The County of Simcoe is going to keep growing, and Bradford West Gwillimbury Deputy Mayor James Leduc said he hopes county council, including the newly elected warden, will step up to the plate to push for economic development and employment retention.
Leduc, who ran for the position of Simcoe County warden, lost the race to Tiny Township Mayor George Cornell in a Dec. 11 vote at the inaugural meeting of county council since the municipal election.
“We are going to grow. We have lots of employment lands,” Leduc said, adding companies will be looking outside of Toronto, where business costs are expensive and land can be scarce.
“We are going to be a county that’s going to be looked at by employers.”
Leduc called Cornell a “good person” and said he thinks he will be an “exceptional” warden.
“I think he has a good idea of what we need to do,” he said. “There’s always a winner and there’s always a loser. It’s OK.”
Leduc ran on a platform of five pillars: economic development, transportation, tourism, governance, and budgets.
Speaking to BradfordToday this week, Leduc said he hopes the county will examine its budgets “aggressively” to make more capital investments and expand on tourism initiatives.
The next meeting of county council will be on Jan. 8 to start budget talks.
