A candidate for Trail city council says he wants to be a voice for the middle class.
Ravi Gandha, who was born and raised in the city, works at Teck, runs a construction company, and is an operator rep for United Steelworkers Local 480.
“Some of the stuff I see around town I dislike, and I think with my background, I could be an asset for council,” he says.
Gandha is referring to the state of the downtown core and the plight of the city’s homeless.
“We have to address those issues,” he says. “The homeless population is someone’s children and we have to help them. Rehabilitation and housing is the answer. We just need to get moving quicker on it.”
Gandha says it is a problem everywhere, but Trail needs to lobby the provincial government to speed things up.
He is also pushing economic growth in his campaign. He moved away in 2003 and returned in 2012 and felt Trail stagnated in that time.
“It was a little disheartening. Whereas I see other communities with similar populations growing. I think we’re not headed in the right direction. We have a young demographic we need to help. We have children growing up in this town and deciding to stay here.”
This is Gandha’s first time seeking elected office. He says he had not considered it before, but decided to put his name forward after other approached him to run.
“I want to be a voice for the middle class, the working class, which we have a lot of here,” he says.
If elected, Gandha would be the first Indo-Canadian to serve on Trail council.
“With our changing demographic in this town, I think it would be nice to see someone who is a visible minority on council,” he says.