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Jeff Donkersgoed hopes younger voters find the time in their busy schedules to make it to the polls next week.
Of course, the NDP candidate for the Kitchener South-Hespeler riding hopes every eligible voter finds time to cast a ballot on or before election day knowing what's at stake.
But it's young voters especially who should consider what their vote could mean for their future, he says.
For newly eligible voters, chronic underfunding of post-secondary education is a big issue.
"I mean, it's great that tuition fees have been frozen, but we haven't had the investments from the province to help back that up."
Over the last several months, the Glenview Park high school music teacher says he's missed hearing what's on students' minds as he continues a leave of absence to work with the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation.
So when asked what kids think about this election, Donkersgoed smiles and says he wish he knew.
With this election widely expected to see one of the lowest voter turnouts in history, surpassing the dismal 40 per cent in June 2022, Donkersgoed, like many candidates campaigning in this snap election, worries voters won't choose to exercise their civic duty.
Voter apathy is coupled with the fact that post secondary students will be heading back to class after reading week and many older voters may not even be able to cast a ballot from the their winter escapes.
Adding to the concern is the weather. If a storm hits on or before next Thursday, fewer voters will make the effort to get to polling stations.
If it was Doug Ford's strategy to lean on his political advantage, send the other parties scrambling to meet the election call and hope few people turned out to the polls, then mission accomplished, Donkersgoed says.
The first-time candidate is also frustrated over the fact many incumbent Progressive Conservative candidates locally and across the province haven't bothered to show up for debates or even participate in interviews with media.
"It's absolutely frustrating. They're not being held accountable for their actions as the government in power."
"I mean to be able to have the opportunity to call them out on their record is important," he says.
It's not just disappointing for other candidates, but also for constituents in PC-held ridings who don't get to hear what their representatives have to say.
"People are feeling a little bit hopeless...they're kind of frustrated that nothing's changed and things are getting worse with education, with healthcare, the affordability crisis, housing, and whatever is coming our way with the tariffs down south."
The concerns Donkersgoed says he's hearing at the door are almost universal; affordability, healthcare and rent control, an issue he says is a "massive," particularly in Kitchener South-Hespeler.
Whenever he talks to people in apartments, some who've been there a decade or more, he sees the worry on their faces when they tell him rent controls have to come back.
"They're paying $1,200 a month, but anybody that's brand new to the building is paying two to three times as much. How do you move, or how do you save to buy a home?" he asks.
Another top issue that's particularly worrisome for those approaching retirement age is healthcare, he says.
The province's doctor shortage is compounded by the Ford government's failure to make the necessary investments in salaries, equipment and infrastructure to attract and retain doctors and nurses, he says.
They're getting burnt out working extensive hours and they're tempted by better pay in other jurisdictions.
"Then we've got strange things happening with privatized agencies hiring nurses. I mean, they're getting paid better, but it's actually still costing us the long run," he says.
Doug Ford said he was going to get rid of hallway medicine. "He's had seven years!"
"And now we're hearing he's running on a platform of investing in trying to get family doctors and nurses? I'm like, 'well where was this seven years ago?'"
Nurses want staff-to-patient ratios to increase because as they are now it's "completely unsafe," he says.
In an ER intensive care unit it should be one nurse caring for up to three patients, but instead it's often one nurse caring for six while triage nurses sit in the ambulance bays waiting to offload patients.
"It's kind of like, you create a crisis by underfunding and then you use that as a way to privatize it."
Donkersgoed brings up cataract surgery as a prime example of where people are seeing the upsell to privatized clinics, but it's happening for other surgeries as well and it's starting to impact younger generations.
He's heard of people who need knee replacement surgery getting frustrated with wait times to the point of considering "jumping the line" if they have the money to get it done at a private clinic.
The fear is when investments in healthcare are lacking, private partnerships like what we've seen with Cambridge Memorial Hospital will increase.
He wonders if Waterloo region's newest hospital will end up being a private-public partnership with costs for service built in.
The shift toward privatized health care is particularly worrisome for anyone saving for retirement because healthcare hasn't traditionally been something Canadians have had to consider as part of their calculations.
At the same time people are becoming sicker because they've been legislated into poverty, he says, with seniors increasingly vulnerable as their savings are eroded.
Some have to choose between feeding their families or paying for basic medications, Donkersgoed adds.
"All of it ends up costing us in the long run. We aren't keeping up with looking after ourselves the way we should be. That includes things like mental health and addiction."
He points to the recent point in time count that revealed there are more than 2,300 people in Waterloo region living in shelters, on the streets or counted among the hidden homeless.
So it's not just hospitals where more investment in healthcare needs to happen, he says. "It's the whole safety network and looking out for one another."
When asked how an NDP government is going to pay for it all, Donkersgoed says, "We're not going to waste spending. "
"We're not going to have, you know, a $16 billion dollar payout with the green belt," or saddle every person in the province with a $400 bill to subsidize a spa at Ontario Place.
"We have to invest smartly and properly."