Ontarians will go to the polls this Thursday to elect their provincial government.
Voters in the riding of Windsor West will decide whether to return Lisa Gretzky of the NDP to the Legislature or elect a new MPP.
BlackburnNewsWindsor.com reached out to the riding's candidates for a Q and A on the issues that matter to voters. The questions and the candidates' answers are below.
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Lisa Gretzky, NDP
1) What would you say is the biggest issue during this campaign?
I think the biggest issue during this campaign is affordability - I hear it over and over again when I'm speaking with constituents. The cost of living just keeps going up and up, and families are feeling the squeeze. After decades of Conservative and Liberal governments, many families are worse off, not better.
I'm so proud to be part of a party that is committed to change for the better. We're going to take action on the issue of affordability by bringing hydro bill down by 30%, implementing $12-a-day childcare, establishing universal pharmacare and ensuring everyone has access to dental care - and so much more.
2) What would you consider the biggest challenge in Ontario education today?
Before I became an MPP I was a school board trustee, and I can tell you that the number one issue facing school boards, education workers, students and parents alike, is the broken funding formula that the province has been using since the Mike Harris days. Harris didn’t believe in strengthening public education and the funding formula reflects that. As a result, the Liberals have closed 270 schools, and let the repair and maintenance backlog reach $15 billion.
New Democrats will work with our partners in education to fix the funding formula, ensuring schools are properly resourced with a new formula, we can ensure the safety and well being of educators and students alike. Our 10-year capital plan for schools will specifically address the repair backlog, and we will put a moratorium on all school closures until the funding formula is fixed.
Our post-secondary institutions have been suffering from chronic underfunding under the Liberals to deteriorating both quality and access. New Democrats will lift the budget freeze on our post-secondary institutions, and we’ll make sure funding keeps up, so post-secondary institutions can offer the choices and quality of instruction Ontario students deserve. We will also address affordability for students, by ensuring provincial loans for all new postsecondary students will become grants, and by retroactively forgiving all interest for everyone carrying provincial student loan debts.
3) How would your party address challenges in our health care system, in particular, long waiting times and hospital overcrowding?
It's not acceptable in Windsor or anywhere in Ontario that people are expected to wait hours in emergency rooms, or months for surgeries, mental health supports and long-term care. Yet after years of drastic cuts under the Conservatives, and 15 years of neglect and frozen budgets under the Liberals, hallway medicine and impossibly long wait times have become standard.
We know it doesn't have to be this way. We are committed to immediately increasing hospital budgets by 5.3%, and stopping any further layoffs of nurses and front-line health care workers. We will fund 2,000 new hospital beds, 89 of which will be at Hotel Dieu Grace in Windsor, and create 40,000 more long-term care beds. We will also immediately increase home care funding by $300 million, and create a dedicated Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions to coordinate services.
4) How would your party improve job creation in Southwestern Ontario?
Just this week, I was proud to stand with NDP incumbents Percy Hatfield and Taras Natyshak to announce our Southwest Ontario platform. Unlike the Liberals, who have continued to ignore calls for the development of an auto strategy, New Democrats have a plan for the auto sector.
We will make sure Ontario is the premier destination for auto and manufacturing Now and in the future. We will create a stream within the Jobs and Prosperity Fund to promote manufacturing research and development, and we will work with the Canadian Automotive Partnership Council and Ontario’s new Chief Investment Officer to create a “single window” for automotive and manufacturing investment.
We also have committed to investing in post-secondary education, skills development, and mid-career education funding. Through the Jobs and Prosperity Fund, we will double Ontario’s Career Kick-Start program, and foster 27,000 new work-integrated-learning opportunities like co-ops or paid internships for students.
5) How would your party bring down hydro prices?
Kathleen Wynne and the Liberals let Ontarians down badly when they sold off Hydro One, privatized the electrical grid and sold off a valuable public asset. Doug Ford has not only promised to keep the Liberals' hydro plan, but also to "leave no stone unturned" when it comes to privatizing public assets.
The NDP is the only party with a plan to reduce Hydro bills by 30%, return Hydro One to public hands, end mandatory time-of-day pricing, and make permanent fixes to the system for the long term. We will cancel the Liberals’ borrowing scheme that adds billions in new debt to finance short-term bill reductions.
BlackburnNews.com file photo of Windsor-West NDP MPP Lisa Gretzky, June 24, 2015. (Photo by Jason Viau)
Rino Bortolin, Liberal
1) What would you say is the biggest issue during this campaign?
Locally the biggest issue is the representation of Windsor West and specifically the protection and growth of services to Windsor West that will support economic growth and reduce economic inequality.
Provincially, increasingly in this election, the issue is becoming about competency and ethics. We have seen the NDP make repeated mistakes in the costing of their platform and daily we are seeing ethical lapses on the part of the PCPO along with their failure to provide any kind of costed platform.
How can we trust either party representatives to have the best interests of Windsor in mind when fighting at Queen’s Park in Toronto? We need a strong presence at Queen’s Park. One who understands the unique challenges facing this community and someone who has been working on the ground for the last four years.
2) What would you consider the biggest challenge in Ontario education today?
The biggest challenge in Ontario Education is ensuring that the system ensures that young people are competitive globally. Under this Liberal government, we’ve seen graduation rates rise 18% overall to 86%. Once they graduate high school we need to ensure access to post-secondary for all. This Liberal government has done that with the tuition subsidy program. Hundreds of thousands of students are participating in degree/certificate programs who otherwise would not be able to attend.
3) How would your party address challenges in our health care system, in particular, long waiting times and hospital overcrowding?
The Liberals have committed to increasing health care spending by 5% to reduce wait times and increase access across the entire health care system including $822M to support Ontario’s publicly funded hospitals and $2.1B over 4 years for mental health and addictions. We’ve seen a huge commitment locally with funding pledged for a new hospital plan right here in Windsor/Essex.
4) How would your party improve job creation in Southwestern Ontario?
Continued investment in key sectors like advanced manufacturing such as:
Ford (Mar 2017) Ontario & Canada Partnership $1B 300 new jobs
Stratus Plastics (2017) $121K create/retain 24 jobs
Fiat Chrysler (June 2016) $85M creating 1200 new jobs, retaining 4000 jobs
Windsor Mold (2015) $1M creating/retaining 182 jobs
Centerline Limited (2013) $1M creating 31 new jobs, retaining 482
These investments are just a few examples of this government’s commitment to the region.
In that same time, we’ve seen unprecedented investments in post-secondary institutions allowing both the College and University to grow supporting growth in programs that encourage new grads into strong local sectors.
The Liberals are also the only party to commit to a plan for high-speed rail. This investment will open Windsor/Essex up to new labour and customer markets. Workforce mobility is critical in future growth of the region.
5) How would your party bring down hydro prices?
Liberals have already brought down hydro prices through the Fair Hydro Plan. Ontario’s Fair Hydro Plan reduced electricity bills for residential consumers by an average of 25% as part of a significant system restructuring that will address long-standing policy challenges and ensure greater fairness. Electricity bills will not increase beyond the rate of inflation for four years starting in 2017 and your bill could be even lower, as much as 40 to 50%, if you live in an eligible rural or remote community or have a low income.
Photo of Ward 3 city councillor, Rino Bortolin, courtesy of Rino Bortolin.
Adam Ibrahim, Progressive Conservative
The candidate did not respond to questions.
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Krysta Glovasky-Ridsdale, Green Party
1) What would you say is the biggest issue during this campaign?
The biggest issue being brought up by constituents would be the health care crisis in Windsor. Specifically, long waits for hospital beds and lack of community supports and continuing care. I am concerned that the proposed new hospital location (which is a P3 plan) is misleading the people of Windsor and Essex County into thinking that it will somehow fix the crisis. We would be closing two community hospitals and replacing them with one remote site moving the existing issues into a new building. The shortage of staffed beds will not change. There will be no addition of services further to what we already have. We will still have operating rooms that are closed as a cost-saving measure while the patients wait and surgeons have to somehow make up for lost time before the next closure. The area of the city with the lowest income level and highest need will be furthest from the location with no good way to get there.
I am all for better access regionally and state of the art technology. I am all for more services and more staff. But funnelling so much money into a project that provides none of those things is a disservice. The residents of Windsor and Essex County will pay through the nose and that money will go directly into the pockets of private developers rather than into healthcare. Part of my position is obviously value driven. Building on a greenfield site when we have so much brownfield available within already developed communities goes against all the work Ontario has done to forward stewardship of the environment. And what is it saying for health when we build hospitals in locations that do not encourage active transportation like walking and cycling? The province has already dedicated funding to improvements, it is up to us to make sure we use it wisely.
2) What would you consider the biggest challenge in Ontario education today?
The increasing specialized needs of students and lack of enough funding allocated to supporting them. There may be more than one student in a class that requires supports, and their needs could be very different. Mental health and addictions issues are rising for youth in Ontario. Poverty and homelessness add special challenges. Increases in diagnoses of Autism, ADHD, learning disabilities and developmental delays or conversely, long waits to get those diagnoses before supports can be put in place. Rates of childhood obesity, type II diabetes and heart disease are also increasing rapidly. Unhealthy kids miss more school. We must help deliver front-line children’s services by increasing funding for school counsellors, specialist teachers, psychologists, behavioural counsellors, social workers, librarians, speech-language pathologists and educational assistants so that students have greater access to services and shorter wait times. Also, increase support for special education funding to school boards to address the challenge of meeting the needs of children with learning exceptionalities and mental health issues. Let's keep our schools in communities that encourage active transportation and increase the minimum time for active movement and daily physical education to promote health.
3) How would your party address challenges in our health care system, in particular, long waiting times and hospital overcrowding?
Ontario has experienced a 60% increase in hospitalizations and 54% increase in emergency department visits for children and youth seeking treatment for mental health issues. Many adults with mental health needs are admitted, discharged and readmitted to hospital. The mental health crisis is putting undue stress on hospital and first responder services. Improving access to better mental health services is part of our plan to transform the health care system to focus on preventing illness and promoting health in addition to treating sickness. We need more investments in primary and community health care, home care and senior care. The GPO will invest $4.1 billion over 4 years, an additional $2 billion above the projected increases in the 2018 budget, into mental health services. Greens will create a new umbrella organization called Mental Health and Addictions Ontario to consolidate and prioritize mental health and addictions programs and services consistently across Ontario. This funding will not come from cuts to staff nor services. Ontario can raise half a billion dollars each year by implementing recommendations from the 2012 government commissioned Drummond report to improve collections, reduce tax avoidance, and implement cost recovery for more services.
4) How would your party improve job creation in Southwestern Ontario?
The Green Party of Ontario wants to create a prosperous middle class with good green jobs. We would work with manufacturers to support re-tooling the Ontario Manufacturing cluster and adapt powerful new advances in robotics, 3D materials printing, and laser cutting. We would use incentives to support the rapid prototyping of new products that will enhance our competitiveness and attract new business opportunities. The Greens would establish provincial government procurement rules to support "Made in Ontario" clean tech products to facilitate commercialization of Ontario innovation. We would require that public investment in major infrastructure projects would benefit local communities and businesses (including fair wage jobs). Our Green retrofit programs would require building a workforce with the skills required to complete them. We would also develop a strategy to make sure the new changes don't leave current workers behind, and that the transition to a low carbon, clean economy benefits workers through retraining, living wages, benefits plans, and career opportunities.
5) How would your party bring down hydro prices?
Immediately switch to clean hydro from Quebec which costs about 1/3 the price of what we are currently paying. Add infrastructure to tap into clean hydro from Manitoba as well in the longer term. Discontinue the Fair Hydro plan which artificially lowers our hydro bills immediately before an election, but then will cause our bills to increase by 2/3 to pay for that bit of a break and comes with a high-interest rate! Decommission the current nuclear plants as they expire. They are at the end of their life, pouring more money into them to pay more than what we can get cleaner elsewhere makes no sense. Invest in development of technology and skills and add incentives for installing energy-saving retrofits for homes and businesses. Conserving energy is good for our pocketbook as well as the environment. Continue towards 100% renewable energy encouraging innovations in technology and creative solutions. We can't let the poor implementation of wind turbines under the Wynne government sully a transition to an emissions-free future. Not every solution will fit every situation, careful study and proper installation are key. I myself would like to see advancements in personal use energy sources (like solar shingles that charge storage batteries) to power non-essential items in the home rather than feeding the grid to buy back later.
Windsor-West Green Party candidate Krysta-Glovasky-Ridsdale. Photo courtesy of Green Party.