Jessia Arsenio - Banff Council candidate interview

ROB MURRAY: Running for Banff Council – Jessia Arsenio.  Tell us a little bit about your background and your related experience for the job of Banff Council.

JESSIA ARSENIO: I feel like I am coming to it as a bit of an outsider in few respects. My engagement with politics has largely been through civil society, or as an organizer interested in a specific issue, or as a bed and breakfast operator. Now that I’ve had much more encouragement from neighbours and community members, I’ve taken a broader interest in things. I’m learning a lot about capital project management right now. I think being able to advocate for some of those changes from a position of council, while also being able to do the kind of public engagement that I think people are asking for going forward, is a set of strengths that perhaps other candidates might not have.

RM: How long have you been in Banff? What brought you here?

JA: I’ve been in Banff for about four years. I moved here from Toronto, but I’m originally from Niagara Falls, so I know what it means to grow up in a destination. I think I represent a growing population in Banff, people that have moved here and are trying very hard to make this their home. Having voices representing that is worthwhile.

RM: What would be the top or one of your top issues you’re really passionate about, and maybe some ideas around it?

JA: Cost of living. It’s a hard one, right? These are generational issues that you can try to tackle at the municipal level through family and community services. Building a more integrated sense of place can help with affordability if you get people involved in things like food rescue, which was a lifeline for some people during the hardest days of the pandemic. If you cultivate that sort of sensibility in town through municipal instruments, you can start to massage those issues towards something a bit better, especially in collaboration with provincial and federal partners that are aligned with the same goals.

RM: Looking back on the last four years of Banff Council, what’s something you feel that this past council did a good job tackling, and conversely, what’s something you feel that they could have done a better job on?

JA: What they did well during the past four years, especially the past two, has been their response to the pandemic. They made a lot of difficult choices, but they responded to an emergency with the kind of confidence and strength that I would hope of any public servant.

Public consultation and doing public outreach during some of the pandemic could have been done a bit tighter. The same thing with Bear Street. The silver lining – I really like how they did the Fenlands consultation.

RM: If elected, how would you stay engaged with the people of the community?

JA: That’s my bread and butter. That’s what I love about this place. It’s a big part of why I stayed this community. I’ve been so fortunate to see so many people try to put together an idea or a project, and it just seems like there is such a drive to do something new. I think that characterizes my entire time, and I see no reason to not continue that. That deeply social work requires a lot of listening, and I have the energy for it.

RM: Is there another part of your platform you’d like to discuss?

JA: I think we have to be careful with how we lionize the existing incorporation agreement. It’s an important document for many reasons, but I think we should approach that document with due criticism. It defines us in very clear terms as a town for an industry. If you read point number two, it says that our primary purpose is to serve visitors. The need to ensure that we have a comfortable community comes in at point 5. The idea that industry and the expansion of tourism is outpacing people’s expectations of what an integrated community looks like. That’s that exact frustration that I see even with who is and isn’t considered a resident for the purposes of voting, for example. We run into issues of disenfranchisement. If we can admit that our economy relies so deeply on seasonal workers, but we also deny them the right to vote in municipal elections, how are we ensuring that we can actually account for every voice? These are large definitional issues that I don’t have an easy answer for either, but I think they should be part of our discussion going forward.

RM: Where can people find out more information about you?

JA: Social media is usually the first place people go to, but you can also check out my website.

RM:  Why should people vote for you?

JA:  Where I’m coming from is markedly different from where a lot of others might be coming from and from what we’ve seen on Council before. Having a diversity of voices is going to do is well. I hope that people see value in bringing a young, queer, working class voice to the table.