Caroline Mulroney insists if she becomes the next premier of Ontario that Northern Ontario will not be forgotten.
The provincial PC leadership candidate who will be running in the riding of York-Simcoe, completed her second trip to Northern Ontario early this morning by stopping in for a campaign visit at the Holiday Inn Express in North Bay.
“It is only by spending time in the North and speaking to people who live here, who are working on the ground that we can best represent the people's interest in the North at Queen’s Park so it is important that I come early on in my leadership race and after the leadership once I have won, I will be back up as much as I can,” stated Mulroney.
The daughter of former prime minister Brian Mulroney, says one of her key Northern promises is to double the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund.
“We need to give Northerners the opportunity to draw on these funds so they can invest in their communities because they love living here,” she said.
“They want to be able to build the lives that they want through building the jobs that they need here so we need to be able to support that and for too long the North has been forgotten,” she said.
“I am also changing the eligibility requirements and we will be looking at other ways to make it easier for people to access those funds so they can build the communities that we need to build here.”
Mulroney was introduced at the event for party members by former Nipissing-Timiskaming MP Jay Aspin. However, she credits current Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli for his hard work trying to bring the party together.
“I have had the chance to chat a lot with Vic Fedeli before he was interim leader and as interim leader,” she noted.
“He is very busy making sure the party is as strong as it can be when the new leader takes over on March 10th so I do not call him often because he is focussed on the hard work that he is doing but he is doing a great job.”
Mulroney also spoke with North Bay city councillor Mark King, who is also the chair of District of Nipissing Social Services Administration Board.
King says she listened to his local concerns about mental health service in the city.
“I tried to first of all draw attention to what is transpiring in our local economy and particularly Northeastern Ontario but at the same time trying to highlight what’s transpiring from a provincial standpoint with respect to mental illness and just a general health care issue inside the city of North Bay,” said King.
“I wanted to really headline the issue of mental illness and substance abuse that is going on in the city,” he added noting the high number of calls police attend to in the city relating to mental illness and drug addiction.
Mulroney says she has heard stories like this during her campaign stops.
“We will make a significant investment in mental health, matching the federal investment, almost $2 billion which would match the largest in provincial history, and it is a key element,” she said.
“It will provide the kind of health care that is dedicated to mental health that people need but it also provides them with relief to our health care system and so he did mention that and how it is a significant issue here in the North.”
Mulroney will head to Muskoka for another campaign stop today.
She is facing Doug Ford, Christine Elliott, and Tanya Granic Allen in the race to succeed Patrick Brown.
Party members are able to vote online between March 2nd and 9th.
The party will name its new leader on March 10th.