With a provincial budget upcoming, and the prospect of an election afterwards, the Kitchener-Conestoga Liberals are looking to line up a candidate. They’ll make their choice at a nomination event April 29.Breslau’s Wayne Wright and Dan Zister, formerly of Woolwich, are newcomers to politics with backgrounds in the trades and finance respectively.
Zister grew up on a farm in Woolwich that the Scotia Capital project manager hopes to take over upon his move back to the region from Toronto to commence a political career.He spent his childhood on the horse farm his family has operated for about 40 years. He attended elementary school in St. Clements and high school at St. David’s in Waterloo. Since that time he has travelled to Ottawa for university and abroad to Australia, New York and spent ten years in England. After returning to Canada three years ago – Zister now works in Toronto – he’s looking to contribute his knowledge of finance to the candidacy.“I’m quite familiar with the financial world and I think I can bring some experience to things that we can do.”He says the issue of Ontario’s manufacturing jobs going by the wayside is a province-wide problem that needs to be tackled.“I’m aware of several issues the current provincial representative is looking at, and certainly gravel and aggregate comes to mind as somewhat specific to Kitchener-Conestoga. But, I’d like to keep the big picture in mind with what’s good for the province and with my experience in business and the financial world.Wright’s political ambitions came after his youngest child was turned away from a hospital.He seeks the candidacy from a job-creation perspective as a tradesman who now teaches as a professor at the Conestoga College School of Trades and Apprenticeship.“It’s such a large sector in our economy and there’s not a lot of representation at the political level with all of the changes that are being made in the trades. … As I’ve gotten older I’ve taken more notice of the world around me and what we are going to leave behind for our children. I see the workforce that we have and I’d like to build on that, build on our healthcare system, job creation in this region as well.”Having watched Breslau’s development for many years, Wright says sustainability is important where growth is concerned.“We’ve seen tremendous development and tremendous growth but if one particular area is going to grow, being a tradesman, you don’t want to grow it in such an area where it can’t sustain itself. I know the controversy in this area is of course water and sewer – we have to look at how we are going to grow these areas.”Members of the Kitchener-Conestoga Provincial Liberal Association will hold a vote at Kitchener’s Edelweiss Tavern at 7 p.m. on April 29.
