The Hamilton Centre Progressive Conservative provincial riding association acclaimed Dionne Duncan on Jan. 14 as its choice to carry the party’s banner into the June election against NDP leader Andrea Horwath.

“This is an honour. This is a happy day,” said Duncan, 44, who is from Mississauga, but will be relocating to Hamilton soon.

“I love Hamilton,” said Duncan, who has family that lives in the city. “I see a lot of hope in Hamilton. I see a lot of spirit in Hamilton.”

Duncan, who graduated with a PhD in Health Policy Management from the University of Toronto, is attempting to unseat Horwath, who has represented most of the area since 2004 (there was riding redistribution in 2007). In the 2014 election, she easily won re-election collecting 18,699 votes, compared with the Liberal candidate Donna Tiqui-Shebib’s 8,450 votes and the Tory candidate, John Vail who had 5,136 votes. The Liberals have not yet announced a candidate to face Horwath.

Duncan, who isn’t deterred by past political results, said, Hamiltonians have problems within the community that have been forgotten or ignored, including a health care crisis with patients sitting in hallways for days waiting for a room or a physician.

“Why? Because nobody is handling the issue properly,” she said.

She supports the increase to the minimum wage, but only if it is increased to $15 per hour on a gradual basis. The Liberals are proposing to add another dollar to the $14 per hour minimum wage on Jan. 1, 2019. The Tories have stated they would ease the increase over a number of years.

Duncan said the increase to $14 from $11.60 on Jan. 1, 2018 was too fast, too soon. She said the result is part-time employees in the restaurant business, such as at Tim Hortons, are feeling the brunt of employers having to recoup their higher labour costs in other ways.

“I don’t think it was thought out,” she said. “(The increase) needs to make sense.”

Locally, Duncan supports Tory leader Patrick Brown’s decision to provide the $1 billion in capital funding to Hamilton for its light rail transit system, but only if the city wants it.