Battle for Sault Ste. Marie, Thunder Bay ridings puts northern issues in spotlight

Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford made a campaign stop at Algoma Steel in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., on February 23, 2025. There Ford announce that a re-elected PC government would invest $500 million to have our critical minerals processed in Ontario, by Ontario workers. The message meant to reassure workers at the steel plant of job security in light of the U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum set to start next month. Ford is picture here shaking hands with an Algoma Steel worker. (Doug Ford/X)

Lisa Vezeau-Allen says it’s not just Sault Ste. Marie’s steelworkers who are bracing for looming U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

“I was talking to a clerk at a store and they’re like, ‘Oh, I hope I still have my job after the tariffs,’” the NDP candidate in the northern Ontario riding said in a recent interview.

Algoma Steel is her city’s largest employer, said Vezeau-Allen, and the pain of tariffs on a product that has kept the local economy running for generations would be felt across the entire community.

“It’s not even just people in the steel industry. It’s people working retail that are worried about what are they going to do.”

Other issues facing the north

Health care, affordable housing, mental health and addictions are all pressing issues in the north that party leaders have sought to highlight during this month’s snap election campaign, including at a debate specific to northern issues just over a week ago.

But the anxiety around American tariffs — the stated justification for Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford’s snap election call — is undeniably driving the conversation. And the northern cities of Sault Ste. Marie and Thunder Bay, which politicians of all stripes have represented over the past few decades, have become key battlegrounds.

In Sault Ste. Marie, Vezeau-Allen has high hopes for an orange breakthrough after the incumbent Progressive Conservative MPP decided not to run for re-election.

The PCs have held the seat since 2018, and the Liberals, represented in this election by Gurwinder Dusanjh, won four elections in the riding before that. But it was an NDP stronghold from the mid-‘80s through 2003, and New Democrats are hoping those roots still run deep.

Vezeau-Allen said she’s finding traction with voters because of her own longtime connections to the community — along with her ideas about how to expand retraining programs and employment opportunities if steel jobs are cut.

In Thunder Bay-Atikokan, the parties are vying for a seat that was represented by a Liberal MPP for several election cycles before the NDP narrowly won the riding in 2018 and the PCs flipped it in the last election. Here, incumbent Kevin Holland is running to keep the seat.

The Liberal candidate in that riding, Stephen Margarit, said while U.S. tariffs are concerning to people in northern Ontario, access to health care is still the biggest issue.

“When I go to the doors, when I phone people, when I talk to people day to day, the biggest things I’m hearing about is health care,” he said. “There’s about 28,000 people within the two Thunder Bay ridings who don’t have access to a family doctor.”

NDP candidate Judith Monteith-Farrell, who represented the riding in Queen’s Park between 2018 and 2022, said the state of roads is another major concern. “Deplorable conditions,” insufficient transport truck inspections and inadequate driver training are causing safety issues, she said.

“People who live in the north and often are doing recreation activities or live in rural kind of settings are afraid to be on the highways, and this has been something that we’ve been highlighting and trying to get the government’s attention on,” she said.

“Yet we have an inspection station for transports that they built, but they don’t have any personnel actually working there, so that’s a huge issue in northern Ontario.”

A delayed stop for the PC Leader

After cancelling a trip north last week because of travel issues after a plane crash at Pearson airport, Ford is spending the final weekend of the campaign in the north, visiting both Thunder Bay and Sault Ste. Marie.

On Saturday, Ford stood in front of a row of workers wearing yellow and orange safety vests during a stop at the Laborers' International Union of North America local office, where he touted the region as “frontline against Donald Trump’s tariffs” in part because of the critical minerals it contains.

Ford stressed the need to fast-track approvals in the mineral-rich Ring of Fire area northeast of Thunder Bay, and promised a re-elected Progressive Conservative government would urge Ottawa to remove barriers and red tape.

“Ontario’s critical minerals don’t do us any good if they’re just stuck in the ground,” he said.

“To protect Ontario, to give us maximum leverage on the global stage, we have to get our critical minerals out of the ground, processed and shipped to the factory floors here in northern Ontario and across the province.”

PC canidates absent from debates

The Progressive Conservative leader also faced questions during his northern tour regarding his candidates' absence from local debates in Thunder Bay and Sault Ste Marie.

Candidates don’t have to go to these events, Ford replied on Sunday, adding he would rather have PC candidate Chris Scott “knocking on doors, talking to people directly.”

Scott, too, emphasized the importance of “actually talking to real people.”

Chris Loreto, a strategist who serves on the PC party’s executive, said people in northern Ontario will vote for the party they see as having the best approach on the economy and dealing with the impact of U.S. tariffs on critical industries.

“I believe northern Ontarians, much like Ontarians in the south, have the same set of concerns (and) are facing many of the same challenges, probably in a heightened way around affordability and the need to make sure that economies are strong, particularly to withstand the threat from the south,” he said.

“That, I think, is going to determine, at the end of the day, many of the seats in northern Ontario.”

Loreto said Ford has been able to gain a lot of support in the north.

“He’s doing a lot to make sure that we have the infrastructure in place to create new opportunities, not just for small businesses, but creating, unlocking the big opportunities like the Ring of Fire,” he said.

“He’s been supportive of northern businesses and industries.”

Ford is not the only one trying to woo northern voters with promises tailored to them.

NDP Leader Marit Stiles, whose pledges include widening two key highways in northern Ontario and fast-tracking passenger train projects in the north, visited both cities earlier in the campaign.

Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie, whose key pledge to get everyone in Ontario a family doctor includes attracting physicians to northern and rural areas, has also visited Thunder Bay.

Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner, meanwhile, has promised to build 36,000 affordable homes in northern Ontario, including 6,000 supportive homes.

Not everyone in the north believes the hype

There’s a certain amount of cynicism at play for northern voters.

Monteith-Farrell said many people she’s spoken with in her Thunder Bay riding are unhappy about the fact this is all happening during the winter. “They said, ‘This is unfair to us in the north.’”

She predicted that some voters will choose the party they think is forming government, so that the people representing their constituencies have easier access to power. With the PCs riding high in the polls, that makes the campaign more challenging for Ford’s opponents.

The bigger issue might be anticipated low turnout.

“There are some folks that are just giving up,” she said. “People have become disillusioned.”

-- with files from Paola Loriggio

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 23, 2025.

Maan Alhmidi, The Canadian Press