Common platforms and goals shared at all candidates’ meeting

By Sharon Harrison
Four candidates vying to be the Bay of Quinte MPP in the provincial election Feb. 27 presented themselves at the Wellington and District Community Centre Monday evening for an all candidates’ meeting.

Hosted by the Wellington Community Association (WCA) PEC, the public meeting, (not intended to be debate), saw a full room of about 200 people, along with up to 75 logged in to watch virtually.

The four candidates are incumbent Tyler Allsopp (Progressive Conservative Party) who secured his seat just five months ago (replacing MPP Todd Smith), David O’Neil (Liberal Party), Lori Borthwick (Green Party), and Amanda Robertson (New Democratic Party).

Moderated by WCA member Jennifer Armstrong, the meeting included brief introductions from each candidate, with a moderated question period where each candidate had three minutes to answer each question, followed by one more minute for each for closing remarks.

The half dozen questions covered topics of doctor recruitment and medical services, financial well-being, education, infrastructure, affordable housing solutions, and shop local initiatives in view of proposed US tariffs.

“As we watch tensions mount between Canada and our closest trading partner, many Canadians are seeking to bolster our local economy by buying Canadian. How would you contribute to shop local and other Canadian-forward consumer initiatives?”

Robertson said she would look at a multi-pronged approach, but also quoted a statistic that showed if families and households across Ontario spent just $10 more a week on locally-grown food, it would infuse $2.4 billion into the local economy, and create 10,000 new agricultural jobs.

“This is the type of leadership, and it might seem like small beans on a big scale, but every purchase you make that supports local is getting jobs for our economy, safeguarding our economy, protecting and growing our economy, and really strengthening our ability to really continue to thrive as a nation.”

She said, the NDP would be looking toward creating a premier’s council on the economy, but also launching a “Buy Ontario” campaign. “And we would be working to breakdown inter-provincial trade barriers and also investing in some of our trade-exposed industries.“

Allsopp responded to the question by saying, “A re-elected PC government would help reassure our supply chains and make sure we are investing in abilities to refine our own products”.

Addressing buy local, he said “one of the best ways to influence consumer behaviour, is, they want to be doing the right thing, we need to help give them the tools they need to do that, clearer packaging, higher standards of Made in Ontario or Made in Canada products, also breaking down barriers to inter-provincial trade.”

Borthwick also said inter-provincial trade barriers need to be broken down and they must work with their partners across Canada, “We would create a task force which would be across party lines and among jurisdictions so that we can work together to plan the best approach to fighting back.”

“With the recent tariffs causing a stir, I feel there has never been a better time to support our local Canadian products,” added O’Neil.

Speaking to the cost of living becoming a near crisis in Canada for young families and seniors, the question asked how candidates would assist community members to maintain financial well-being, particularly seniors, many of whom are on basic income.

Allsopp said his government is laser-focused on cost of living issues, making life easier for Ontarians. “Our government has never increased any taxes since 2018, we’ve cut the sticker fees, we’ve cut the provincial gas tax by 10.7 cents a litre, and continue to extend that tax. We introduced the senior at home tax credit, we also introduced the guaranteed income supplement for seniors.”

“We project a balanced budget for 2026, something we have not seen in many, many years,” he said (with a slight caveat that US tariffs may affect plans).

Borthwick said they do have a plan for affordability.
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“We plan to cut taxes for people who earn less than $65,000 a year, or for households earning less than $100,000 a year, and we plan to increase taxes on the highest tax bracket,” said Borthwick. “We also have a plan to help reduce the price of groceries and energy”

Robertson said the cost of living was the number one thing they heard when knocking on doors, where she spoke to promoting a monthly grocery rebate indexed to inflation, and “maybe mandating grocers to publicly post when they are increasing the cost of basic foods”.

Addressing the question of what the plan is to recruit doctors to the area and improve medical services, O’Neil said the goals are to get every person a family doctor in four years, shorten emergency room wait times, preserve and expand services in the region’s hospitals, reduce surgery wait times, expand home and community care services and educate, retain and attract internationally-trained health care workers, among his list.

“The Liberal candidate promises to create two new medical hospitals and expand existing medical schools, doubling the number of medical spots in the program,” said O’Neill.

Speaking to the struggles of recruiting and retaining family doctors, Robertson (whose husband is a family doctor) noted they have a residency program through the family health team, with on average 20 residents a year living and working in the community.

But she also said a big piece of the puzzle is improving the environments physicians and care workers are practising in. “We can attract all the new graduates we want, but if we don’t fix the system that they are going to work in, they are not going to stay.”

“An NDP government would invest to recruit 3,500 doctors over the next four years, and we would also be investing in improving the conditions,” said Robertson, who also spoke to increasing community health centre models, while “investing in workers and strengthening primary health care”.

Saying that health care was his party’s number one issue in the last campaign last September, Allsopp noted that in Canada, Ontario has the shortest average wait time to access healthcare.

He said he has done a number of things to try and get more doctors into the province, including introducing as of right legislation so doctors who are trained in other provinces can come to Ontario and start working immediately, which has helped a lot of new doctors.

“We’ve hired 15,000 new doctors since 2018, as well as 100,000 new nurses, and we’ve also increased residency seats by 700. You can’t make a doctor overnight, but we have made the investments.“

Borthwick said, “despite some recruitment, we are the lowest funded per capital heath care system in Canada. “I cannot believe for one second there are 26,400 unattached patents in this community; one in four has no access to a healthcare system; this is an emergency for our riding.”

On the topic of providing affordable and dignified housing solutions for residents, Robertson said as part of a new deal for municipalities, they will be introducing a Homes Ontario non-profit housing plan, and will work with municipalities to identify shovel-ready projects

She also plans to legalize four-plexes, and would limit BnBs to primary residences.

“As part of our Homes Ontario plan, we are looking to build 1.5 million new homes by 2034 – 300,000 permanently affordable included in the 1.5 million.”

Allsopp countered by saying he will introduce a plan to build 1.5 million homes by 2031 – three years sooner than Robertson’s plan.

Road condition, water works and other infrastructure issues formed one of the questions, where O’Neil said he felt municipalities needed a lot more support for infrastructure projects.

“Municipalities needs stable committed funding, not periodic handouts… municipalities need an equitable formula determined funding to be received so they can determine projects to commence.”

Borthwick said infrastructure is a huge issue.

“In the County, they want to build a $300 million treatment plant and the government gave you $18.3 million, leaving $282 million to pay. As Greens, we do have a plan to upload infrastructure costs, especially in rural communities. Greens are here for the rural communities.”

All four candidates were given a final minute to add anything not already covered, where three of the four candidates spoke to the MZO (ministerial zoning order) process as it relates to Picton Terminals.

Borthwick said Picton Terminals shouldn’t have gone to an MZO process as it needs a full environment assessment.

Allsopp chose his final pitch to be “municipal transparency as it relates to Prince Edward County and the issue most emblematic to that challenge was the MZO request and the settlement agreement with Picton Terminals”.

He also noted that he felt it is something that should be addressed by the municipality.

“There is some great things that are going on there with the grain terminals and the farmers to get their products to market,” Allsopp said. “That issue is a municipal issue and I would like to see it revert back to the municipality.”

Robertson’s final remarks were more general where she outlined how she envisioned the role of MPP as a representative and voice at Queen’s Park.

“I think the biggest role we can play in communication and transparency on a municipal level is really as the provincial representation. Our new deal for municipalities is going to help lighten their loads for municipal partners.”