In a case of better late than never, the Liberal Party of Ontario has a nominee for Wellington-Halton Hills after the provincial election is already underway.
Better late than never might describe Tom Takacs' foray into politics too, as the 59-year-old master electrician said in an interview. Running in an election is something he wishes he had started doing 10 years ago.
“After you see things they way they’re heading, whether that be provincially or federally, I think anybody as you get older you start to want to participate and, you know, be sort of a voice for the people that you want to represent,” Takacs said.
This will be Takacs fourth time running in an election, as he ran in the 2018 provincial election and 2021 federal election as an NDP candidate for the Mississauga East-Cooksville riding.
He acknowledged he has changed political affiliations from NDP to Liberal, mainly due to internal policies he disagreed with, but he noted this isn’t an unusual occurrence.
He also ran for Vaughan city council in 2018, where he lives. Although he doesn’t live in the Wellington-Halton Hills riding, Takacs said he knows many people who do in places like Acton, Georgetown, Hillsburgh and Fergus. He said there’s something very special about communities found in a riding like Wellington-Halton Hills.
“I know what it's like to live in a concrete world, I mean I envy the people that live out in Wellington-Halton Hills, I really do,” Takacs said. “You get the fresh air, you got the landscape, you got the beauty.”
Takacs wasn’t always from the area. He was born in Elliott Lake, Ont. as a first-generation Canadian.
His parents fled Hungary during the revolution in 1956 to England before making their way to Canada.
“Canada was choice or the boat was travelling in that direction from England,” Takacs said.
Takacs recalled his father worked in the uranium mines in Elliott Lake before that industry dried up and the family ended up in downtown Toronto.
With his father being a blue collar worker, Takacs said it was natural for him to follow in that direction into the trades, specifically as an electrician.
“I went to Central Tech and so it was in the neighbourhood and I just basically ventured into that trade and looked at my first job at 18 and then from that point on I just pursued my career,” Takacs said, adding he thinks a lack of awareness and participation in the trades is a big problem.
Takacs is passing down his years of experience through teaching, with a few semesters at Durham and Humber colleges but mainly at the IBEW Local 353 electricians educational department for the past 10 years.
The Liberal candidate is also the father to two adult sons, one a City of Toronto police officer and the other a contractor.
When asked about politicians he’s inspired by, Takacs had a hard time pointing to any individual person as he said he’s seen inspirational people “throw a curveball” which changes public perception of them.
“A lot of politicians have a good, then all of a sudden it starts to go ugly, that’s kind of the reason I use ‘the good, the bad and the ugly,’” Takacs said, referencing a quote he used in a press release announcing his nomination.
He remembered he shook Pierre Trudeau’s hand in 1968 as a child when he was campaigning in Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto.
“It’s funny how the memory comes back, I guess I haven’t lost that yet,” Takacs said.
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