Garth Frizzell is looking for his fifth term on Prince George city council. He was first elected in 2008 and was re-elected in 2011, 2014, and 2018. He currently chairs the city’s finance and audit committee.
With a backdrop of major public and private construction projects downtown Frizzell announced his re-election bid Friday and outlined the successes and crises faced by the current council, and the challenges that will face the newly elected city council in the term ahead.
Frizzell outlined the complex intergovernmental problems that will continue to face Prince George, including reconciliation, extreme climate events, homelessness, and the epidemic of mental health and addictions.
“We have a lot of work to do,” he said. “Our people feel it locally, but the solutions demand common purpose with provincial and federal partners. More than ever, the challenges in our next term will be marked by the need to advocate effectively to provincial and federal government leaders when we can, and pressure them when needed. We’ll need to have all hands-on deck to address huge inter-governmental challenges.”
Frizzell reflected on his experience leading the 2000 member municipalities of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities as its president.
“When cities across Canada faced the challenges of the pandemic, we needed to work as a team, and that team included our federal partners,” he said. “During my year as president, the Safe Restart program we developed with the federal government led to support for municipalities across Canada, including more than $6 Million in direct discretionary funding to help us here in Prince George.”
Frizzell currently uses his decade of experience founding and leading an award-winning software company to teach a new generation of entrepreneurs in business, economics and law at the College of New Caledonia. In 2020-21 he volunteered to lead Innovation Central Society’s Hubspace. During that time, the organization helped small businesses throughout the North to join the digital economy, with the help of $500,000 grant provided by the provincial and federal governments.
With shortages in skilled positions throughout the North in a recovering economy, Frizzell pointed to the need to “…double-down on our attraction programs. We are in a global competition for the brightest and best. CNC and UNBC are critical, and we need to make sure we retain the amazing people here. We also must attract more in the years ahead.”
Frizzell announced he is eager to meet in person and hear from the people of Prince George at any time. He looks forward to hearing the marketplace of varied policy ideas from all candidates in the election ahead.