put a song on and we’ll dance.

Why do you want to be mayor of Regina?

My leadership by example, which will inspire all to become the best they can be.

Homelessness and its effects can be seen across Saskatchewan, although it’s not a direct municipal responsibility. How do you intend to tackle this issue?

By my example. We will all do unto others as well as we want done unto ourselves, and homelessness will end.

Once we take responsibility and realize that whatever we do to somebody else we are doing unto (ourselves). Like taking ownership of the people, because they’re all our brothers and sisters.

What makes you hopeful?

That’s something I call the matrix of mildness, and it combines some Bible verses. 1 Corinthians 13:13, and two, 1 Peter 5-7.

When I come out to people, I have faith in them that faith leads to virtue, which leads to knowledge.

I have faith in your ability to do your job, in your virtue, your knowledge, you’ve been tempered. You, as everybody else, has gone through a lot, temperance, centred in hope — that is the centre point, which has led to patience.

We’ve all gone through a lot, and one of the verses says we should be thankful for all the things we go through, because it adds to our faith which builds our patience and makes us perfect and whole, wanting nothing, which really aligns with Buddhism.

And when we want nothing, we’re thankful for everything. So really, the key is really people forgiving the past, things that have happened — forgiveness and thankfulness.

Regina has some major projects in its future, from libraries to pools to arenas, and it’s taking on debt to do those projects. What do you think is the priority for the city, and how do you intend to pay for it?

Our priority should be — before we’re thinking about libraries, pools and arenas — we should be concentrating on the best food, clothing and shelter for everyone.

Free distilled water for drinking, bathing, showering and swimming. Once that happens, our bodies are going to be more able to function properly in terms of us thinking together as a group to find out what the game plan is down the road.

When you talk about arenas, I think it’s really important that we stop watching other people.

I found with young people, for example, come to me and say they can’t dance. And I say, ‘well, everybody can dance.’ But it’s the comparisons, you know … not comparing ourselves to other people. Compare ourselves to ourselves become better every day.

Let’s not focus on the libraries, the pools and the arenas right now, because those are entertainment things, those are recreation. What we have to do is focus on re-creating ourselves. So rather than recreation, how about re-create ourselves? Make ourselves the best that we can be, and see what we can do for other people in terms of building up our community as a whole, and getting more in contact with one another.

Do you have a talent that few people know about?

Changing negative energy into positive energy — I think they might know that anyways.

(I) used to play a game with my daughter  — throw me out the most negative thing you think of and I’ll put a positive slant on it because any negative, even a mistake we think we made, is usually the biggest thing that makes us grow. Even in sports, winning a game you don’t learn anything from that. When you lose a game, you try to make yourself better.

If you can have just one superpower, what would it be, and why?

The healing ability of Jesus … I visit in the care homes. I helped out in the veterans’ ward at Wascana Rehab, before COVID hit and the Veterans Affairs stopped fighting the Red Cross for this beautiful program.

There were about 12 that (were) living and there’s only four left, and they died of loneliness which is really, really sad — and so many of the people died of loneliness.

So, I guess, the healing ability because, you know, to do with Alzheimer’s, dementia, Parkinson’s. I’d just like to be able to walk into Wascana Rehab and into the hospitals, into the care homes and walk everybody out.

What are the top three things that you would want to begin to address in your first 100 days as mayor?

There’s more than three, but I think this is probably the thing that is most important to me:  visit with every person in Regina, from the homeless to the wealthiest, finding out their natural gifts and then finding what we can do together as a community. Bring the gifts to the table.

When it comes down to what I believe, it is if we each give a little bit of our time in terms of our natural gifts to the community in whatever way that might be, we won’t have any taxation anymore.

There was a king back in the days, I won’t mention what book it came from, but he basically said, we don’t have taxation here because we work with the people, with our hands.

The first 100 days is not a lot of time to visit with every person in the city. So I want the families to come in and talk to them and find out about them a little bit, and find out what their natural gifts are in their heart, and then just go from there and see how we can all serve one another to the best of our abilities.

As our city’s population continues to grow, how do you plan to address the challenges that this growth brings to areas like infrastructure, housing and public services?

My background (is) in engineering … and I know most of the people in different industries, but what we want to do is make everything in the city lasts 1,000 years, so there is no more cost for infrastructure, housing, public services.

I could tell you what things shouldn’t be made of. I mean, some of the people that make some of these things aren’t going to be happy, but in the same sense, we’re gonna look after the city, make everything last 1,000 years, and then we’re good to go.

Municipal voter turnout is historically quite low in Regina. How do you think that you can better engage residents so that they actually get out and vote.

I think it’s important that we let everyone know that their voice will always be heard, but we will always act in the best interest of the community.

Looking back, what would you tell your 21 year old self?

I would say “you were in a positive energy bubble of unconditional love from birth to 21. From 21 to 65 the patience of Job is your exercise.”

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