Meet Your New Saint John City Councillor: Joanna Killen Of Slocum & Ferris
This article is part of series of profiles of entrepreneurs who’ve been elected to city councils in New Brunswick.
SAINT JOHN – On the day of her first municipal election as a candidate, Joanna Killen re-opened the iconic Saint John City Market restaurant Slocum & Ferris as the new co-owner along with her partner, Corey Dugas.
Two weeks later, she learned she would be representing Ward 1, the city’s west side, with incumbent Greg Norton as part of Saint John Common Council.
Killen has a long history of working with local businesses and entrepreneurs. When she was 19, she had a stall in the City Market where she now works, she’s worked with Enterprise Saint John, and in 2017, she started her own company called Momentum Canada.
“We did a lot of work in helping New Brunswickers move outside of here and grow their businesses,” she said. “But when Covid-19 came along, that kind of work became a moot point because people were not looking to grow in that way, they were looking to sustain themselves.”
It was then that she and Dugas began talks to purchase Slocum & Ferris.
“My story comes full circle back to where I began at 19,” she said.
RELATED: Meet The New Owners Of Slocum & Ferris
As a councillor, Killen hopes to use that entrepreneurial spirit to help reshape and refocus the City’s future.
“I think that when it comes to our city, there’s an opportunity for us to innovate on our way of doing things without having it be a big expensive project,” she said. “I’ve known so many businesses that have done amazing things with literally nothing so I can see a vision for how we can do that.”
She says that working with other newly elected councillors with a similar background in small business will lend itself well to channeling that innovation and creativity.
“These folks have all been through it the same way I have and it’s really great to get to work with them,” she said. “I think they know exactly what I’m talking about when I talk about how we are able to make something with nothing, so it’s really exciting to get to work with people who have this kind of entrepreneurial mindset.”
Killen says she is looking forward to impacting change at the community level and taking time to learn from community leaders on how to put that change into practice.
“I want to make sure that I can add value instead of thinking all of my own ideas are original, because really, they’re not,” she said. “I know that the staff, the executive, and the leadership have all been working super hard to make sure that we’re on the right path so I want to make sure that I am involved as a team player and supporting everyone in the day to day that they go through.”
RELATED: Meet Your New Saint John City Councillor: Brent Harris Of The Tool Library
This election was Killen’s second go at a political campaign. In 2020, she ran for the Green Party in the provincial election.
She says she was inspired by the fallout of a public conflict she had with now-former councillor Blake Armstrong following the death of George Floyd ignited protests for racial justice globally.
In June 2020, Killen wrote an email to Armstrong using a template that was widely circulated across the Internet about defunding the police and explaining how defunding the police could benefit the city. Soon after sending the email, she received a response from Armstrong.
“I hope you never need help and have to call the police,” Armstrong’s response read. “Please get the facts and remember there are bad apples in every bunch but we do not throw the good ones out.”
Following calls from the public, now-former Mayor Don Darling, and Killen herself called for Armstrong to apologize, but he refused.
In May, Killen unseated Armstrong in the election.
“It ignited me to think about how we do politics,” she said of the incident. “How do we engage with constituents? How do we make sure citizens feel like they’re heard and listened to? I just felt that if I’m going to complain about something, I have to action it so I decided that I was going to figure out how I could make a bigger impact.”
More in this series:
- Meet Your New Saint John City Councillor: Brent Harris Of The Tool Library
- Meet Your New Saint John City Councillor: Greg Stewart Of AJ’s Lounge