It's official - Rowswell to seek Conservative nomination

Sault Ste. Marie Mayor John Rowswell today confirmed to SooToday.com that he will definitely seek the Conservative Party's nomination to run in the next federal election.

Rowswell, who earlier had told reporters he was considering a federal run, officially entered the fray today with both barrels blazing, aimed squarely at Sault MP Tony Martin.

For starters, the mayor says, the Sault needs an MP who's actually out there working with local leaders.

And Tony Martin isn't doing that, Rowswell told us.

"He's challenged me that I don't talk to him about setting up meetings with ministers. Well, I can call them up directly so why do I have to go through the MP?" the mayor said. "Besides, if I waited on him, we'd be months and months."

The Conservative government is moving quickly and understands what needs to be done, said Rowswell.

He wants to be part of that. After today's $10 million Third Line infrastructure funding announcement [shown], Rowswell told SooToday.com that he believes our City needs more of these projects to diversify.

"Our community has developed a diversification strategy and it's extremely important that we at this time work with both levels of government," Rowswell said. "What we have is our present MP, Tony Martin, who voted against the infrastructure funding package that included the announcement we're giving today."

Rowswell said we have no real communication with the government through our MP.

And we need an MP who's working with government to bring the money home.

"If they [the coalition] were in power, we wouldn't even be getting this announcement or other further things that are necessary for this community," he said.

Rowswell said the idea to seek the local Conservative nomination arose from events in the federal political arena late last year.

"Last Christmas, we were saying we're ready to roll, we need these announcements, we need this stimulus," he said. "We were ready to move forward with our diversification plan and they did that filibuster move and at that particular point in time, it just infuriated me so bad that I said 'no more, that's it. If this continues like this we're never going to get anywhere.'"

The mayor believes he has a better relationship with the federal government than Martin and he can more effectively support the thousands of people in the Sault who've been working to try to move toward economic diversification.

Rowswell said he intends to seek the nomination whenever the next election is called.

"It's not like I'll do it tomorrow," he said.

Meanwhile, he'll continue to make his best efforts as mayor to move the Sault along its path to diversification.