Election Day in Ontario is fast approaching, and if you're unsure who to cast your ballot for, here is the list of candidates running in the riding of Bruce Grey Owen Sound.
CKNXNewsToday.ca reached out to candidates running for the Member of Provincial Parliament seat in the riding of Bruce Grey Owen Sound. Some candidates were reached directly. Communication was also attempted by sending the questionnaire to the political parties or the candidate's campaign manager.
Candidates were asked five questions. Each response is edited for clarity and brevity.
Selwyn Hicks (Liberal)
Question: Over the last couple of years, hospitals in midwestern Ontario have seen countless temporary Emergency Department closures and reduced hours. What will your party do to address these closures?
Answer: I’m running as the Ontario Liberal candidate in this election, and our Party has a clear record on access to care in our region. Despite being represented by a PC MPP locally, under Premier’s McGuinty and Wynne, there was only one unplanned closure of an ER in Ontario (in 2006) until Premier Ford was elected. Now unplanned closures province-wide are the norm. What we are seeing in our community can only happen under a PC government and only happens when we elect PC MPPs who don’t represent their community voice or who are ignored by their leader.
If elected on February 27th, I will either be part of a newly elected Ontario Liberal government that will restore stability in the health system or I will be an opposition voice that fights for the return to services in communities like Chesley and Durham. None of what we’re seeing locally should be happening. The tools are all there to fix the healthcare crisis, Ontario Liberals have done it before, we’ll do it again. I simply will not be ignored on how important the return to normal service is in our hospitals. Residents in Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound have a choice to make on election day. They can vote PC and continue to endure closed ERs, losing inpatient beds, watching new projects shrink in their scope, and lining up in the cold to get a family doctor., lose access to family physicians. Or they can vote for me and elect someone who will fight shoulder-to-shoulder with them for adequate funding for health services, and someone who will draw on the lessons learned when we fixed it before.
Question: Ontario continues to experience a housing shortage. While we need to build more homes, it is also vitally important that farmland be protected in this region. What specific steps would you take to make sure that both things are achieved?
Answer: I think we should be even more clear in describing the housing shortage in Ontario: there is a full blown housing crisis. By failing to build more new homes, the PC Party has overseen a massive increase in the average price of a home, while our median income has decreased. The PC Party is putting new home ownership at risk for an entire generation, and driving up the cost of renting for those who cannot afford a home. This didn’t need to happen, but it did. Last year Ontario had the lowest number of new housing starts in almost 70 years. Doug Ford and the PC Party have failed to act.Ontario Liberals have a plan to address the crisis. We would eliminate the provincial Land Transfer Tax for first-time homebuyers, seniors downsizing, and non-profit home builders—saving families and seniors on average $13,500 off the cost of a new home.
We would scrap Development Charges on new middle-class housing, which can add up to $170,000 on the price of a new home, and replace them with the Better Communities Fund to ensure that the province invests in and benefits from sustainable municipal growth. And we would make renting more affordable by introducing fair, phased-in rent control similar to Manitoba, resolving Landlord-Tenant Board disputes within two months, and establishing the Rental Emergency Support for Tenants (REST). This fund will help vulnerable renters avoid eviction during financial emergencies.
As for protecting farmland, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture in May of 2024 estimated that the province is losing 319 acres of land to development per day. It seems too simple an answer, but Ontario Liberals wouldn’t let that happen. Municipalities should be encouraged to focus development in designated primary settlement areas, where infrastructure exists to support it, rather than encroaching on precious farmlands.
Residents in Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound have a choice to make on election day. They can vote PC and watch the price of homes become even more unaffordable and the loss of farmland will continue at a rapid pace . Or they can vote for me and elect someone who represents a Party with a plan to build more homes, promote sensible development, and preserve vital farmland.
Question: It’s no secret that the cost of living has become, for some people, unmanageable. Without talking about your opponents’ policies, what would you do to alleviate the current burden on residents of your riding?
It has been heartbreaking to see the impact of the affordability crisis in Ontario and in our own communities. I am a candidate for a Party who understands this, and in fact tried to address it when governing. For example, we were the Party that voted to raise the minimum wage. The PC Party voted to scrap the scheduled rise as soon as they got elected. They took money away from vulnerable families and made life more difficult for them.
To help families locally, especially for those at higher risk, Ontario Liberals want to do things like help people save on home heating and hydro by eliminating entirely the 8% provincial component of the HST. We will double ODSP benefits and index future increases to inflation. We will eliminate interest on OSAP loans and delay repayment until graduates are earning $50,000 per year. As importantly, we can make sure that there is a robust system of social services in place that makes day-to-day life easier for everyone.
According to the Bruce Grey Poverty Task Force, almost 31% of children are living in food-insecure households. This is unacceptable. The Task Force calls for stronger income supports, quality jobs and supportive and transitional housing. I support all 3 of these requests and will work with the Task Force to help people who are struggling to make ends meet.
Without referring to the policies of my opponent, I will say that our philosophies are fundamentally different. I see this as an issue that we all share as communities and I believe we can and must start addressing yet another crisis going unmanaged by the PC government.
Question: With the threat of tariffs looming, how would your party help local business, industry, and agriculture that ships products to the United States diversify their market approach?
Answer: The threat of tariffs transcends politics. I was encouraged to see the Prime Minister and Premiers of all parties uniting in their opposition to the proposed and actual tariffs being announced by the United States. I did not need an election to believe in protecting Ontario or standing up for Canada. I believe we needed leadership and a steady hand on the tiller. Instead, the Premier plunged Ontairians into uncertainty and called an unnecessary and expensive election.
Now that we’re here though, in addition to the policies noted to make life more affordable, our plan to address the impact of tariffs includes: backstopping Ontario businesses with a new “Fight Tariffs Fund” that would give them access to lower-than-market interest rates allowing them to protect and create jobs by reducing the cost of borrowing money to operate or invest in their businesses and workers. We would ensure stimulus spending on infrastructure is focused on the projects communities in Ontario need the most – hospitals, schools, roads and transit. We would lead an across-government effort to ensure we spend taxpayers’ money wisely – including directing departments and agencies to exclude American companies like Elon Musk’s Starlink from procurement opportunities. Instead, we would favour Canadian companies like Telesat and Xplore, one of which has operations in our riding - and invest the savings back into supporting this stimulus plan. And importantly to our riding, We would work with other provinces to eliminate nonsensical interprovincial trade barriers and build a truly Team Canada approach to growing our economy.
Question: Some municipalities have raised concerns about the cost of OPP policing in their communities. What would your party do to help those municipalities?
Municipalities across Ontario are raising concerns about the cost of providing services in their community in part as a result of Doug Ford and his PC Party downloading the cost of services traditionally funded by the province onto municipal governments. As municipalities have to pay for more, the cost of all services becomes a pressure point. Most often it will be the costlier items that get the most attention, like policing. Some municipalities spend up to 50% of their budget on policing alone. Many municipalities are facing double-digit increases in OPP costs. This is unsustainable. Many municipalities were told about the increases without any consultation and no time to prepare for the budget increases. Municipalities will be left with no alternative but to increase property taxes and/or cut services. A fundamental change to the funding formula is needed.
The first thing I would do would be to restore the relationship between the government of Ontario and municipalities. Having served as a city councillor, Deputy Mayor and Warden and Chair of my local Police Service Board, I have unique insight as to how municipalities run and how decisions at the provincial level impact local government. There needs to be more fairness and awareness that there is only one rate-payer. The cost of feeling safe in your community and knowing you have reliable access to emergency services is something we all deserve.
James Harris (New Democratic Party)
Question: Over the last couple of years, hospitals in midwestern Ontario have seen countless temporary Emergency Department closures and reduced hours. What will your party do to address these closures?
Answer: When Durham and Chesley hospitals were being gutted by the Doug Ford Conservatives, the NDP was standing up in Queens Park and decrying his actions. I think that the reduced hours and service cuts to our rural hospitals was a mistake under Doug Ford and I will work to undo the damage he has caused. The Ontario NDP will Fast-track solutions in the first 100 days - more family health teams, shorter specialist wait times, and flexible care options. We’re going to cut red tape so doctors spend more time with patients, not paperwork. Our party has a plan to recruit and support 3,500 new doctors. We’re going to introduce Nurse to Patient ratios to ensure you’re looked after properly by well paid professionals and to bring some relief to our overworked nurses. And, we’re going to save money by not paying double or more to private for-profit staffing agencies. By moving away from Ford’s expensive privatization scheme, we can be more fiscally responsible with a healthcare system that delivers for all instead of just a wealthy few.
Question: Ontario continues to experience a housing shortage. While we need to build more homes, it is also vitally important that farmland be protected in this region. What specific steps would you take to make sure that both things are achieved?
Answer: With regards to helping farmers, the Ontario NDP will completely remove the cap from the Risk Management Program. To help ensure we don’t build where we shouldn’t, we’ll restore the power of the local Conservation Authorities to review such projects that threaten our farmland, groundwater, and wetland systems. We will reverse decades of cuts and downloads imposed on cash-strapped municipalities by successive Liberal and Conservative governments, while maintaining locally focused service delivery. We’ll upload shelter funding to the province while getting the ball rolling on building 60,000 new supportive housing units province-wide, allowing people living in encampments or the shelter system to move into a safe, permanent home, while connecting them to mental health care, addiction treatment and other ongoing supports. Through the Homes Ontario initiative, the largest homebuilding program in generations, an Ontario NDP government will provide both grants and low cost financing to enable more non-market housing providers. We will work with the farmers and the local municipalities to make sure that our Homes Ontario program will stimulate building new affordable housing in ways that make sense for our local communities.
Question: It’s no secret that the cost of living has become, for some people, unmanageable. Without talking about your opponents’ policies, what would you do to alleviate the current burden on residents of your riding?
Answer: The Ontario NDP is going to create a Monthly Grocery Rebate. In order to help families offset the rise in grocery costs, we will provide a recurring monthly grocery rebate based on household income and family size. We’re going to stop the price gouging at grocery stores. The Ontario NDP will bring transparency to grocery prices by forcing big retailers to publicly post when they raise prices more than two per cent in a week. We’ll crack down on price fixing and other unfair practices by establishing a new watchdog to enforce competition laws and keep food prices fair. The Ontario NDP announced that we would double ODSP and Ontario Works, ensuring that the most vulnerable in our society are able to live with dignity.
Question: With the threat of tariffs looming, how would your party help local business, industry, and agriculture that ships products to the United States diversify their market approach?
Answer: The Ontario NDP will partner with employers and unions to protect jobs now. We’ll work with trade-exposed industries, like manufacturing and agriculture, to provide direct support to keep plants and farms open, create new supply chains, and find new export markets for their goods in Canada and abroad. We’ll promote interprovincial cooperation and break down trade barriers. Our party will negotiate a joint federal-provincial income assistance program to support people whose livelihoods are impacted by tariffs. Where people have lost their jobs due to tariffs we’ll invest in retraining opportunities in post-secondary and the skilled trades. To help make sure our farmers are protected from the unexpected in these uncertain times we would completely remove the cap from the Risk Management Program, ensuring the government has the tools it needs to protect farmers and all the jobs they support. An NDP government would accelerate infrastructure projects (transit, school repair, home building) to keep people working.
Question: Some municipalities have raised concerns about the cost of OPP policing in their communities. What would your party do to help those municipalities?
Answer: Remember, it was the Harris PCs who downloaded these costs onto rural municipalities, and they stayed downloaded under the Liberals. When it became clear that under Doug Ford OPP costs to some municipalities were going to increase, in some cases more than 30%, the Ontario NDP stood up in Queens Park to make sure local Municipalities weren’t left scrambling for how they were going to pay for these increases. The NDP are on the side of Ontarians to make sure that when they call for help they don’t have to worry about whether there’s going to be anyone there to respond. Our party would upload small and rural municipal OPP costs back to the province.
Joel Loughead (Green Party)
Question: Over the last couple of years, hospitals in midwestern Ontario have seen countless temporary Emergency Department closures and reduced hours. What will your party do to address these closures?
Answer: Hospital closures and ER reductions are a tragic result of Conservative cuts to our public healthcare system. The Green Party is committed to reopening hospitals and emergency rooms in rural Ontario through restoring appropriate wages and good working conditions for nurses--the people who work so hard to take care of us when we need them most. The Greens will put an end to needless spending for GTA vanity projects (tunnel under the 401?) and invest that taxpayer money into the good healthcare we in rural Ontario know and deserve.
Question: Ontario continues to experience a housing shortage. While we need to build more homes, it is also vitally important that farmland be protected in this region. What specific steps would you take to make sure that both things are achieved?
Answer: Protecting farmland from urban sprawl is absolutely one of the most important concerns facing Ontario today. The Green Party has a very simple, reasonable, achievable plan to prioritize building smaller houses and lowrise apartments in existing urban areas. This plan saves farmland from destruction, builds real affordable homes for those who need them, and also saves a huge amount of taxpayer money as developing within urban areas requires considerably less infrastructure spending and maintenance.
Question: It’s no secret that the cost of living has become, for some people, unmanageable. Without talking about your opponents’ policies, what would you do to alleviate the current burden on residents of your riding?
Answer: By cutting wasteful spending and reinvesting in a stable rural infrastructure fund, the Green Party will immediately lower the financial burden on municipalities, which will in turn decrease property taxes. The Green Party will also save $1,700/yr for all Ontarians making less than $65,000/yr, by asking the wealthiest in the highest income bracket to pay back a little more. Additionally, by building real affordable housing in connected communities, living costs go down as infrastructure, heating & cooling, and water costs are shared. It's a common sense solution that is already the norm in countries the world over.
Question: With the threat of tariffs looming, how would your party help local business, industry, and agriculture that ships products to the United States diversify their market approach?
Answer: The Green Party has always been the party of supporting local. Firstly, the Greens will immediately enact policies to protect farmland and increase local procurement programs so farmers can better sell their produce right here at home. Secondly, we will strengthen intraprovincial trade networks, with a strong Buy Canadian approach. Thirdly, we will help Ontario industry retool to build the components for clean, renewable energy right here at home--creating safe jobs, improving our environment, and saving Ontarians untold millions of dollars in energy costs through the 21st century.
Question: Some municipalities have raised concerns about the cost of OPP policing in their communities. What would your party do to help those municipalities?
Answer: Policing costs have gone up as homelessness, mental health, and addiction issues reach all-time highs here in Ontario. The Green Party will bring policing costs down with our very reasonable, achievable, and compassionate approach to housing-first policies that stem these tragic and costly problems before they even begin. In the meantime, while we work to restore healthy communities, the Green Party will take on a larger share of OPP costs so that municipalities can focus on delivering the good local services they excel at.
Vincent Grimaldi (New Blue Party)
Question: Over the last couple of years, hospitals in midwestern Ontario have seen countless temporary Emergency Department closures and reduced hours. What will your party do to address these closures?
Answer: The New Blue Party would drop all the mandates, hire all the nurses and doctors back from unlawful mandates.
Question: Ontario continues to experience a housing shortage. While we need to build more homes, it is also vitally important that farmland be protected in this region. What specific steps would you take to make sure that both things are achieved?
Answer: We all have a housing shortage because of mostly immigration and tax relocations. So we need to have more control over immigration with responsible government. As for farming we need to strengthen official plans, establish herban growing boundaries and invest in infrastructure.
Question: It’s no secret that the cost of living has become, for some people, unmanageable. Without talking about your opponents’ policies, what would you do to alleviate the current burden on residents of your riding?
Answer: We would advocate to remove double carbon tax, drop the HST to 10% with the intent of getting rid of it altogether.
Question: With the threat of tariffs looming, how would your party help local business, industry, and agriculture that ships products to the United States diversify their market approach?
Answer: Our party would advocate the immigration problem and fentanyl problem at the border.
Question: Some municipalities have raised concerns about the cost of OPP policing in their communities. What would your party do to help those municipalities?
Answer: Our party would stop all the digital surveillance cameras.
**also running in Grey Bruce Owen Sound are Paul Vickers (PC), Michael Butt (Libertarian), Matt Fritz (Alliance), and Ann Gillies (Stop the New Sex Ed Agenda). These candidates have either not yet returned answers to the questions or we were unable to find contact information for them. Once answers to the questions are sent to CKNXNewsToday.ca, they will be added to this post.