Candidate profile: Waylon Scott

WABASEEMOONG — The chief of Wabaseemoong Independent Nations is letting his name stand for election in Ontario’s largest riding by area.

Waylon Scott is running for the Progressive Conservatives in Kiiwetinoong in the Feb. 27 election, marking the first time he’ll be on the ballot in the far north riding.

During his nearly-six-year tenure as chief of Wabaseemoong, located just under 100 kilometres northwest of Kenora, Scott has had to deal with a wide range of issues.

Those have spanned the ongoing effects of historical mercury poisoning on his community and their efforts to have a specialized care facility built, to securing funding and breaking ground on a new housing subdivision, and being part of the Kenora-area chiefs council that is working on multiple large social services projects in the area.

Scott was not made available for an interview with Newswatch.

He was elected chief of Wabaseemoong in 2019 and currently serves on the board of the Kenora Chiefs Advisory, an alliance of area First Nations that provides health, education and other social services to its member communities.

The council recently acquired land in Kenora for the All Nations Hospital — a planned 81-bed facility in the community being led by the advisory and the Lake of the Woods District Hospital — as well as a new 160-bed Wigwas Elder and Senior Care facility.

Scott and the KCA are also part of the partnership behind bringing a Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) Hub to Kenora. Earlier this year, he said his community has 250 community members in Kenora and 30 in Dryden, and that the hub will help in a big way.

“It’s going to really benefit our community with services that have been missing for years,” he said.

The HART Hubs have been a key piece of the Progressive Conservatives’ plan to deal with mental health and addictions; their announcement by the then-sitting Doug Ford government coincided with their decision to shut down 10 supervised drug consumption sites by the end of March, citing their proximity to schools and other childcare centres.

The hubs “will get people into detox, get them shelter, give them an opportunity to find employment,” Ford said during the leaders’ debate on northern issues.

Scott is running against incumbent Sol Mamakwa of the NDP, Liberal Manuela Michelizzi, Carolyn Spicer of the Green Party and Theresa Leppich of the Northern Ontario Party.