Peggy Revell
FORT FRANCES—Local candidates are riding a wave of optimism as the May 2 federal election draws near.
“I’ll just keep knocking on doors—I’ll keep on knocking on doors right ’til the election,” incumbent John Rafferty, the NDP candidate, said Tuesday morning.
“I’ll be knocking on doors and talking to people, listening to their concerns,” he vowed.
It’s what he’s been doing, not only during this campaign but over the last two-and-a-half years as MP for Thunder Bay-Rainy River, which he says has included listening and talking to people, and getting his directions from constituents for what needs to be done in Parliament.
In talking to people, Rafferty said what’s at the top of his list of priorities—affordability, retirement security, and health care—are what other people are concerned about, as well.
“Mr. Harper [said] just before the election that as far as the economy is concerned, it’s mission accomplished,” Rafferty noted.
“Well, it’s not mission accomplished in Northern Ontario and I suspect in many other areas of Canada.
“So that spurs me on to continue the work that I’m doing because it’s at almost every door step that’s a big concern,” he added.
And while he doesn’t know if “statistics will bear him out,” Rafferty said in talking to people, it seems that more are engaged in this election compared to past ones.
“I don’t know if that’s going to be the end result if more people come out and vote. I hope they do,” he remarked.
“[But] that’s the overwhelming sense that I get—that people are interested, and people are going to be going out to vote.”
As well, he said that almost every young person he has talked to is planning to cast a ballot, particularly first-time voters.
“So they’re engaged and I think that that’s a good sign, too.”
“The momentum for us is growing,” said Liberal candidate Ken Boshcoff. “The support seems to be increasing and everybody here is very, very upbeat.”
Boshcoff, who represented the riding following the 2004 and 2006 elections, is hoping to regain the seat he lost to Rafferty in 2008.
And with a close race between himself and Rafferty this time around, it means that “everything counts,” Boshcoff stressed.
“So here we go.
“There’s no shutouts in any political process, but I have to say that people have been extraordinarily receptive,” Boshcoff said about the hitting the campaign trail and meeting with voters over the past several weeks.
He said he’s seeing an “appreciation of experience,” and people have “now made their decision based on the fact that they know I can do the job.”
“I am so encouraged and inspired by the support,” Boshcoff enthused. “It’s been way more positive than any candidate could hope for.”
“Just looking at our blue signs all over, I’m pretty optimistic, I’m feeling good,” Conservative candidate Maureen “Moe” Comuzzi-Stehmann said Monday with one week of campaigning to go.
“We’re working hard and we’re knocking on doors, and people are ready for change,” she noted.
“That’s a positive thing.”
And although she’s a new face this election, Comuzzi-Stehmann said she’s gotten “good coaching and good mentoring” from both her uncle, Joe Comuzzi, and husband, Tony Stehmann, having been involved in regional politics.
“It’s time for change, and that’s our message. It’s clear and simple,” she said about the message she’s consistently been touting throughout the campaign.
“We have gotten nothing up to this point and people are realizing that we need to be sitting at the same side of the governing party in order to get things done,” she stressed.
“It’s time for Thunder Bay-Rainy River to go to the next level [and] people are ready for that.
“It’s all about changing and being a strong voice for our communities,” Comuzzi-Stehmann noted, citing the importance of looking after seniors and giving future generations opportunities in their own communities.
Meanwhile, the campaign has been a learning curve for rookie Green Party candidate Ed Shields, a medical geneticist and former McGill University professor who retired back to the region five years ago.
“It think the campaign has forced me to get out of my hermitage and meet more people,” he chuckled, praising the “so many fantastic people” he’s met over the past weeks.
“This area, Thunder Bay-Rainy River, has some phenomenal human resources and I just wasn’t expecting that,” he admitted, lauding the universities, technical colleges, physicians, business people, neighbours, and the new libraries in both Thunder Bay and Fort Frances he has met and visited on the campaign trail—people and places that are why he’s optimistic about the future of the region.
It’s been a learning experience, as well, he said about being a newcomer to the political scene, noting his first debate ever was last Tuesday in Stratton and the second the following night in Fort Frances.
And with election day fast approaching, Shields said they’re trying “everything we can” to get their message out.
One of the things they’re doing “okay” with, but thought would help reach voters, is social networking, Shields reflected.
“But I think not as many people are reading those things as we thought they would,” he remarked, noting people seem to be looking for more simplistic “yes or no” answers compared to some of the more detailed thoughts and discussion he has written about online.
Still, he’s hoping people can take time to read the Green Party’s platform—stressing that they’re not just a “one-issue” party.
“We are a full party that has many different issue,” he stressed. “Sometimes we go right on issues, sometimes we go left.
“We just offer a total new environment, with totally new people.”
And while people have been receptive to this new message, Shields conceded that doesn’t necessarily translate into votes.
“I’ve had a lot of people say, ‘We’d love to vote for you, but. . .,’” he noted.
“They’re the people that are afraid to have the Conservatives back in.
“And I think that’s kind of a sign that there’s something wrong with our democracy—that we have to be so afraid to vote for someone, that you have to vote for someone you don’t really want to vote for,” he remarked, calling the experience an “eye-opener” and something that should be changed for the future.
