Submitted by Ryan Donnelly
Dec 9, 2021, VOL. 3 ISSUE 8
Incumbent Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) Wayne Gates has been approved by his party to run for re-election representing the communities of Fort Erie, Niagara Falls and Niagara-on-the-Lake. The veteran new Democrat was first elected in 2014 in a by-election, winning two more elections including his record-breaking win in 2018 where he scored the highest percentage of support for any candidate to ever run provincially.
Gates said the nomination meeting, held Thursday, November 25th, was particularly special because of his nominator. Gates was nominated to run in 2022 by Burd Sisler, a 106-year-old, World War Two veteran who resides in Fort Erie.
“We want to see if Wayne Gates can keep working like he’s working. I see him in the paper quite often. He’s really pushing that Doug Ford fellow – I hope he keeps at it,” said Sisler, who was born in 1915. “I like Wayne because he’s dedicated to his job. More than what I think some other- I won’t mention any names but – a lot of promises don’t get covered but I think if Wayne promises you something, you’re gonna get it. Thank you Wayne for the work you’ve done for the last years. I’m really dedicated to him and I’d really like to see him run again.”
Gates said he first became involved in the Fort Erie community when his union collaborated with the yellow shirt brigade to save the Fort Erie hospital.
“Frankly, I’ve spent my entire life opposing the continual cutting of our medical services. I am completely opposed to any plans to cut or privatize our healthcare. People in Fort Erie used to be able to access better services – they even raised their own money. Then those services were taken away from them. Time and time again we saw more things being taken from Fort Erie. As a community that I love and frankly as a community that I think understands the kind of guy I am, I dedicated myself to stop the stripping of services from the community. One of the reasons I’m running is because I believe we have more opportunities to expand services to Fort Erie and to get people to access to the healthcare they deserve,” said Gates.
Gates said he’s not done working on an issue that’s been close to his heart – the Fort Erie Race Track.
“When I ran the first time they told us that Track was closing, that there was nothing that could be done to save it – well we proved them wrong. Simply put, that Track represents hundreds of jobs in Fort Erie and there was no way I was going to sit back and let the Wynne Government put those people out of work,” said Gates.
Gates says he still hasn’t given up on returning the slots to Fort Erie.
“What happened was, we made Ford agree in the middle of an election to return the slots to Fort Erie. He came down here and we made him commit to that. Unfortunately, we didn’t expect him to disrespect the community the way he did – and so we made sure he didn’t close the Track down but there’s still no slots,” said Gates. “I’ve been trying to work with the gaming operators around here to get people back to work as we come out of COVID and I still bring up the slots with them.”
“When you look at the provincial polls, we’re seeing it’s going to be the NDP or the Conservatives who form Government in Ontario in 2022. In this riding, after what the Liberals did here under Wynne with the Track and with the sell-off of hydro, there hasn’t been a lot of support for them and I don’t think that’s changed much in the last few years. The campaign I’m running is going to be very positive for Fort Erie – it’s going to mean investing in access to healthcare, making sure our seniors live comfortably and making sure people can afford to live in their homes.”
The nomination meeting was attended by Official Opposition Leader, Andrea Horwath, and a wide array of guests from across the riding which represents the three communities along the Niagara River. Gates’ team said they were blown away by the amount of community support they received at the meeting, surpassing their own fundraising targets.
Anyone wanting to get more involved with the Wayne Gates re-election effort was encouraged to email fallsndp@gmail.com. The election will be held on June 2nd with the campaign period likely stretching over the month of May.
