Photo supplied by Ejibola Adetokunmbo-Taiwo Photo credit: Natasha Haldane-Anderson

By Curtis Galbraith

Municipal Politics

Grande Prairie businesswoman announces campaign for city council seat

Jan 26, 2021 | 6:30 PM

A local businessperson has launched her campaign for Grande Prairie city council by saying it is time for a fresh start.

Ejibola Adetokumbo-Taiwo says she wants to build a connected, inclusive, transparent, and entrepreneurial city, as she has announced her campaign to run for a seat on city council this fall.

Near the top of her priority list if elected, she says, is more help for small businesses.

One of those things she says would help is tax credits.

“We’ve got to encourage self-starting entrepreneurs to start new ventures, hire more employees.

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“Small businesses, that’s one of the solutions to growth in the city. Everything else is window dressing.”

She adds transparency comes with accountability and believes that the city must see a return on investment in its major assets.

Adetokumbo-Taiwo says there also have to be results when police funding is increased.

She adds she had property stolen three times while she worked at Grande Prairie Regional College, but a suspect that was tracked through the college’s CCTV was not arrested.

“That same person came right again to my office, face-to-face with me, and asked me if he could come into the office and I was like ‘OK, do you have an appointment?’ I was shaking to my feet.”

Adetokumbo-Taiwo says she does not want a community where her daughter can’t be safe outside or people can’t feel safe in their own workplace.

Adetokumbo-Taiwo says potholes and how snow is cleared were a couple of the things she first noticed when she moved to Grande Prairie from Ottawa in 2013.

“Every year after the snow, potholes you see reveal the poor structure of the road and then we see money being spent to patch, I would say to patch the road, not to make it better.”

Adetokumbo-Taiwo says she is planning to have monthly roundtable meetings on social media rather than in-person campaigning. There is one scheduled for Friday.

Adetokumbo-Taiwo has worked in banking, was the coordinator for the Grande Prairie Innovation Network, and was an entrepreneur-in-residence at GPRC, where she helped students get ready for the business world.

Her own business was called Made by Africans, but is now called Simply Ejibola Incorporated, after she says 2020 forced her to come up with a new strategy.

She also has her own an initiative called de Sedulous Women Leaders, a platform that has six chapters: five in Canada and one in the United Kingdom. The initiative is meant to help women in business by empowering them “to aspire, achieve and succeed”.

She is married to someone she describes as her “handsome husband.” who works as Occupational Health and Safety officer. She also has an 11-year-old daughter, who she calls “a beautiful, intelligent girl.”

Adetokunmbo-Taiwo joins Shae Guy as the other Grande Prairie resident to officially launch a campaign to run for city council in this fall’s election.

The next municipal election will go on October 18, 2021.

Adetokunmbo-Taiwo has also launched a campaign website, which can be found here.