ABOUT ME
Hi, I'm Hogan Courrier
WHERE I COME FROM
I moved to beautiful Wasaga Beach from a small town called Marmora in 2014 with my son Hogan Jr and daughter Sarah. I have been a single full time father since my son was 5 years old and my daughter was 11 months old. They are now 30 and 21 respectfully. The reason I moved to beautiful Wasaga Beach was to help my parents, Sheila Courrier and Albert Vezeau with the operation of our family business properties, that being River-shore Cottages and Albert's Hall. I also opened Wasaga Beach Geeks computer store in May of 2014.
I have always taken a proactive role towards the betterment of the community in which I reside and I taught my children to do the same. I met my spouse Shireen Harding in 2019 and have been happily engaged to this day.
Community Activities
Upon arriving in Wasaga Beach, I immediately took an active role in our community by joining The Lions Club and Probus Beachcombers. I energetically took part in any community events that I could, including The Rotary Polar Plunge, The Amazing Race, Santa Claus Parade, Wasaga Snowfest and the 5k Foam Fest to name a few. I have always had a strong desire to volunteer in every community I have resided in. This includes Wasaga Beach, in which I have donated my time and energy for; The Wasaga Beach Bluesfest, The Wasaga Youth Centre, The Wasaga Film Festival, Electric Elements Festival, Wasaga Beach Bike Rally, Jazz In The Park and more.
While living in Marmora I was President of The Marmora Agricultural Society from 2008 to 2012, I was also on the board of directors for The Marmora Fair starting in 2007 and became president in 2010 till 2013. Working from that experience I founded The Wasaga Beach Farmers Market with Gary Sawatzky in 2016.
Starting in 2017, I ordered Canada Day swag (pins, flags and tattoos), to hand out to as many people, business's and Senior Centres as I could.
MISSION STATEMENT
We Can Make Wasaga Beach Great Again
1/ Transparency, Unity, Teamwork and Integrity. If elected I will work earnestly to heal the divide in our community and that will start with the elected council first and foremost. No more grudges and division, let’s create unity and move our town forward into the future as a stable, secure, safe, prosperous affordable community.
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2/ No more closed door (in camera) meetings, unless required by law. The number of in camera (closed door meetings) under this current council is incongruous. The tax payers have a right to know what is going on with their town council decisions and plans.
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3/ Municipal business licenses are far to expensive for our business community, and there is no real commodity provided by the town for these exuberant fee's except for a business listing on the town webpage. If elected I will put a motion forward to have these business licensing fees revised and improved and reformed to help our business community. More startup business's need our help to get started, there are many costs involved with a business startup and a costly business yearly license fee should be offset.
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4/ I will represent every taxpayer and resident with a voice for all. I will not take political bribes or payouts, nor will I stand for collusion and pickle barreling. Every member of our community should and will have an equal voice and equal input. Government is supposed to work for the people. We need unity and team work in our Municipal Government, not hidden agendas, and narcissistic dictatorship as we have seen these past 4 years under the lackluster leadership of Mayor Bifolchi.
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5/ Organic growth does not work in our town, we have seen that these last 4 years. We need to develop a strong, competent plan to assure our town growth, 12 months a year. This plan needs public input first and foremost, we need to involve everyone in our community to be able to come forth with ideas, opinions and comments, we the people should never be silenced.
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6/ Our taxes, water and sewer are out of control, with more being added in the way of tax payer funded projects such as the arena, library and casino to mention a few. Without public and provincial grants the burden of costs to us, the taxpayer is going to be even more out of control. We can still go after provincial and federal grants to help pay for the Arena and we need to work on that immediately to offset tax increases to the residents and taxpayers.
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7/ We simply should not sell our biggest asset. Beach 1 is up for sale and council does not have the right to sell it. The Beach belongs to us, the taxpayer, public input is being ignored and stagnated, by our current leadership. The residents need representation and I promise to deliver that representation.
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8/ We need more help and compassion for our seniors, especially during our hard winters, I will put into motion a plan to help us all with the burden of cleaning our driveways from snowplow build up. This can be easily achieved with the installation of "Snow Gates" on our plows. See them in action here --> https://youtu.be/gz_yXNaoysQ
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9/ A High School for our children is imperative. The total neglect and political swill surrounding this issue wreaks of incompetence and collusion. In my opinion it seems that the bus companies that shuttle our many children to out of town schools has a monetary stake in all this and is just another example of Political Pickle Barreling. I will stand up against this form of connivance.
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10/ We really need a functional Arts & Culture advisory board to council. I would start by appointing Kurt Leham as an appointee. Every other tourist destination has an arts and cultural component to their tourism plan, we deserve one too! We could have a creative economy department as part of our administration division. Barrie and Orillia have been very successful with this format.
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11/ Our town emergency reserves are being depleted, we need a forensic audit of these past 4 years and we need to rebuild our financial reserves. The past four years has seen reckless spending and maliciously spiteful destruction of many venues that were created under the Brian Smith council. This narcistic behavior is not leadership, it is gaslighting and need to be stopped and investigated.
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12/ Affordable Housing desperately needs to be ameliorated, rental property prices are out of control and we need to be able to offer affordable housing to those who need it. We need to form an affordable housing advisory committee that will work diligently with undiminished support from council to make this a certitude.
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