{"id":11105,"date":"2015-06-24T13:16:56","date_gmt":"2015-06-24T17:16:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=11105"},"modified":"2015-06-24T13:16:56","modified_gmt":"2015-06-24T17:16:56","slug":"trudeau-hits-aurora-in-unofficial-start-of-federal-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/trudeau-hits-aurora-in-unofficial-start-of-federal-campaign\/","title":{"rendered":"Trudeau hits Aurora in \u201cunofficial start\u201d of Federal campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Transit riders had a bit of a surprise on Thursday afternoon as Federal leader Justin Trudeau hopped on a northbound Viva bus stopped near Yonge and Wellington.<\/p>\n

Greeting travellers with handshakes and answering some questions accompanied by local candidates Leona Alleslev and Kyle Peterson, he came out the other side and continued his circuit meeting local retailers, business people, and the public at large in Downtown Aurora. <\/p>\n

For Mr. Peterson, who will represent the Liberals for Newmarket-Aurora in this fall\u2019s Federal Election, it was the \u201cunofficial start of what is going to be a summer of campaigning.\u201d <\/p>\n

Mr. Trudeau arrived in Aurora around 4.30 p.m. after making a number of stops in surrounding municipalities, beginning at T.C.\u2019s burgers for an impromptu chat with local students before heading north on Wellington Street, stopping in at Caruso & Company, Aw, Shucks!, taking in the images of his father and fellow Liberal Marc Garneau on the Wellington Street mural, and continuing south at a number of businesses, concluding at the Aurora Public Library.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fabulous warmth of the crowd\u201d is what Ms. Alleslev, Liberal candidate for Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill, said would be her impression of the day, and a good sign of things to come.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was very surprised how well received he was when they didn\u2019t know he was coming,\u201d she said. \u201cJust for them to burst into smiles and waves and honks shows that he has the support of the people, even if the polls might say something different.\u201d<\/p>\n

During their brief stop at Aw, Shucks!, one patron approached Mr. Trudeau and his two local candidates about the legalization of marijuana. Elsewhere, they said, issues on the minds of voters included quality and quantity of jobs, support for the arts, open and transparent government, and peacekeeping.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis shows Mr. Trudeau is quite down to earth and he is happy to walk the streets anywhere in Canada,\u201d said Mr. Peterson. \u201cHe is on his own, he approaches people and there is no security around him. He is unscripted, he loves chatting with everybody he can, and I think the reception was warm. There was a personal connection made with a lot of people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Touring Aurora\u2019s historic downtown core was a way to give Mr. Trudeau \u201ca good taste\u201d of what Aurora stands for, agreed both candidates.<\/p>\n

\u201c[It showed him] what it\u2019s about, the family businesses that are on Yonge Street, and how it is the heart and soul of Aurora, and the importance of these types of areas to all towns,\u201d said Mr. Peterson. \u201cThis is, in a way, the unofficial start of what is going to be a summer of campaigning, so it is great Mr. Trudeau knows the importance of Aurora to the Federal election and this is one of the first stops on the unofficial campaign, so that was a positive sign for the people of Aurora.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Aurora, this will be a different style of election to what the Town has become used to. This fall, Aurora will be split into two electoral ridings \u2013 with Aurora lying north of Wellington Street voting in the riding of Newmarket-Aurora and south of Wellington with the new riding of Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill. <\/p>\n

Watching the election closely will be Mayor Geoff Dawe, who was on hand to meet Mr. Trudeau at the Aurora Public Library. In particular, it will be important to pay attention to each party\u2019s pledge on infrastructure dollars.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there should be a national transit policy and I would like to see clarification around the whole cell tower implementation process because it really should be a Federal responsibility as the goal is to equalize communications capability across Canada,\u201d said Mayor Dawe. \u201cThat really has to be done at a higher level so all those pieces of the jigsaw fit. Quite frankly, [the current process] is not working.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Transit riders had a bit of a surprise on Thursday afternoon as Federal leader Justin Trudeau hopped on a northbound Viva bus stopped near Yonge and Wellington.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11085,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/2015-06-25-02.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-2T7","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-30 03:55:25","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}