Windsor mayor sets list of election priorities, seeks support of candidates

Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens has boiled down the city's election priorities to a list of five and he wants every candidate to support them if elected.

On Wednesday morning, candidates in the Windsor West and Windsor-Tecumseh ridings were sent a letter entitled 'Platform 4 Windsor' which features five priority projects for the city.

Dilkens calls it a non-partisan platform designed to gather attention from the public and from the candidates.

"My role is to put forward at least a few issues, in this case five, amongst a universe of a hundred issues that the city of Windsor is facing," he said.

The key priorities are:

• health care funding for the new regional acute care hospital.
• creating a national urban park in the west end.
• support for flood protection funding.
• transitioning the automotive industry to electric vehicle manufacturing.
• renovating the Adie Knox recreation complex. 

"Candidates will look at this to see if they can get behind it. They will make their own decision," Dilkens said. 

Sandra Pupatello, the Liberal candidate for Windsor West, said she is delighted with the list. 

"I have to say, mayors in this city never had to do it before because they always had a partner in other levels of government. For the last several years we haven't had that partner and that's exactly why our mayor has to put out such a list." 

Pupatello says candidates should be delivering on the list of priorities and more. 

Windsor West Conservative candidate Anthony Orlando says there is tremendous opportunity to expand on the mayor's request regarding the transition to electric vehicle manufacturing. 

"There is no reason why we shouldn't continue to be the premiere manufacturing area in our country," he said. 

Brian Masse, NDP candidate for Windsor West, also commended the mayor for the list.

"It's a direction the city needs to go towards and they line up quite succinctly with the NDP positions that we have on all of those things because they're good planning elements that will maximize taxpayers returns and deal with some of the issues that we have in our community," he said. 

Dilkens says he recognized some of the priorities will take more time than others. 

"Some of these are really easy, low hanging fruit. Others I recognize, will take a lengthier period of time, more collaboration amongst all levels of government in order to get traction on it," he said.

The mayor's office has set up a 'Platform 4 Windsor' website which will be updated to reflect which candidates have supported the priorities.

In a news release, Dilkens says each of the five priorities has been "endorsed by Windsor City Council, through unique debates and resolutions that have been previously passed by Council."