Chambers host all-candidates night (minus one)

Several Chamber of Commerce hosted a candidates forum Wednesday night in Port Hope. Photo by Cecilia Nasmith, Northumberland 89.7 FM News

By Cecilia Nasmith, Northumberland 89.7 FM News

Port Hope

Liberal candidate Dorothy Noronha, Green candidate Maxwell Groves and NDP candidate Bruce Lepage took the stage Wednesday night at an event hosted by the Port Hope Chamber of Commerce, along with a number of other chambers and boards of trade that represent more than 1,000 businesses throughout the Northumberland-Peterborough South riding,

Incumbent David Piccini was not present.

The event was emceed by 16-year-old journalist Wyatt Sharpe, a TCS student who has his own show and has interviewed a list of celebrities and statesman that includes Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

In his opening statement, Lepage said he'd seen a change in the last half-dozen years, with families struggling, seniors sinking into poverty after a lifetime of hard work, hospitals overcrowded and schools starting to crumble.

Noronha said small businesses are being overlooked by a provincial government “who seem to be rewarding the Westons of the world and the Staples of the world.”

Groves said the reasons Premier Doug Ford cited for calling the election – to get a mandate to deal with threats from President Donald Trump - “sound ludicrous to me. No, they sound dumb. Why are we the only province having an election because of tariffs.”

“A better reaction would be to get free trade going among the provinces and invest in infrastructure to get goods and services moving,” he added. Noronha agreed, saying, “It's easier to sell honey to Michigan than to Saskatchewan – it's not just buy Canada, it's sell Canada.”

Groves pointed out that the new Wesleyville project is planning on resources from the US, and not necessarily creating Canadian jobs.

“Start trading east and west and across both our two oceans,” Lepage urged.

He said that one road to a stronger local economy is lined with affordable houses in which members of an educated workforce live.

The candidates decried the downloading that has gone on, calling for an uploading of housing and transportation back to the provincial level.

And that housing needs to be rethought, with supportive housing and more densification, Lepage said, allowing the fourplexes Premier Ford once denounced.

“We are not just paving over farmland to build quarter-acre lots with a single home on it,” Groves agreed, adding that the Green party would build more than 60,000 homes.

“We need to create communities that are dense, affordable and walkable.”

Affordable homes are a key ingredient in building a community that will retain its youth, Noronha said, and a Liberal government would reduce the land transfer tax on home sales. But another ingredient is investing in education. On a per-student basis, spending is down by $1,500 since Ford took office.

A Liberal government, she added, would bring in a 50% reduction in the business tax rate.

Noronha also blames the Ford government for the current difficulties post-secondary institutions are experiencing.

“Rather than have free tuition based on need as we did with our Liberal government, they eliminated that right off the bat and said they are reducing tuition by 10%. But they didn't say is that wasn't by the government – the secondary institutions were ordered to reduce their tuition,” she explained.

“The NDP would immediately fix OSAP,” Lepage said, adding that their long-term goal is to have post-secondary education offered free, as they do in many countries around the world.

Health care issues got a lot of attention.

“Remove the profit motive from health care,” Lepage urged.

“There is no need to be spending public money on private hospitals, private clinics and private nursing corporations.”

Noronha reiterated her party's concern that 2.5-million Ontario residents are without family doctors, and her party's pledge to ensure that every Ontario resident has one within four years. It will cost about $3-billion - “the equivalent of our $200 bribe cheque,” she said of the cheques the Ford government has been sending out to each taxpayer over the past few weeks.

“What would you prefer, $200 or a family physician?”

Groves, a public health worker specializing in HIV, said that the Ford government actually cut his wages. As well, he said, personal-care workers are paid less than $20 an hour and suffer frequent burn-out from the adversities of the job.

Long-term care could be improved, Noronha said, by enforcing standards and rules currently in place as well as creating more options for seniors to age at home if possible.

As the owner of a therapy dog, Lepage visits long-term care homes every week.

“There's a marked difference in quality of features and numbers of people who were there to help, based on who owned and ran the long-term care home,” he stated.

“We need to take the profit out of this. Private companies put money in people's pockets and takes money out of patient care. Ones run by municipalities are run much better.”

Discussing the rising rates of homelessness, Noronha declared, “Rent controls absolutely have to come back, and ODSP doubled. It's about dignity.”

Lepage said his government would built 50,000 supportive-housing units with wrap-around service supports.

In his closing statement, Groves declared, “We need to invest in health care. We need to invest in health care workers. We need to invest in education. We need to invest in education workers.

“We need to put the funding in place, rather than divert resources into private clinics and friends of Doug.”

After seven years, Lepage said, “life is harder than ever – Doug Ford delivers for the insiders, never for us.”

Noronha declared this “probably the most undemocratic, the most disenfranchising election,” with too many people who have not yet received their voting cards one week out from the big day.

Alison Lester, chair of the Northumberland Central Chamber of Commerce, offered closing remarks, reminding everyone that advance polls are being held Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

“If you don't know if you are registered for voting, call the chamber and someone will help you,” she said.