With tonight's council session marking the final gathering for the Class of 2014, it will also mark a significant change for the membership of City Council for the next four years.
After thirteen years as a prominent force on the city's political scene, Councillor Joy Thorkelson will be taking her leave of the City Council chamber following this evenings council session.
First elected to office in 2005, Ms. Thorkelson's name did not appear on a nomination form in September when the call for candidates for the 2018 Municipal election was announced.
Her decision to step back from civic politics coming as she takes a larger step on the provincial scene through her leadership of UFAWU-Unifor and membership in a provincial panel on Wild Salmon, a group which as we noted last week has delivered their first draft of a report on the challenges facing the resource and industries which are supported by it.
Her efforts on behalf of the fishery which were many over those thirteen years served, reaching a peak at Council during the days of the arrival of the LNG ambitions for the North Coast, with Ms. Thorkelson one of the staunchest critics of the Pacific NorthWest project proposed for Lelu Island.
She also raised a number of concerns related to the proposed Aurora LNG project for Digby Island, and as things would evolve on Council, the Councillor was there to see both projects come and then go from the list of the many LNG proposals that never made it to the development stage.
Through her thirteen years on Council, the fishery was never far from her mind, with Ms. Thorkelson raising the issues of the industry and the local workforce at every opportunity.
Over the span of the four different Council's that she served on, hers was among the loudest of voices that the larger Prince Rupert labour movement had in the City Council Chamber.
Social issues also were in the forefront of many of the discussion topics raised by the Councillor, who was a strong advocate for those on the margins of Prince Rupert's society, with Thorkelson regularly raising the issues of housing and the welfare of those in the most need in the community.
Among her main concerns in recent years was the growing list of approvals by Prince Rupert Council for the high end housing proposals that were granted approval but have yet to break ground, with Ms. Thorkelson often calling for mixed used housing and the need for more housing for those in need particularly in the downtown core.
And while housing has been her focus for much of her four terms in office, that dedication to the issue of housing was at its highest level in the lead up to and during the Tent City protests of last year.,
Much of the recent success on housing for those in need was achieved through the efforts of both Thorkelson and councillor Cunningham, with both often speaking to the issue both during Council sessions and outside of them.
It was an engagement that finally found some success as the province delivered on supportive housing for the community, with construction soon to get underway on the facility located on Park Avenue.
The Council member was also known for frequently butting heads with the pro-business members of the City Council and as recently as earlier this month was reminding those elected to office, "to remember that Council isn't all about business and that it's about people too."
As she makes her farewells this evening, she will also be walking away from a chamber that has undergone a shift in composition with the 2018 vote of Saturday night.
As we noted over the weekend, all six candidates elected to office in the council election are male, a gender gap that is somewhat startling when compared to the rest of the province.
While her career in municipal politics has been far from trivial, that will mean that barring any surprises from the chambers on Third Avenue West, for at least the four years, Joy Thorkelson will be the answer to municipal trivia questions province wide ...
The correct answer to the question: Who was the last female member to sit in office on the Prince Rupert Municipal council?
Members of the public can watch some of that modern day history and offer their own public farewell to elected office from the gallery of the Council Chamber, the session starts at 7PM.
You can also follow the proceedings through CityWest Community Television and streamed live from the City of Prince Rupert website.
For more items of note from this evenings City Council session see our archive page here.
A wider overview of council discussion points and themes can be reviewed from Council Discussion Archive page.
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