Essex MP Jeff Watson is surprised to see Jim Flaherty leave his position as Canada’s finance minister, but he’s confident in his replacement.

Watson says Flaherty did a lot of great things for the Windsor-Essex region during his time in office.

“(He helped create) our first auto-innovation fund and its renewal, and the creation of a new economic development agency for southern Ontario. Even more on a personal level, for some of the projects that I worked on; the tax breaks for seniors collecting social security benefits; undoing that Paul Martin tax hike, that was budget 2010.”

But Windsor-West MP Brian Masse says Flaherty’s policies were crippling to the region. “His policies have not been helpful for my country and for my region in particular. Hopefully we’ll see a change in direction with this government because we simply just had too many lost jobs and too many lost opportunities and the closures of public services is just unacceptable.”

Watson describes new finance minister Joe Oliver, 73, as a smart, sensible man, whose 40-years working in the financial sector will help keep Canada’s books balanced.