With Premier Doug Ford intending to meet with the lieutenant-governor on Tuesday to launch an election campaign beginning Wednesday - for a vote on Feb. 27 - political parties are moving fast to nominate candidates in each of Ontario’s 124 ridings.
As with many other ridings, it is not yet clear who will be running for each party in Sault Ste. Marie.
“Well, I may have an idea. However, at this particular juncture, there are still some things that have to be finalized with Elections Ontario. I do have an idea who the individual would be,” said Sault MPP Ross Romano speaking to reporters at a funding announcement Monday.
Romano, the Progressive Conservative Sault MPP who has represented this riding at Queen’s Park since 2017, announced in December he will not seek re-election.
“This person could be appointed by the Premier. That's a process that's been going through the party and so I can't get into any details,” Romano said, adding that a PC candidate for the Sault will be named “very shortly, within the next 24 to 48 hours.”
“I can tell you this, it's been seven years of making announcements like this and working on behalf of this community and it's been an absolute privilege and an honour to be able to have done the job that I've been able to do.
"I said when I made my announcement that I wasn't running back in December that the job wasn't done and I wasn't going to be sitting on the sidelines and that I would be actively involved. I will be very much there to support the next person that puts their hat in the ring.”
Romano was first elected as Sault MPP in a provincial byelection in 2017 following the resignation of Liberal David Orazietti. He was re-elected in 2018 and 2022, and has served as minister of colleges and universities and minister of government and consumer services in Ford’s cabinet.
Romano offered no specific details as to what his extent of community involvement will be after leaving politics.
“I think we'll just worry about getting through this election and getting the next PC member of our team elected here in Sault Ste. Marie because again, the job isn't done. There's a lot more work to do and there's some very serious threats. Certainly ours is a steel town. We know what it was like before with Donald Trump and he's very serious.”
As the re-elected American president, Trump has said he will slap 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian goods.
“He's been making some threats for quite a long time, and we've seen that in the past so we need to protect Ontario. We need to make sure we get a strong mandate and a strong majority so that we can go forward and ensure we're protecting the jobs of hundreds of thousands of people across this province and certainly many thousands of people in our community," Romano said.
Ford has said he needs a strong majority from voters to spend tens of billions of dollars in stimulus money to fight Trump’s tariffs. He believes between 450,000 and 500,000 Ontario jobs could be affected by the U.S. president’s actions.