While she may have captured just 12.6 percent of the votes in Kenora-Rainy River riding in last Thursday’s provincial election, Progressive Conservative candidate Cathe Hoszowski said she hasn’t been discouraged into bowing out of the political arena.
“I’m still very interested in politics,” she stressed in an interview yesterday. “When I got into this campaign well over a year ago, I was doing it to put myself in a position to increase the quality of life for northerners.
“And I stand by that.”
Hoszowski added she felt her campaign experience was “excellent.”
“I got to meet a lot of people in the riding,” she remarked. “I had the courage and willingness to say that we in the north are not being represented.
“We have to start being selfish as northerners and get what’s ours.”
And she has no regrets.
“You know what it’s like when you work on something you feel positive about, knowing it just feels right?” Hoszowski noted. “At the end of the day, I can look at myself in the mirror.
“I’ll continue beyond this,” she continued. “People are already asking me to run again next time. Howard Hampton lost the first two or three times. [Former PC MPP] Leo Bernier lost the first two times he tried.
“It takes time for people to get used to a new face,” she reasoned.
“Leo Bernier told me that sometimes when you’re up against an incumbent, and the voter turnout is so low, it’s hard to tell exactly what the people are thinking, who they really support,” Hoszowski added.
She spent election night at the Central Community Club in Kenora with family, friends, supporters, and campaign workers by her side.
As the poll results came in that night, she had to admit that given the pro-Liberal political atmosphere in the province, and Hampton’s solid base in the riding, she wasn’t too surprised with the outcome.
“I put a huge amount of effort into my campaign. I went out there and met people,” she said. “But I think I suffered from the backlash [against the PCs] across the province.
“When you see guys like David Young and Tony Clement, who are very smart, competent people, going down, it puts things into perspective for me,” Hoszowski added.
“Also, Howard Hampton has a full-time staff working for him. Geoff and I, we’re building. We’re grassroots, and we’re trying to work with volunteers.
“The bottom line is when they [the NDP] have people coming here from southern Ontario and Manitoba, they’re able to get the vote out,” she said. “That’s something we have to work on.”
But Hoszowski said she was irked by Hampton’s landslide victory in Kenora-Rainy River, and is concerned about the painful lesson the riding will learn under his reign.
“I find it very disturbing,” she noted. “You’ve got a leader who’s living in Toronto and Sudbury. It doesn’t give us a strategic advantage in the north.
“And the reality of this is starting to get out there,” Hoszowski said. “Would people in Fort Frances accept their new mayor living in Kenora?”
As for the greater victory of the Liberals over the PCs across Ontario, Hoszowski said not enough positive information on what the PCs have done for the province was promoted to the public.
And she’s skeptical the Liberals will prove to be all they’re cracked up to be.
“It’s not necessarily a bad thing to choose change, but what promises will be kept?” she wondered.
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
