COMMUNITY FEATURES
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L O C A L C O N N E C T I O N S H A L I FA X | W i n t e r 2 0 1 3
Article: Brenden Sommerhalder . Photo: Laurel Bray . Photographed: Fred Connors and Crazytown
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f you ask Fred Connors, he'll tell you that mayor of Halifax sounds like one of the worst jobs in the world. And that’s exactly why he decided to run for the job. Connors says that his standard response to people in the community who suggested to him that he should run for mayor was that he “would never run for mayor.” Then, he says, “I thought, but you know what, it shouldn't be the worst job. Being the mayor of a city you love should be the best job in the world.” For Connors, if he got the job, he was going to change the job. “I felt that I was running an intervention [for City Hall] more than I was running a campaign,” reflects Connors. So, in January, 2012, in front of a crowd gathered to congratulate him as he accepted the Family SOS Ambassador Award, Connors, a local entrepreneur and community builder, announced that he would be running for mayor in the upcoming election. He did not win the city’s top job, which makes him a former candidate—but it does not make him a failed candidate. “I didn't care how it went,” says Connors. “I knew I would benefit from the experience. I thought I could probably get enough people to vote for me so that I could have a respectable showing. I felt that [being mayor] is the ultimate way to be a part of the conversation, and that the conversation needed to change. Leading and providing ambassadorship for the city you love and believe in should be nothing but amazing. So I thought, all right, I'm going to run for mayor.” But don’t mistake Connors’ preparedness for any election day outcome as a lack of confidence. “I definitely thought I could win,” says Connors. “I didn’t know whether I would win, but I didn’t think for a second that I couldn’t win.”
Connors has always approached community engagement with the philosophy that to connect with the community, it is essential to talk about issues that matter to peoples' lives. “I wanted to change the discussion away from complicated political issues to the stuff that people in communities actually care about,” he says. “I felt that I am smart enough, outgoing enough and brave enough to be an agent for change.” Connors knew that if he were to be elected mayor, he would be up against a number of challenges. “I knew I would be part of a system that didn’t believe anything was possible, that wasn’t interested in taking risks. I knew that I would be fighting a system every step of the way to shift the focus from what we can’t do to what we can do. But I felt that we needed someone to think way outside the box and set the expectations very high, because then even if we could bring people half way, that would be a huge shift.” Although he says he won’t be running for mayor in the next election, Connors has no regrets about his decision to run in the last election and how he conducted his campaign. “I loved the whole process,” he says. “I don’t think I’ve ever been as engaged in anything as I was in that campaign. I loved the research, learning everything I could, really meeting the different communities across HRM and the diversity of issues that are important to them.” “I didn’t lose anything,” he asserts. “I only gained.” █