The Record sat with New West mayoral candidate Ken Armstrong to get to know candidate’s likes, top issues and beyond.
What’s your favourite book?
I don't know that I really have a favourite. I will admit, I read a lot of John Grisham novels, just as a release. But by the same token, I could read just about anything, whether it's Robertson Davies, a great Canadian writer, and a dean of literature at in Toronto, or something a little bit more light.
Yeah. My day job involves a lot of reading- whether it's reading file materials or reading case law, there's a lot of nonfiction reading in my day job. So the reading is in part a way to escape.
Does your favourite book choice reflect the political views you have?
No, no. Especially the John Grisham books, This rhythm of young, disillusioned lawyer tries to save the world and ends up sometimes literally sailing off into the sunset isn't really how it goes by any stretch of the imagination. It's just the only thing is, is it's, you know, half an hour to an hour at night just to decompress.
What would your first 100 days look like in council, should you be elected?
We've got a few things in our first hundred day plan. One of the things we want to do within 100 days is initiate a comprehensive review of our sports and rec infrastructure too, and start engaging with the relevant communities- the soccer community, the baseball committee, the sports communities at large, etc., to to make sure that we're both understanding what the current needs are; working proactively on to future needs.
We have a plan within 100 days to establish a joint school board and council liaison committee, which is specifically focused on forward-facing long term planning. Within the first hundred days, we're going to direct the engineering department to come up with a comprehensive plan to start identifying and fixing the streets and sidewalks that are in the worst condition. We know that many of our our streets and sidewalks are barely passable.
And we're going to start reaching out to the indigenous community and start engaging with them.
What is the one issue you are most passionate about addressing?
I'll tell you the two choices, and I will make a decision. The two choices come down to two public safety or infrastructure deficit. But for me, the infrastructure deficit we have in this city, both, as I said, in terms of, lifted sidewalks, pothole ridden streets, poorly maintained parks on the one hand and on the other hand, deficits in terms of public amenities. We don't have enough community centers, rec centers; we don't really have enough playing fields in this in this city.
So that could be my number one a priority.
Why did you choose Port Royal Park as the location for your interview?
So I'm a Queensborough Resident, and this park here is a relatively new park in Queensborough. When I moved in 2008, this was still bear land, ready to be built out. So it's a new development put on by the developers here. To me, being a Queensborough resident, it's symbolic of the growth in our city going on right here right now.
And as a Queensborough resident, I know the Queensborough residents feel like they're detached from city hall. And I know that residents in other neighbourhoods also feel that way. And it's important to me to recognize my home community, symbolic of the fact that I know every neighbourhood has to have a voice at city council, at city hall.
What do you like to do when you are not working?
Yeah, let's just pick on a typical Saturday morning. So in the fall, I'll get up- I’ll still probably get up before 7:30 a.m.. I'll check out to see if there's any English Premier League games on TV, whether my team (Chelsea) is playing or have already played. Watch a bit of that, have my coffee.
Eventually we'll take our dog for the walk and get on with whatever chores we have to do for the day. There's probably going to be a soccer game for my son's team somewhere in there. And then often enough, Christina and I will have a nice dinner out together, or have a dinner with the four of us, including our two kids, 20 and 14.
And just some quality time like that.
*Edited for clarity.
