Jamie Forrester

Athol Ward Five

Jamie Forrester grew up in Whitby, but has been visiting the County ever since he a was a teenager. Forrester and his buddies used to drive to Sandbanks Provincial Park almost every weekend and they all keep fantastic memories of their time spent at the park. When his friends started working more, they would make a point to all get together at the park on the holiday weekends. His wife, Connie, also has a connection to the area and even though she too is from Whitby, the two met each other while camping at Sandbanks. Jamie and Connie continued to visit the area and loved it so much that they bought a seasonal site to test the waters. They purchased Log Cabin Point, a small seasonal resort site with eight cottages and 25 seasonal sites, which they have owned and operated for 17 years.

Forrester had a career in manufacturing for 30 years before he became a pioneer of sorts in the County. For the last 12 years of his career he was the plant manager for Atlantic Packaging. He ran a big plant, with 165 hourly employees and 17 supervisors. Quality control, fleet management and human resources were all under his purview, as were setting and meeting budgets. So Forrester is well accustomed to multi-tasking and managing multiple projects at once.

By owning a property right at the boundaries of Sandbanks Provincial Park, Forrester gets to experience first-hand the pressures that local businesses are facing due to the overwhelming attendance numbers experienced over the past few years.

“With a dramatic rise in tourism there is always good and bad. All the contractors and trades are busy, lots of kids have summer jobs, but it hasn’t come without its share of problems, too. Keep in mind, we still have the same road systems that we had one hundred years ago, and we’re trying to pump close to a million people through those roads every season,” says Forrester.

Forrester is running for his third term on council and still has the same passion he had for municipal politics when he started close to eight years ago. He has always been interested in politics and thinks that his business background and his time spent in the private sector has helped him in navigating the occasionally precarious waters of council. He thinks its time to start asking the tough questions, like the difference between wants and needs. Forrester references a quote from a famous Rolling Stones song, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you get what you need.”

For concerns facing Ward Five, Forrester is hearing from his constituents that traffic, cyclists and speeding are major concerns, as well as the ongoing issues with Sandbanks Provincial Park. Zoning is another major topic, with the old CherryVale Farms property applying for extensions this season, and the Quinte Isle Campark expansion set to happen next season.

Healthcare is also a big concern for Forrester.

“We have an aging population and an increasing need to provide health care and costs. It has always been a priority in council to do what we can to support healthcare initiatives, from saving the hospital to recruiting new doctors, but we are limited in what we are able to do budget-wise. The next council must do what it can to help the new hospital move along,” says Forrester, who also points out that there are big-budget items coming up that we still have to raise a lot of money for.

Property taxes are another area of concern. According to Forrester, it should always be the goal of council to keep taxes to a minimum while ensuring we have enough to keep services going at the level they need to be. But, in there lies the challenge and Forrester says that people need to understand that financial well is not bottomless. Every time they raise taxes, it becomes a burden on a lot of people.

Affordable housing and the housing situation in general is something that is also on Forrester’s radar.

“Low-cost and affordable housing is a real challenge. The Catch-22 here is our success in developing a tourist economy that has attracted new residents willing to pay top dollar for this piece of paradise, which creates a situation where medium- and low-income families are struggling to live here. We need to be creative in encouraging ideas like the Pinecrest school project,” says Forrester.

Roads, infrastructure and public transit are also top of the list, and although these items are more looking for long-term solutions, Forrester believes the only way to make headway is to keep funding moving towards the issues.

“We can only do the best job possible with the capabilities provided to us, we can’t make miracles happen overnight,” says Forrester.

Forrester’s previous two terms have given him a wealth of knowledge in how to be effective around the horseshoe. He’s hoping that he can convince voters to look to him for guidance again for what will be an exciting four years to come.