Slade wants to paint town blue Oct. 19

Fred Slade hopes he can paint Sudbury blue during the federal election Oct. 19.

The Conservative Party candidate was a distant second to then NDP candidate Glenn Thibeault in 2011, but said at his campaign launch Thursday the people of Sudbury are ready to veer to the right of the political spectrum.

“I'm very confident the people of Sudbury will understand their best vote is a vote for Fred Slade and a Conservative government,” he said.

“It's a matter of getting the message out that Conservative values are the values that many of the people in Sudbury feel are most important. Family, security, jobs, stability, the economy – all those things are conservative values.”

Slade said Thibeault abandoned the community, and has left it without proper representation in Ottawa, when he resigned his seat in the House of Commons and ran for the provincial Liberals in late 2014.

In February 2015 Thibeault won the provincial byelection – to fill former MPP Joe Cimino's vacant seat.

Slade said infrastructure is the top issue for constituents he has spoken with so far.

“The federal government is embarking upon the biggest infrastructure spend the country has ever seen. I want to make sure we get our fair share of that,” he said.

He added health care is also a major issue for constituents.

“Despite lies to the contrary, we've increased that spending six per cent every year,” he said, referring to federal health transfers to the province.

Slade will face NDP candidate Paul Loewerberg, Liberal Paul Lefebvre, and Green Party candidate David Robinson in the Oct. 19 Sudbury federal byelection.

While Oct. 19 is the day of the general federal election, in Sudbury, Peterborough and Ottawa West-Nepean constituents will technically vote in by-elections to fill vacant seats.