Draft:Matthew Shoemaker

• Comment: Fails WP:NPOL, lacks WP:BASIC. ☮️Counter-Strike:Mention 269🕉️^{(😐 ● 🗨️ ● ✉️ ● 📔)} 08:09, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

• Comment: This draft was resubmitted with no improvement. Please do not do this. Drafts that are repeatedly resubmitted with no improvement will be nominated for deletion. SK2242 (talk) 08:13, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

• Comment: The notability of a mayor is not established just by verifying his election results, or by showing that media occasionally contacted him for soundbite on an issue. It's passed by writing substantive content about his political impact: specific things he did, specific projects he spearheaded, specific effects his leadership had on the development of the city, and on and so forth.
  For example, the article states that "during his mayoralty, the city has experienced significant population growth" -- but it fails to demonstrate that he personally did anything in particular that caused that to happen. And "national media attention for efforts to...", similarly, fails to say what if anything he did about those issues: we would need to see content about specific projects he launched to deal with those issues, not just evidence that the media called him for a pull quote about them.
  We're not just looking for newspaper articles that have his name in them, we're looking for newspaper articles in which he and his work are the subject. Bearcat (talk) 16:58, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

• Comment: Does not appear to meet WP:GNG or WP:NPOL, being an elected politician below state/province level ("Just being an elected local official... does not guarantee notability ....)" No significant coverage - mainly routine reporting of local politics, etc. Paul W (talk) 17:23, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

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Matthew Shoemaker, B.A., LL.B, LL.M. (born November 14, 1988) is a Canadian politician, who was elected mayor of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, in the 2022 municipal election.

Education and early career

Shoemaker was born in Sault Ste. Marie in 1988, and he is a graduate of St. Mary's College and Algoma University.. After his undergraduate studies at Algoma University, he attended the University of Ottawa where he obtained his law degree. Upon graduating in 2012, he began working at the Wishart Law Firm. In 2019, he completed his Master of Laws through Osgoode Hall Law School.

Politics

Shoemaker was elected to Sault Ste. Marie City Council in Ward 3 during the 2014 municipal election at the age of 25. He was re-elected in 2018 and served two terms as councillor. During this time, he brought forward over 150 motions, often proposing long-term planning and governance reforms.

He ran for mayor in 2022 and won with 44.2% of the vote in a five-candidate race. Since becoming mayor, Shoemaker has been associated with key policy initiatives tied to immigration, housing, and social services, with his leadership drawing national and regional attention.

Immigration and Demographics

Shoemaker has been a prominent national advocate for the Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot (RNIP), calling for the federal government to make the program permanent after Sault Ste. Marie experienced a reversal in its decades-long population decline. In May 2024, SooToday reported that the city’s population had reached its highest level since 1996. Shoemaker linked this turnaround to RNIP, citing over 1,000 skilled newcomers who had resettled in the city through the program. He has emphasized the impact of immigration on stabilizing the local economy and workforce, noting that the program helps mitigate aging demographics and low birth rates.

Public Health and Healthcare Shortages

Shoemaker has also led responses to major public health challenges. In early 2024, a local medical clinic's decision to stop seeing 10,000 patients without doctors drew national attention. The Globe and Mail profiled the crisis, highlighting Shoemaker’s efforts to advocate for physician recruitment and his calls for a ban on “bidding wars” between municipalities over financial incentives. He has pushed for provincial and federal reforms to ensure more equitable access to primary care, especially in northern communities.

YMCA Rescue and Housing Growth

In April 2024, Shoemaker coordinated a city-led effort to prevent the closure of the Sault Ste. Marie YMCA. After the organization announced it would shut down, Shoemaker convened private donors, nonprofit partners, and city officials to broker a rescue plan. Media outlets described it as the only known instance of a Canadian YMCA avoiding closure through a community-organized agreement. CTV Northern Ontario quoted Shoemaker as the City “working around the clock” to secure the deal and ensure the facility remained open.

Shoemaker has also led major municipal housing reforms. By the end of 2024, the city issued over $165 million in building permits — the highest in local history — including 1,133 new housing units, as confirmed by the City’s Planning and Building Department. A SooToday report attributed over $112 million of that to residential development, reflecting the city’s focus on housing expansion during Shoemaker’s term.

Tariffs

Mayor Shoemaker has been an outspoken critic of U.S. tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum, emphasizing their negative impact on Sault Ste. Marie and its important cross-border economy. In a March 4, 2025, official statement, he warned that these tariffs “will harm both countries” and called the measures “reckless and short-sighted.” He highlighted the region’s deep economic integration with the United States and cited an Econofact study estimating 75,000 U.S. job losses following the 2018 tariffs—an argument he used to strengthen calls for reversing protectionist policies.

In a recent Globe and Mail op-ed, Shoemaker urged federal and provincial leaders to actively defend Canada’s tariff-era trade relationships, warning that without intervention, “decades of cross-border economic integration” are at risk. He criticized similar tariffs imposed under President Trump as “temporary fixes that threaten long-term stability,” urging policymakers to prioritize mutual prosperity through collaborative mechanisms. Additionally, Shoemaker took his case against Trump-era steel tariffs to a wider audience in a CNN interview, where he discussed the detrimental effects of tariffs on Northern Ontario’s economy and advocated for fair trade policies that support cross-border cooperation and economic growth.

Electoral results

Sault Ste. Marie Municipal Election, 2022

Candidate	Votes	Percentage
Matthew Shoemaker	9,626	44.23
Ozzie Grandinetti	5,417	24.89
Donna Hilsinger	4,047	18.60
Robert Peace	2,007	9.22
Tobin Kearn	665	3.06

Sault Ste. Marie Municipal Election, 2018

Candidate	Votes	Percentage
Matthew Shoemaker (X)	2,829	33.55
Donna Hilsinger	1,957	23.21
John Bruno	1,921	22.78
Winona Hutchinson	1,099	13.04
Judy Hupponen (X)	625	7.41

Sault Ste. Marie Municipal Election, 2014

Candidate	Votes	Percentage
Matthew Shoemaker	2,705	38.59
Judy Hupponen	1,864	26.59
David Poluck	1,467	20.93
Luke Macmichael	665	9.49
Robin Thibeault	308	4.39

Personal life

He married Jenna in 2015. They have two sons: Hudson, born in 2018, and Maxwell, born in 2021. Shoemaker is fluent in English, French and Italian.