One local member of Provincial Parliament is relishing the past year, and excited to see what 2023 will bring.
Andrew Dowie, the MPP for Windsor-Tecumseh, says 2022 was a great year, but that 2023 will be even better.
Dowie says he's pleased with the progress on the new Windsor-Essex Acute Care Hospital project, as well as the new NextStar Energy electric vehicle battery plant.
He says he's taken in a lot from his six months as an MPP.
"The first lessons I learned was how important relationships are," he continued. "And, it means the use of positivity, like I have always tried to do, and can make a lot of headway on files that have been difficult over the course of time."
Dowie has been working on the NextStar Energy electric vehicle battery plant file since the start.
Prior to being elected as an MPP, he worked on the files at the City of Windsor, and worked with the Provincial Ministry of Economic Development to see the project through.
He says now that he's on the ministry side he's been able to help move the project even further along.
"And doing what I can to help support that plan, it's really in a direct fashion. I just completed a tour of Ontario, where I spoke to industry leaders from different communities to learn about what we can do to improve our competitiveness and our opportunities to land investments," he said.
Dowie says he's most excited about the acceleration of the new Windsor-Essex Acute Care Hospital.
The timeline was moved ahead from shovel in the ground starting in 2027, to 2026.
He says his campaign focus was the new hospital, and is pleased to see it being a priority.
"I've stressed how important this project is, and so I was delighted to see that accelerated timeline for the hospital. And I thought, 'this is exactly why I wanted to get into office and be able to speak on our behalf' because these are results, this matters."
Prior to being elected provincially, Dowie was a councillor for the Town of Tecumseh.
He was first elected in 2014 and acclaimed his position in 2018.
- with files from AM800's Aaron Mahoney