During the 2022 mayoral portion of the Chamber of Commerce candidate night, Michelle Maluske of CTV reporter asked, The Town of Amherstburg has a $54 million budget and as mayor, you may hold a unique role as the chair of a council of six elected to govern and lead our town. What makes you uniquely qualified and the best person for the job? Why do you want to be mayor?

Michael Prue’s answer: (listen to the audio).

Thank you. And first of all, the mayor is an absolutely unique role in every municipality in Ontario and indeed in Canada. The mayor’s job is not only to lead, but the mayor’s job is also to try to seek consensus from amongst the seven individuals who sit around the table and also to listen very carefully to the staff and try to come together so that a common decision can be made so that the entire council can go out and support it. I have spent a lifetime working on budgets 17 years as as a municipal politician and 13 years in the province of Ontario, I’ve been on the budget committees, I’ve been on the audit committees in all of them. And I will tell you, it is a difficult task, but it’s made easier if you have a resolve. And my resolve has always been that we have to start every budget with no increase. And in the past this this town has come in and the CAO has said we want eight and nine and 10% and council’s had to beat it back. But I believe that we should be coming in at no increase or whatever inflation is and work from there. And if you do a zero based budget, you’re going to get far better results than if you do it the way that it’s been done in the past. And I believe my experience coming in with 17 budgets municipally with no tax increases, save and except the last one, no tax increases at all will will allow this town to go forward and assured that there will be that there will be sufficient money and we will make it we will make it work. I know that people are saying we’re broke, but we’re not really broke. There is enough money in in the in I’ll deal with that later. There is enough money in our budget and in our coffers to make sure that there is no necessity for a tax increase this year.