Rose Zacharias, the Liberal candidate for Barrie-Springwater-Oro-Medonte (BSOM), may have lost Thursday’s provincial election, but she’s vowed to return and is determined to represent the area as an elected official in some capacity.
“It’s not the result I wanted,” she said shortly before 10 p.m., when her team conceded victory to Progressive Conservative incumbent Doug Downey. “I wanted all of the efforts to pay off and bring about a win. It would have been a privilege to go to Queen’s Park as MPP for Barrie-Springwater-Oro-Medonte.
“And I still know that,” she added.
Zacharias, 52, entered the race on Feb. 1, when she officially launched her campaign at an event in Barrie with the support of about 100 volunteers, family and friends.
After 15 years as an emergency-room doctor at Orillia Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital, Zacharias is now a family doctor, or hospitalist, at Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care in Penetanguishene, and looking after inpatients there.
As well, as a former president of the Ontario Medical Association (OMA), Zacharias stressed how the Liberals would fix health care and ensure every person in the province would have a family doctor.
When Liberal Party Leader Bonnie Crombie kicked off her provincial election campaign, she did it in Barrie with Zacharias at her side, in front of the Barrie Primary Care Campus on Bayview Drive in the city’s south end.
“We are launching our tour here in Barrie because 55,000 people residing in this area don’t have access to a family doctor,” Crombie said at the time.
Midway through the month-long campaign, Zacharias introduced Crombie during her campaign stop in Elmvale, where the Liberal leader discussed the lack of family physicians in communities across the province.
She still believes health care is the key issue.
“I think health care is the backbone of our economy,” Zacharias said. “You need to be well to go to work and I’ve seen people struggle with their health and it’s impacted their ability to hold a job, their ability to support a family.”
She said she’s learned a lot over the past month — about the issues residents care about, about the political process and about herself.
Zacharias said her first election campaign wasn’t under ideal circumstances — a blustery winter and only a month to prepare — but she's caught the political bug and wants to take it to wherever it may lead her.
“I have aspirations to head into politics and I'm going to build on what I’ve learned,” she said. “I’m actually very determined to be a politician.
"I’m going to come back. Tonight is about absorbing the results."