When she speaks of her city, Liv DePencier of Citizens Advocating for a United & Sustainable Elliot Lake becomes passionate.
She's passionate about the candidates' nights the group is holding at Grace Christian Centre, the chance to give voters more campaign information and about finding new ways to reach people who aren't on the internet on these topics.
Citizens Advocating for a United & Sustainable Elliot Lake (CAUSE) defines itself as: "A community of local citizens and municipal government officials or candidates collaborating and discussing the common goals of inclusion, creation, education and preservation of a sustainable and promising future."
From such was born a group of about one dozen similarly-minded local people who decided to reach out, hoping to make a difference in the 2022 Elliot Lake municipal election.
But the task of reaching out to their constituency has proven somewhat elusive.
"We've got a community of offline citizens who are now viewing CAUSE as being almost inaccessible," DePencier said. "It's a really hard tightrope to walk because I want to have that incorporation, and I want to have that inclusion.
"But how do we do it?"
Understandably, organizing a set of new candidates' events via a new group and advertising and attracting people to attend in a new venue is an undertaking not for the faint of heart.
Operating online has worked well for CAUSE because of its ease and convenience. But DePencier says the moment they start taking it offline and requiring meetings to have these discussions, a lot of that's going to disappear.
For now, the group's focus remains online regarding the election because that's a timely matter.
With at least three new members to be in place on the city council after the Oct. 24 municipal election, DePencier sees a contradiction for those running for re-election this year.
She says incumbents obviously want to support each other for what was accomplished by the council over the past four years.
"But I see a lot of 'wishy-washy' which I attribute to people-pleasing for votes. What they're saying versus what they have done doesn't mesh up," DePencier continued.
"If there's a hot topic online, you will suddenly see all of that become part of someone's campaign," she said. "It's disingenuous in that you should have had this off the hop, but like 'high fives' for listening."
She says voters have to ask the hard questions of candidates, like what work they have done on any specific topic.
"Prove to me that you didn't just steal this idea from social media conversations," she added.
DePencier attributes much of what has happened politically in Elliot Lake over the past decade to the trauma the city collectively suffered in the collapse of the Algo Centre Mall on June 23, 2012.
The tragedy resulted in two deaths and multiple injuries.
"We've had trauma. We haven't come out of that trauma. When the mall collapsed, that spotlight was put on our council.
"That's when the distrust really came to the surface. That's when real fine tooth combing through things came to the surface," DiPencer continued.
Contrary to popular belief, she feels that being an incumbent politician in the city now puts a candidate at a disadvantage.
Witness the election of then-newcomer Dan Marchisella contesting the 2014 mayor's race in a four-way battle with veteran city politicians, two years after the mall collapse.
DePencier argues that since then, there's been a track record preceding those seeking their council seats back.
"So you can say all you want in your platform, but here's what has happened. So prove us wrong," DePencier said.
At the same time, she said voters don't want a new learner in a seat on the council. Voters believe they are entitled to expect certain skill and competency levels from the candidates.
As for the "them and us" argument, how people speak of lineage, about how long people have lived in the community, references to existing 40-year volunteers and what they have contributed in Elliot Lake or elsewhere, DePencier said that approach is faulty.
"I hate to have that feeling of an 'us and them' because we have a community that is so firmly rooted in tradition, and its identity comes from our history, a very unique history.
"There are people who are here, who had the shovels in the ground.
"To strip them of everything that they've worked for, because they have a personal connection, to strip that all away, is devastating.
"There has to be a level of openness, of course, but I think when it pertains to the council, they have to understand both sides of the coin. They have to respect the history and the tradition, and they have to be able to bring forth 'the transplants,' the new people and understand that they too have ideas of ways that could make things a little bit better or just different opportunities.
"There's gonna be extremes in both categories.
"They have to be able to cut off all of the extremes and find that happy place in the middle. That's the only way up," she concluded.
The next CAUSE candidates' meetings are set for Grace Christian Centre on College Way on Sept. 28 and Oct. 12, when doors open at 6:30 p.m. Admission is free.
Elliot Lake Rotary has a candidates night set for the Collins Hall on Oct. 4 at 5 p.m. Attendees are asked to bring a non-perishable food item for the Elliot Lake Emergency Food Bank.
Mayor Marchisella has set up a candidates' meeting for all people running in the municipal election campaign on the afternoon and evening of Sept. 30 at the Moose Family Centre. Admission is free, and it's preceded by a barbecue.