For St. Thomas Mayor Joe Preston, a PC majority win in the provincial vote combined with the re-election of Rob Flack in Elgin-Middlesex-London is a good news message for the city and Elgin county.
At the Chamber of Commerce Mayor’s Luncheon prior to the election, Preston told the sold-out gathering, “I want to say how blessed I am to be the mayor of St. Thomas, and that moving forward in the subsequent years, we see now on our horizon a great deal of very satisfying employment coming our way, jobs, and the dollars that come with that.
“We see on the horizon an elimination of homelessness within the next year or so in our community, and we work together with other communities in our southern Ontario to help them with the same issues we’ve had.”
Combine that with Flack set to begin his second term and Preston admitted he has plenty of reasons to smile.
However, added Preston, with the threat of U.S. tariffs looming this week, Parliament needs to be reconvened.
He noted, “There should be an active Parliament with what’s going in the country south of us.”
Speaking with Preston on Thursday evening, he offered insight into Flack’s return to office.
You do the right thing, advised Preston, and people will keep sending you back.
Preston knows from experience as he sat as the riding MP for almost a dozen years.
The key to Flack’s convincing win in Thursday’s provincial vote was making constituents his first priority, stressed Preston on Flack’s margin of victory of 16,000 votes over Liberal runner-up Doug MacTavish.
For Preston and Flack, the priorities in the second term include moving forward with construction of the PowerCo EV battery gigafactory and related infrastructure such as housing, roads, healthcare and schools.
Written by Ian McCallum
