With Premier Doug Ford confirming there will be a provincial election held on Feb. 27, are there candidates for the Niagara Falls riding ready to hit the ground running?
Or willing to knock on doors in the dead of winter?
Ford has said he needs a mandate now to fight U.S. President Donald Trump’s threatened tariffs, and he’s not willing to wait more than a year for the fixed election date in June, 2026.
Jake Sinke, the provincial Conservative Party association president for the Niagara Falls riding, told The Local Friday morning that a candidate has been chosen. Ruth-Ann Nieuwesteeg, a Niagara Falls city councillor, as well as a funeral director and owner of Patterson Funeral Home, will represent the riding that includes Niagara-on-the-Lake and Fort Erie.
“I am deeply honoured and grateful to be appointed as the candidate for Niagara Falls by Premier Doug Ford,” she said in an emailed statement. “It is with great enthusiasm that I accept this nomination and look forward to serving the people of Niagara Falls. As a long-time resident and business owner in our community, I am committed to representing the interests of our residents.”
She expressed “sincere appreciation to Premier Ford and the PC Party for their trust and confidence in my abilities. To the people of Niagara Falls, I promise to be a dedicated and accessible representative, always putting your needs first. I am eager to contribute to the government's vision for a stronger, more prosperous Ontario and to work tirelessly on the issues that matter most to our community.”
NOTL’s Deputy Lord Mayor Erwin Wiens, long rumoured to be interested in representing the PCs, told the Local he has been asked that question before, and has considered a run for the provincial riding, but now isn’t the time.
“I’m committed to doing a good job for the town of NOTL, what the people of NOTL elected me to do,” he said. “It wouldn’t be fair to do anything else. I don’t have any intention of running at this point in my life.”
“Dorothy (Soo-Wiens) and I have always been interested in giving back to our community, and we have to look at how best we can do that,” at any level of government, or even outside of politics, he said. “We’re just trying to do what we think is for the best.”
And right now, he adds, their priority is the NOTL community.
Bob Gale, local businessman and Niagara Falls regional councillor, ran against MPP Wayne Gates in the last provincial election, and was appointed by Ford last April as chair of the Niagara Parks Commission. He told The Local he talked to Ford about the candidacy earlier this week, and “the premier said he would like me to continue as parks chair.”
NOTL resident Ken Gansel, long-time president of the provincial Liberal Niagara Falls riding, outlined the process of finding a candidate to run in this election. Association members are calling anyone they think might be interested, someone who might have been involved in past elections, to talk about coming onboard. If they find someone with a positive response, who hopefully has name recognition and some experience in politics, the process becomes one of vetting the potential candidate. But as recently as Thursday he said they weren’t having any luck. “We don’t have anybody like that. There are no takers. We’ve been involved in a candidate search for three months, and we’re still looking."
MPP Wayne Gates confirmed he would be running in this election last December, when across the province NDP representatives were holding their nomination meetings to ensure they would be ready when the election call came, and expecting it would be as early.
He was not anticipating it would come as early as it has — when Fort Erie resident Burd Sisler, a 109-year-old resident of Fort Erie and veteran of the Second World War and also a long-time Gates supporter — nominated him for the third time, the MPP said an election could come as early as March.
He’s ready for it, but he says it’s unnecessary, and he’s not happy that the election could cost $175 to $200 million — money that instead could be spent on health care, schools and education.
“We have seniors living in encampments because they can’t afford rent,” he said. “We should be helping them.
Gates disputes Ford’s claim that he needs a strong mandate to fight the tariffs threatened from the other side of the border, saying other parties have promised to work with the premier, who already has a majority government. “The best that can happen for him is he wins a majority government, and he already has that. He already has a mandate. There is absolutely no reason to go for an early election. We should be coming together as a province that’s committed to taking on the president of the United States.”
Gates says he’s prepared “to do what I always do. I’ll do everything I can, 24/7. I’ll run the best election I can,” which means representing Niagara’s important agricultural sector, working for health care, and pushing for more housing to help those who are depending on food banks which are already stretched to the limits, and those who are living in encampments “in every area of the province. Those are the issues that are concerning the people of Ontario right now."
