ThoroldToday will be profiling every candidate in the upcoming municipal and school board elections on Oct. 24. Up next: Angie Coates.
Angie Coates, 63, is hoping to bring a new perspective to Thorold City Council.
“I think it’s time for me to start giving back,” Coates says, in an interview with ThoroldToday. “I love Thorold. I’ve had my business downtown for eight years. I think it’s time for me to say: ‘Hey, I can stand up and do something for the community, more than just being in my shop.’”
Coates is the owner of Angie O’H Antiques on Front Street. She was a nurse for 40 years before retiring to open her shop. She says that both experiences have given her a broad range of knowledge.
“I knew everything about you before you were off the stretcher, I was right into the legislation, I knew everything,” she says about her nursing career. “When I opened my shop I now had the experience to see the community from another perspective. It’s totally different than nursing. I’ve had 16,000 visitors through my door. I talk to every single one that comes in and they give me a whole different perspective on life.”
Being the head of her nurse’s union for fifteen years, Coates says she’s always taken initiative to better her community and help others.
She points to the team of medical professionals she put together during the pandemic to come up with an action plan she sent to premier Doug Ford.
“When we first went into COVID, I had ten people [with] over 258 years of experience that we would have made a difference to COVID,” Coates says. ”I wanted to see people survive. I said: ‘My team can prevent the impact of deaths on the second wave if you just listen to us,’ and he didn’t respond.”
Coates is focusing her platform on three key components: health care, disability challenges and attracting and promoting local businesses.
The vision Coates has for Thorold is one of innovation.
“We can make it a better place for everybody to live,” says Coates. “I would like to see Thorold be put on the map for healthcare. I have some amazing ideas that will put us on the map because nobody has thought of it.”
Improving the lives of people with disabilities in the city is a priority for Coates.
“I have a familiarity with the The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act,” she says. “Everybody I talked to at City Hall says that we’ve met the standard but it’s substandard. By 2025 it has to be fully accessible and we’re not there. I can hear it all the time: ‘You got a walker, you can wheel it over there,’ but they don’t understand I got to lift my walker because it won’t wheel the way inclines are, the way they’re designed.”
Coates grew up in Hamilton but has lived in Thorold for a long time.
“I’ve lived in Thorold now longer than Hamilton and I just love it,” Coates says. “Even before I opened my business people would drive down the street, stop in the middle of the road and talk to people. It was crazy. That’s just the way it is. The new people coming to the area are finding it as well, how wonderful we are. “
With her candidacy Coates hopes to make Thorold a more inclusive place.
“I think the City is doing a remarkable job but I also think that they need different people on different committees, representation,” she says. “I think that Thorold City Council needs to do a paradigm shift and I’m the one to introduce it. I’m ready to give back.”
