Marjorie Knight is giving it one more shot at become Cambridge's representative at Queen's Park.
Knight will run in her third straight provincial election as the NDP candidate for Cambridge after finishing second behind Progressive Conservative winners Brenda Karahalios in 2018 and Brian Riddell in 2022.
"None of the issues I've been pushing or standing for have changed," Knight said.
"In fact, they've gotten worse. The problem is the solutions, the solutions dictate you have to take some very bold steps. The political will to do bold is very small, so we get band aids."
Housing, wages, assistance programs and healthcare are just a few of the issues Knight is referring to.
As a long-time Cambridge resident, community outreach worker and founder of a Rhythm and Blues, an organization that advocates for Black youth in the city, she's had her ear to the ground and seen firsthand the problems that residents face on a daily basis.
Answers to the city's problems require collaboration, Knight believes, as her political view is based around supporting one another. It's a notion she feels has been lost in the current polarizing political climate.
Take affordable housing, for example. She'd like to see more partnerships with organization's like Indwell, which is currently in the process of building supportive housing units at the site of the old Grand River Hotel on King Street East.
Knight said not enough is being done to support those most vulnerable in the community, a demographic she deals with regularly in her full-time job as an outreach worker for House of Friendship.
She points to the Canada Emergency Response Benefit given to people in need during the COVID-19 pandemic as proof. The program provided $2,000 per four week period to offset lost wages, yet the current Ontario Disability Support Program maximum sits at $1,368 a month.
"We expect them to live?" she said.
"We really need to start looking at what we're giving people as pay and assistance rates."
Not only has Knight seen the issues in the community, she's experienced them herself.
She reflects on her time within the healthcare system after she suffered a heart attack a few years back. For three days she sat in the emergency room because staff had nowhere else to put her as the hospital dealt with wait time issues.
Despite billions being directed to healthcare by previous governments, Knight questions whether the funding is going to the proper places to address the strain on the system.
"The nurses and the staff were amazing, working with what they had," she said of her experience.
"There has to be operational funding for hospitals, it has to be better than it is now. We can talk about nurses and how much money and how many nurse we're churning out, but we're churning out nurses being hired by agencies, not our hospitals. That needs to change."
With the election nearing, the Cambridge NDP candidate wants people to understand their vote matters.
"One of the things I've dealt with is the apathy of voters," she said.
"They don't feel like their vote counts. If you don't vote, you're voting for whoever wins. We forget our power in that."