Cobena pledges to “bring promise of Canada” back if elected MP

March 27, 2025 · 0 Comments

Newmarket-Aurora Conservative candidate Sandra Cobena promises to “bring back the promise of Canada” if elected Member of Parliament in next month’s Federal election.

Cobena delivered this message Saturday morning as she formally kicked off her campaign in Newmarket.

Joined by her family and dozens of supporters, the Ecuador-born candidate said “Canada is the land of quiet strength and second chances,” and “that’s my story.”

“My story is one of second chances because I came to Canada when I was 13 with my parents and younger brothers. We did not have more than just the clothes in our luggage,” she said. “Sadly for us, that luggage got stolen so we had to put our clothes temporarily in garbage bags – but do you know what? It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter because we were in Canada and Canada was the land of opportunity and being Canadian is a privilege.”

Her parents, she said, worked two jobs to make ends meet for their family, until they had enough money to put a down-payment on a house in Aurora – their first permanent roots in their new country.

“That same path that my family followed is no longer possible today,” she said. “The Liberals have left generations behind. They have left my generation behind, they have left my children’s generation behind – I don’t say this with anger, I say this with sadness. Our generation cannot afford a home, we cannot dream about starting a business – when you look around, you see businesses shutting down… We in fact cannot even dream the way our parents did because it all feels so unattainable.”

It’s not solely about unattainability, she added – crime is also a factor. She took aim and what she described as the Liberals’ “catch and release” bail policy and accused Liberal supporters as being “blind to the issues they have created.”

“They have forgotten about the cost-of living crisis, they have forgotten about the burden of debt…[and] the thing about forgetting history is you’re bound to repeat its mistakes,” she said.

“I am standing here today because I firmly believe in Pierre’s vision to restore the Canadian Promise, that anyone from anywhere can achieve anything through hard work. Pierre, some of you may not know, was actually adopted by two schoolteachers. His wife Ana, is a refugee from Venezuela, and what we all have in common is we started with nothing. We carry our struggles in our hearts, we haven’t forgotten them and, in fact, they guide us. They remind us who we serve. We don’t serve the shareholders of Brookfield Asset Management who moved their headquarters to New York just six days after Trump became President.

“We know what it means to build something bit by bit, little by little, with grit, with grace, and with gratitude. We want to see hard work pay off with those powerful paycheques that will buy Canadians a beautiful home right here in Newmarket and Aurora in a safe neighbourhood. You may ask, ‘How are you going to do that?’ We’re going to do that simply by building the homes, not building with a bloated government the Liberals have built over the last 10 years, by cutting taxes. It’s the carbon tax, the capital gains, income taxes, and bringing the cost of living down, by making sure that hard work pays off and by letting workers keep more of their hard-earned money because doesn’t it sound silly when somebody says, ‘I could work more but it doesn’t really make sense for me to work more…because the government is going to take my money anyways. It doesn’t have to be a trade-off. Today it is. We need to restore safe streets, end catch and release bail, and finally support our police.

“If I am given the honour to represent this town of Newmarket and Aurora, I will not stop until our streets are safe, until homes are actually affordable for Canadians, the shops of main street and the families behind them are thriving – not until Canada stands tall again and is respected around the world because this country is worth fighting for because it is your home, it is my home, it is our home, let’s bring it home.”

By Brock Weir