Coquitlam City Councillor Trish Mandewo speaks with We’ve Got Issues hosts Brad Nickason and Nancy Furness about her background and what inspired her to run for Coquitlam City Council. She shares her role in Council committees and projects, her experiences as a first-term Councillor, her most significant accomplishments to date and what she still aspires to achieve during her first term.

Trish considers herself a community builder, a connector and an entrepreneur. She moved to Coquitlam in 2009 and immediately started volunteering in the community. She believes change happens at the policy level and she set a goal to be sitting at the policy-making table so she can be part of the changes she wants to see in the world. She decided 2018 was the right time to run for City Council.

Trish is a business person and was on the Tri-Cities Chamber of Commerce before she ran. She keeps in touch to ensure that business has a voice. She is also an award-winning champion for kids. She continued this work on the Tri-Cities Early Childhood and Middle Childhood Committees. She was also on the Multiculturalism Committee and Universal Accessibility Committee for two years. (Coquitlam City Councillors switch committees every two years so everyone has a chance to contribute). She was also elected by her peers to be on the Union of British Columbian Municipalities (UBCM) where she participates in the Economic Development Committee and currently chairs the Indigenous Relations Committee. She is also on the Lower Mainland Local Government Association (LMLGA).

Trish is a ‘governance junky’ so was already immersed in the Community Charter and knew what was involved in the different levels of Government prior to joining Council. Learning about Coquitlam was facilitated through an excellent on-boarding process. Trish is confident that her voice is being heard on Council and encourages others to step up.

As the first black person to be elected in Coquitlam Trish feels that there is space for different voices on Council. Coming from humble beginnings she learned to tell herself to be the voice of change. Trish was a “top 25 immigrant” in 2017 and when asked what’s next’, Trish responded ‘politics’. She believes in empowerment and collaboration to reach consensus, not just listening to respond.

Trish owns Synergy On Boards Consulting Group, which is a company that teaches people of colour around the world to be leaders through governance training and placement on boards and senior level positions. Research has shown that different dimensions of diversity (age, gender, ethnicity) make us stronger and help build community and business. Trish encourages people be become informed and not just wait to be invited to paid board positions. Her goal is to equip women, black, indigenous, and visible minorities with confidence when needed and to match those with confidence to available paid positions.

Being aware of diversity with respect to community is critical. When COVID happened, nobody was paying attention to the disaggregated data. The City needs to know who isn’t being heard and why they’re not being heard. For example single mothers with two jobs will never come to a public hearing because they are too busy. Trish questions how we will ever plan the City in their eyes. We need to ask whose voice is missing.

Trish aspires to see all cities make use of disaggregated data and for communities to have an equity, diversity and inclusion lens to everything. The same voices always engage with the City, however Trish wants a city where everyone has the opportunity to be heard.