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Blog Info

For a Strong Local Economy

Coastal Common Sense is Tom Kertes’s personal blog, focused on ideas for building a strong local economy for Prince Rupert and neighbouring communities.

A strong local economy works for everyone by providing:

  • Low taxes, low utility fees, and low amenities charges
  • Good jobs, secure incomes, economic growth, and a good quality of life
  • A safe community, affordable housing, and quality health care for all
  • Responsible resource development and a diverse economy
  • Stores, restaurants, contractors, specialists, services, and entertainment
  • Clean water (from the tap) for everyone – provided by our municipal utility
  • Public infrastructure and government services that work
  • Education, training, and opportunity for everyone
Focus, Common Sense & Fairness

The blog themes are:

  • Focus: Setting priorities, being strategic, following through, government doing its job (each level of government carrying out its own role), utilizing private enterprise (and free markets) to help build a strong local economy, and building on past achievements. Getting done what needs to get done.
  • Common Sense: Listening to everyone, respecting diverse viewpoints, balancing interests and values, and being accountable. Working as a community together, solving problems together, and creating opportunities together.
  • Fairness: Equal treatment, removing barriers, levelling the playing field, providing universal services, and transparent decision making. Playing by the same set of rules, applied equally across the board.
About Tom Kertes

Tom Kertes is a high school teacher in Prince Rupert, BC. He grew up in Cheney, WA, a small farming and college town outside of Spokane, and moved to Canada, with his now husband Ron Braun, in 2007. Tom is a dual citizen of Canada and the United States.

Tom (centre) with his brother and cousin

Tom moved from Seattle and Baltimore to Canada, first to Toronto and then to Vancouver. He then moved to Daajing Giids in 2015 — changing careers from communications and policy to public education.

Tom (right), with Ron, on a trip to Kiusta

From 2015-2018, Tom taught at Tahayghen Elementary in Masset, Sk’aadgaa Naay Elementary in Skidegate, and Gidg̱alang Ḵuuyas Naay in Daajing Giids. He moved from Daajing Giids to Prince Rupert in 2018, first teaching at the middle school for five years and now teaching Language Arts at the high school since 2023.

Before teaching, Tom helped produce children’s educational television and other media as a communications advisor. He was a production coordinator for Biz Kids, an Emmy Award-winning educational TV series about money and business.

Tom also helped produce viral videos and other media campaigns that were viewed by tens of millions of people. His media campaigns were covered by the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, CBC News, the New York Times, ABC News, the Washington Post, the Guardian, and other national news outlets.

Strong Community

Whether he’s advocating for clean water and for better communication and support when a boil notice is in place, public infrastructure to keep taxes and fees low, retaining a municipal library board to keep our library local, reopening places of worship in the final weeks of the pandemic lockdowns, Tom is committed to helping build a strong community for everyone.

Tom, Community for Clean Water Campaign

Tom is past president of the North Coast Labour Council, past vice president of the Prince Rupert District Teachers’ Union, and former policy advisor to Ontario’s self-regulatory College of Early Childhood Educators.

Tom currently volunteers at:

  • Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church, Chair of Church Council
  • Navy League Prince Rupert Branch, Secretary
  • Prince Rupert District Teachers’ Union (PRDTU), Labour Liaison Representative and past Vice President
  • North Coast Labour Council, PRDTU Delegate and past President
Literacy & Community

Tom’s passion: Literacy. That’s why he teaches Language Arts, owned a children’s book store outside of Seattle, was a college instructor in early literacy and early childhood development at Seneca College in Toronto, was an early childhood educator at UBC Child Care in Vancouver, and currently volunteers as coach of the middle school and high school debate teams.

Tom was a policy advisor at the self-regulatory College of Early Childhood Educators in Ontario, where he helped launch North America’s first self-regulatory body for Early Childhood Educators. Tom was also an instructor of Early Childhood Education at Seneca College in Toronto and he worked at UBC Child Care as an early childhood educator in Vancouver, helping care for toddlers and preschoolers. 

Tom (back left) with children at UBC Child Care

Tom’s other passion: Community. As a community organizer for living wages in Baltimore, Tom helped triple the wages paid to a mostly homeless day labourer workforce of cleaners at the Camden Yards baseball park. This campaign focused on the values of respect for all, the dignity of all, and people working together for equality.

Tom (front left), Camden Yards cleaners’ event

He was also an organizer for pay equity for early childhood educators at UBC. Working with his union, the BCGEU, Tom and other UBC early childhood educators secured a 20% pay increase in a single round of collective bargaining, without an increase in fees and without reducing access to quality child care for UBC families.

Contact Tom Kertes

Phone/Text: 778-884-5343
Email: tomkertes@gmail.com

Image #1 Source: Miko Fox; Image #2 Source: Northern View (clean water); Image #3: The Canadian Press Daryl Duck; Other photos are from Tom’s personal collection