With the federal election coming up quickly, MP Mike Bosiso – along with the four other candidates – have been all over Hastings-Lennox and Addington campaigning.
Since being narrowly elected as MP in 2014, Bossio has made “hundreds” of visits to North Hastings, with many more coming since the campaign began.
“We’re trying to help and assist the most vulnerable in our society,” Bossio says. He points to the 24,000 in his riding that are benefiting from the Liberals middle-class tax cuts as proof of that. He adds that he’s also worked to give seniors more support. He’s had a hand in the 16 New Horizons of Seniors grants that have been awarded in North Hastings. “This is really making a significant difference in getting our seniors out in the community,” he says. Bossio says those programs and ones like the Canada Child Benefit Program will be what he continues to fight for if re-elected.
It has been a difficult start to the campaign for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau but Bossio has remained firm with his support of his boss. “He’s approachable, he listens and when he hears a good plan he acts and I know because I was the guy doing the asking,” he says of the work that he’s done with the Prime Minister. Bossio says he believes Trudeau has done more for rural Canadians than any living Prime Minister. He pointed to the $6 billion that’s been invested in digital infrastructure and broadband connectivity and the $2 billion going into small community infrastructure.
Bossio notes that statistics have been put out in multiple news outlets – including the National Post – that says the Liberals have entirely fulfilled 53.5-percent of their 2015 campaign promises, partially kept 38.5-percent and broken eight-percent. Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s score on the same criteria is 85-percent, with 77-percent coming from his fully kept campaign promises. 16-percent of Harper’s promises were broken, the National Post says.
“If people look at what we’ve done as a government they’ll see we’ve done a lot,” the incumbent MP says. Bossio says he has fought for rural Canadians and will continue to do that. “The more money we put in the pockets of low-to-middle-income Canadians it benefits them in a huge way and it also benefits our communities because they spend it and they spend it locally”
Bossio’s candidates in the October 21st federal election are Conservative Derek Sloan, NDP’s David Tough, Green Party candidate Sari Watson and the People’s Party of Canada’s Adam Gray.