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“I am managing a budget that needs to be adhered to, managing a large inventory, unforeseen circumstances, staff and customers and making split decisions that shape outcomes,” he says in an interview.

“I am running every aspect of a business, which is akin to running a city as a mayor. There may be more zeros in the city budget, but the skill set I have is transferable to the city.”

And as a businessman who pays a lot of taxes, he understands, more than most, the importance of keeping a tight budget, even though he is not “stuck on numbers,” he says. “I want taxes to be as low as possible but if I felt the projects and investments the city was making were worthy, I wouldn’t mind paying 2.5 or 3 per cent.”

Born in what was then Eastview, McConville, who will be 56 on Aug. 30, seems to be not made for formal education. He attended Sir Wilfrid Laurier and Col. By high schools but left after Grade 11, and, imbued with an “entrepreneurial spirit,” went on to establish his garage. He says he enrolled in the Queen’s University Executive MBA program in the late 1990s, took all the courses but didn’t write the final exam for a degree.

Running a business, however, has not stopped him from working to improve his community. As a key member of a group called Concerned Citizens of Vanier, he worked with the police and others to rid Vanier of some of its notorious crack houses. He is now a leading member of SOS Vanier, and says his involvement in the battle to stop the Salvation Army shelter, as well as his run for mayor, are natural progressions in his community activism.