Former area reporter seeking NDP nomination | ...

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NEWS LOCAL

Former area reporter seeking NDP nomination

Tuesday, May 12, 2015 5:49:38 EDT PM

Former Goderich Signal Star and Clinton News Record reporter Gerard Creces is seeking the NDP nomination for Huron-Bruce.
Gerard Creces is ready for change and a ground-up approach to rural issues.

He is currently seeking the NDP nomination for Huron-Bruce.

Creces, 34, is originally from Zurich but went to school for broadcast journalism at Fanshawe College before moving back to the area.
He worked as a reporter with the Goderich Signal Star for eight years before moving over to work for a year at the Clinton News Record.
For Creces the decision to switch careers was not done lightly. He had been thinking about it for a long time but crossing the line into
politics could put his journalism career jeopardy.

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Weve had such poor representation since I started in Huron-Bruce that I could not take another four years of this, he said. It was kind
of put up or shut up time for me.

Watching Senators being charged with fraud and what he called unsupported legislation being passed pushed him to run. He sites the
Former
area reporter seeking NDP nomination | ...
http://www.goderichsignalstar.com/2015/05/12/f...
Anti-terrorism Act, which he said gives CSIS overreaching powers and isnt favoured by most Canadians.
Creces said that his honesty sets him apart.
He knows that citizens hear politicians say that all the time but said he isnt trying to project any type of false impressions of who he is or
what he would be like as a Huron-Bruce representative.
I see the phony images being projected, or the ego and the sense of entitlement that our representatives are displaying and that is just
not me at all, he said. We just need ordinary people running for government.
Its happening in Alberta and it can happen here, he added.
Creces has been working-poor his whole life.
He believes that economists and lawyers, so often elected to government, dont always understand or forget about the needs of regular
people, something he claims he wont do.
Creces focus for Huron-Bruce is on three main issues; rural poverty, transportation and the economy, three areas that, in his view,
seniors and youth are taking the biggest hit.
While there is money for youth programs, Creces said it is going unused, adding that youth retention is integral to economic growth.
There are youth job programsthat would set people up, give them jobs, take them out of poverty and get them contributing to the
local workforce. Its just going unspent, its going ignored. Those people arent voters, Creces explained.
Youth and seniors are often competing for jobs and a good poverty and transportation strategy will change that as well as meaningful
pension reform, Creces said.
Creces has reported extensively on transportation issues and says having a healthy rural economy is directly connected to
transportation availability. If people arent able to get to jobs in other places due to lack of transportation its going to cause a labour
mismatch.
He claims when he was reporting there never was a federal representative at think tank or board meetings.
He believes research on transportation issues is being ignored, which is something he wants to change.
Thats one of the main things I want to do; give the attention that these people need or deserve because they are working towards
solutions but if nobody in the federal government is listening to them its going to get put on a shelf and thats incredibly sad, Creces
said.
Creces has made a pledge to donate five per cent of his MP salary to charity if elected. He hasnt pinpointed a charity yet because he
said that would be up to people in his riding.
The only way ordinary people are going to change the government is when ordinary people start making up the government. Im just
about as ordinary as you can get and so thats why Im doing this, he said.
Creces needs NDP members to vote for him in order to secure his spot as the candidate for Huron-Bruce.
More information on Creces bid for nomination can be found on his Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/GC4NDP

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