Mayoral candidate Donna Hilsinger says it’s going to take everybody working together to make a better Sault Ste. Marie.
For her campaign launch event held Wednesday next to the John Rowswell Hub Trail, she sent invitations to everybody running for city council ward seats in the upcoming municipal election.
Hilsinger picked the section of the Hub Trail next to the Canadian Bushplane Heritage Centre and close to the St. Marys River and Ermatinger Clergue National Historic Site and other cultural landmarks in the city.
“It’s a place that is at the centre of the things I think are important in the community — the trail, arts, culture, heritage and tourism attractions, great food and beverage and the water,” said Hilsinger in an interview immediately after the event. “It is a spot where we could gather some folks together and just take in all of the nature around us.”
Using it as a venue for Wednesday's campaign launch was intentional, as Hilsinger was part of the Sault Trails Advocacy Committee that helped to create the plan for the Hub Trail starting in the early to mid 2000s.
“Everybody brought something to the table. Some of them brought infrastructure building experience, some people brought their love of cycling and walking and bird watching and hiking and all of these things. It was just a really diverse group of people but we said we were going to make this happen and we did,” she said. “It took a lot of hard work by a lot of people."
Hilsinger said she is is running a hopeful campaign that seeks to build on all of the things Sault Ste. Marie has to offer, while facing challenges like mental health and addiction.
All of the candidates running for council were invited to come to Hilsinger's launch, regardless of who they choose to vote for. She said she believes great things can be done when people work together and attending the event was not necessarily an endorsement.
“I invited all of the folks who are running because I think it’s important to get to know people. I have an open door and I believe in working with others and everybody is free to vote for whomever they choose,” she said.
Sitting Ward 2 councillors Lisa Vezeau-Allen and Luke Dufour accepted the invitation to attend the launch, as well as ward candidates Brent Derochie, Luis Moreno, Stephan Kinach, Kurtis McDermid and Marek McLeod. Fellow ward candidate Angela Caputo attended an after party at the nearby The Tap Room.
Dufour noted he was not invited to mayoral candidate Matthew Shoemaker’s campaign launch at Anna Marinelli Park in Jamestown, despite the fact he and Vezeau-Allen are the councillors for the ward where it is located.
Shoemaker has publicly taken credit for drafting the motion to make the improvements to the park. Those specific ideas originally came out of the James Street Neighbourhood Strategy 2021–2025, a committee he was not a part of, but he did draft James Street Revitalization motion in 2018 that included asking city staff to explore a number of ideas, including expansion of the park.
Dufour said he intends on voting for Hilsinger for mayor in the Oct. 24 municipal election.
“That’s who I worked best with over the past four years and I share a very similar vision in that I want the city to continue to progress and grow,” said Dufour. “I want a mayor who is reaching out and bringing all of these people together because that really is the only way we are going to get it all done.”
McLeod told SooToday he came to the campaign launch because he was interested in hearing what Hilsinger had to say and Moreno added that he was encouraged by her hopeful message.
In her remarks, and standing next to her son Owen and daughter Emily at the podium, Hilsinger cited the thousands of hours she has served in a volunteer capacity to help improve the community, including Sault Area Hospital, SSM Economic Development Corporation, Welcome Friend Association and Rainbow Camp, among others. She also once chaired the Sault Ste. Marie Police Services Board.
"It was instilled in me many years ago that it was a responsibility to be part of the community and to be generous in supporting it," she said.
”Simply put, I love this city. I think it is the best place in Canada to grow up and to raise a family, and enjoy your senior years, however you choose to spend them,” she said. “I think we have a unique quality of life and a vibrant community becoming ever much more so with many recent investments in arts, culture and infrastructure both by the private and public sector.”
Hilsinger said she has the business and community-building experience needed to sit in the mayor’s seat.
”We need a partnership between all orders of government, the Mayor, the council, business, labour and the entire community, all totally committed to working together to get things done. I know how to make those partnerships work,” she said.
While speaking to SooToday, Hilsinger’s event was disrupted by a man who was yelling obscenities in the midst of an apparent mental health episode and was asked by McDermid to leave the area.
Hilsinger said more needs to be done to address the issues of mental health and addiction in the community, but noted those challenges are not unique to Sault Ste. Marie.
“A lot of good work has been done here in term of the services that people need who are struggling with mental health and addictions challenges. The withdrawal management centre is being built, but we still need a place people can go to get treatment, we need supportive housing and transition housing,” said Hilsinger.
While cities like Timmins, Sudbury and North Bay in northern Ontario are opening or have opened safe consumption sites, the powers that be in Sault Ste. Marie continue to take a wait-and-see approach.
Hilsinger said she is in favour of supporting the opening of such a site in the Sault.
“I think it’s been proven to be a support system that can be very helpful, it keeps people safe and keeps people alive. That’s something we need to focus on. We need to figure out how we can make that happen,”,” she said. “We need to not judge, we need to help and we need to provide the services and unfortunately we can’t fund those thing, but we can advocate and we can partner, and we can talk about it.”
“I think we all need to be rowing in the same direction,” she added.