Mayoral candidates enter final stretch of campaign

The race for top spot at city hall is heating up as the five candidates vying to become the Sault’s next mayor offered their thoughts heading into the final week of the campaign trail.

Ozzie Grandinetti

Identifying with the ‘blue-collar’ demographic, Grandinetti is happy with how his campaign is shaping up heading into the final days, but he expects a close result come election night.

“It’s been busy, I’m campaigning hard still,” he says. “I’ve heard a lot of positive things, whether it’s at the Greyhound game or the grocery stores – it’s been really good. People can tell you what you want to hear when they see you, but all that matters is what happens on October 24.”

Grandinetti says he still has people requesting lawn signs, but he nearly held off from putting any out to begin with because of its impact on the environment.

“If I’m elected, I plan on bringing a motion forward to banning all election signs throughout the Sault,” he says. “They end up in the landfill. The federal government put a ban on single-use plastics, why can’t they expand it to this? It would be a green step forward as far as I’m concerned.”

Of all the issues he’s heard throughout his canvassing, Grandinetti says the disappointment with the previous council has been a common theme.

“There hasn’t been anything done in the last eight years to move this city forward,” he says. “Our drug and homelessness problem has gotten worse. Whether I can do anything about it or not, I’m going to work hard for those people that are struggling.”

Donna Hilsinger

Serving as a councillor in the city’s latest municipal term, Hilsinger says she has a few more public events to attend this week before election day takes shape next Monday.

While the latest SooToday polls have her finishing the mayoral race in third, Hilsinger doesn’t plan on letting up.

“One of the things I’ve said for a long time is you can sleep when you die, and I don’t plan on doing that for a long time,” she says. “I announced my candidacy on May 4, so it’s been a long campaign. But the fact it’s been long means there’s been more opportunities to talk with our residents and hear from them.”

The highly contentious downtown plaza has been brought to Hilsinger’s attention several times along the campaign trail, but she says voters have become more understanding of her initial support after having the chance to lay out her logic.

“I’ve found when I give people fulsome answers around the downtown plaza, a number of people who were initially very concerned about it say they understand my thought process and why I voted to support it,” she says. “We had an expert who told us this kind of plaza would be significant in revitalizing the downtown and bringing economic growth – when I laid that out, people were more understanding.”

Hilsinger says she’ll be spending most of her remaining time going door to door and answering people’s questions.

“As mayor, I would be one vote,” she says. “I have to share that vision and those ideas with those other 10 people, and I want to share their vision and work together so that we can have a common voice, a shared culture, and a shared vision.”

Tobin Kern

In his first ever political bid, Kern says he’s proud of the campaign he has run so far.  

“It’s been great to have opportunities to speak and field questions from the public, as well as to get more engagement from the community,” he says. “You work so hard to put a message out there, and once you start seeing more engagement, it’s much more rewarding.”

Kern’s involvement in the ‘sign wars’ across town looked different than the other four candidates as he made cloth-style banners to align with his environmental platform.

“My intention was to walk the walk when it comes to addressing climate change,” he says. “I made an effort to go to events on my bike and use public transportation as much as possible. My signs were made from material that Value Village couldn’t sell, so there were no increased emissions from making the signs I had made – it was existing material.”

Kern says he intends to use his remaining days of campaigning by going door to door and being out in the community as much as possible.

“People are thankful to have a choice with a diverse set of opinions and takes on things,” he says. “From the feedback I’ve gotten, people are glad to have a choice of different ideas. A lot of people are undecided going into this election because there’s a lot of things to weigh.”

Robert Peace

Peace recently received recognition from Ottawa for his humanitarian efforts in Ukraine and Romania earlier in the year after spending five weeks helping refugees find safety from their war-torn homelands.

“It was a wonderful surprise to be recognized by Parliament for the work I did on behalf of the citizens of Sault Ste Marie last spring,” he says. “It was a life changing experience and one that led me to my decision to run for mayor and help effect change here at home.”

Despite registering a bit later than some of the other mayoral candidates, Peace feels he has gained some steam in the last several weeks and notes the response at the doors has been uplifting.

“I’ve had people saying that they feel I’d represent them on the provincial and national stage the best with my voice and stature,” he says. “I think I could make a headline or two and get the Sault on the map when it comes to addressing other levels of government.”

Hoping to avoid tax increases by bringing in more residents to the city’s declining population, Peace feels he has established strong connections with the community’s newcomers throughout his campaign.

“We’ve got a lot of newcomers to the Sault, many who are not in a position to vote yet but are from places where voting and participating in your community is very important,” he says. “I feel I’ve really connected with the multicultural base, which may not get me votes this time around, but they’re engaging with the public.”

Matthew Shoemaker

Shoemaker says he’s hitting up lots of doors in the days leading up to Oct. 24, and he explains running for mayor has presented some tougher challenges compared to running for council.

“You’re going across all five wards instead of just within your own,” he says. “It’s surprising how much more work it is, but that’s not a bad thing. You put in the amount of work you hope gets you over the finish line. I expected it to be more work, but it was even more work than I thought it would be.”

In favour of a downtown police station and a supervised consumption site, Shoemaker released the details of his platform several weeks ago, and he says the response from that decision has been positive leading up to election day.

“I think the response has been well received,” he says. “Some people will agree with it and others won’t – that’s democracy. I think it was the right thing to do, and I wish my fellow candidates would have put in an equal amount of time in developing their own platforms, but I haven’t seen it thus far.”

According to the latest SooToday polls, Shoemaker leads the way with over 40 per cent of the vote, but he isn’t reading into it all that much.

“I’m grateful for those polls, but you never know until election day,” he says. “You’ve seen cases of polls that don’t turn out the way you expected them to in lots of elections. I’m not resting on what those polls seem to show, but from what I’ve heard at the doors it’s positive.”

SooToday will be livestreaming the mayoral candidates forum on Wednesday Oct. 19 at 8 p.m.

Prior to that, council candidates will debate Tuesday (Wards 1,2,3) and Wednesday (Wards 4, 5). These will also be livestreamed starting at 6 p.m.

Voters will head to the polls on Monday Oct. 24 from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.