{"id":35708,"date":"2025-01-16T19:12:12","date_gmt":"2025-01-17T00:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=35708"},"modified":"2025-01-16T19:12:15","modified_gmt":"2025-01-17T00:12:15","slug":"ballard-named-candidate-for-newmarket-aurora-ontario-liberals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/ballard-named-candidate-for-newmarket-aurora-ontario-liberals\/","title":{"rendered":"Ballard named candidate for Newmarket-Aurora Ontario Liberals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Former Ontario Cabinet Minister and Aurora councillor Chris Ballard will carry the Ontario Liberal banner for Newmarket-Aurora in the next Provincial election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ballard was acclaimed as candidate for Aurora\u2019s northern riding at a meeting held Sunday in Newmarket amid growing speculation that Progressive Conservative Premier Doug Ford will call an early election, possibly as soon as next month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is well within our grasp to make this riding red again,\u201d Ballard told The Auroran last week. \u201cWe can win this riding, we have done it before, we will do it again \u2013 and now is the time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ballard served as an Aurora Councillor from 2010 to 2014, vacating his seat just a few months before the end of term after winning Newmarket-Aurora for the Ontario Liberals in the 2014 election. He subsequently served as Minister of Housing and Minister of the Environment in Kathleen Wynne\u2019s Cabinet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since losing his seat to Progressive Conservative Christine Elliott in 2018, he has worked as CEO of Passive House Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have grown increasingly concerned by the inaction I see at Queen\u2019s Park with regards to our riding of Newmarket-Aurora,\u201d he says. \u201cAll of the many things that we have started have fallen aside or have fallen way behind, everything from investments in Southlake to investments in improved GO Train service, to improvements in affordable housing in this area. I have grown more and more worried as I have talked to people in the riding and talked to organizations in the riding about how life has not been made easier but has, in fact, become more difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe economy across Ontario \u2013 and StatsCan backs this up \u2013 was slowly crumbling and on the Provincial level we need to fix that. We need to stop the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs and here\u2026 we need to build the local economy, and all of the things I am hearing from people that need to be dealt with \u2013 things like healthcare, things like affordable housing, things like local jobs. I hear this time and again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Re-entering politics under the leadership of Bonnie Crombie, he says he has found a leader in whom his values align. He was a strong supporter of former leader Steven Del Duca, now Mayor of Vaughan, but at the time of the last Provincial election, Ballard says it wasn\u2019t the right time for him to re-enter the fray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBonnie has run a big municipality, she has experience beyond municipal government, being a one-time MP,\u201d says Ballard. \u201cShe has the experience, she has the platform, she has a really good team she has assembled behind her. She is a good communicator and I am aligned with her core values in terms of wanting to build Ontario\u2019s economy and how we address the shortcomings of the current government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is a very inequitable Provincial government that is playing out time and time again when we look at developers and the perks that only certain developers get \u2013 [but] not all developers. I think what Bonnie brings to the table is a much more equitable approach to making sure that we get affordable housing built, that we bring jobs to all areas of Ontario.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Key priorities this election, he says, will be healthcare, transit and the environment, particularly areas related to climate change and climate adaptation, better supports for seniors, including homecare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA lot of these concerns have just continued to grow, especially over the past four years,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Ontario Cabinet Minister and Aurora councillor Chris Ballard will carry the Ontario Liberal banner for Newmarket-Aurora in the next Provincial election. Ballard was acclaimed as candidate for Aurora\u2019s northern riding at a meeting held Sunday in Newmarket amid growing speculation that Progressive Conservative Premier Doug Ford will call an early election, possibly as soon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":35709,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35708","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\/2025\/01\/2025-01-16-05.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-9hW","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-25 06:51:59","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\/35708","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=35708"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35710,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35708\/revisions\/35710"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}