FERGUS – The second-candidates meeting in the Wellington-Halton Hills riding filled the Fergus Legion on Oct. 2.
All five candidates attended the debate, including NDP candidate Andrew Bascombe, who missed an Erin meeting on Sept. 23 due to a commitment outside of Canada.
Other contenders include Conservative incumbent Michael Chong, who has represented the riding since 2004, Liberal candidate Lesley Barron, People’s Party of Canada (PPC) representative Syl Carle and Green Party challenger Ralph Martin.
The Oct. 2 meeting was hosted by the Centre Wellington Chamber of Commerce and Centre Wellington Community Foundations. All questions were submitted in advance or in writing at the meeting.
Mental health
Candidates were in agreement that mental health in the riding, including suicide, was an area of concern that needs to be addressed.
All candidates agreed more supports need to be put in place; however they were not in agreement about how it should be done.
Chong suggested a multi-agency, multi-government approach.
“I’ve been working with my provincial counterpart Ted Arnott, so we continue to work together as a community to address this issue, to look out for each other and to ensure that there are no barriers between the different levels of government, between the different agencies that provide these self-care resources for our community,” Chong said.
Bascombe said instead of healthcare being piecemeal and different from province to province, there should be a federal approach.
“From one province to another you have the same coverage regardless of where you go,” he said of his plan.
Carle disagreed, saying the constitution indicates health care is a provincial responsibility.
“We will give the provinces a stable source of funding that’s not going to change on the whim of the government,” he said.
However, Carle indicated that ensuring affordable housing is also a factor.
“When you don’t have a place to live you get in a pretty desperate place,” he said. “I think if we started to really address affordability with housing, we would solve quite a bit of the issues.”
Martin agreed that alleviating poverty would help.
“In the Green Party with our health program, we are planning to channel more funds into mental health,” he said. “And I think also with housing … making sure that housing is available, along with poverty alleviation will also help with people who are having mental health issues.”
For Barron the concern is ensuring everyone has access to a family doctor.
“Your family doctor can often handle a lot of mental health issues for you, but if you do not have a family doctor we know that at the hospital often you end up in the emergency room, in crisis, dealing with people who don’t have an ongoing relationship with you,” she said. “It is so important for people in our family to have an ongoing relationship with a family doctor that they trust.”
Governance
The Liberal government’s removal of the justice minister and handling of the SNC-Lavalin affair was a point of contention at the meeting.
Chong said the issue was the most important issue facing the country.
“It’s about the kinds of institutions we’re going to pass along to our kids and our grandkids,” he said, adding the whole issue was appalling.
“We decided a long time ago, with the Unites States, the United Kingdom and other leading western democracies, that no prime minister, no president, no premier gets to decide who gets criminally charged or not, who gets to go to a criminal trial or not, or who gets to go to jail or not,” he said. “But that’s exactly what this prime minister tried to do.”
He added, “This cannot go unanswered in this election. This Liberal government does not deserve another mandate.”
Barron explained the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) asked justice minister and attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould to get a second opinion as to whether or not the decision by the independent director of public prosecutions to give SNC-Lavalin a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) was appropriate due to her inexperience.
“The 9,000 well-paying jobs were at stake,” Barron said. “[Wilson-Raybould] refused and was removed from her position.”
The Liberal Party removed Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott from caucus for their comments to the media, Barron said, adding, “I really don’t have anything else to say other than that.”
Carle said his previous career with the RCMP gives him a good idea of what happened legally.
“The PMO is by a longshot the most powerful office in the world, the entire world,” he said.
He then turned it around and said despite Chong’s best efforts the MP couldn’t do anything about that fact.
“The Conservative Party is not the party to reform the PMO’s office,” Carle said. “It’s been demonstrated despite [Chong’s] best efforts.
“The People’s Party will enact recall legislation and that’s just the beginning.”
Chong refuted Carle, saying he did get it done.
“The Reform Act passed into law at the end of June of 2015,” he said. “I’m quite proud of that.
“It’s the first step in the right direction of holding the PMO to greater account.”
Bascombe said the NDPs would work ethically within the law and ensure that everyone is held accountable.
Martin said fair access to the PMO is needed, as well as a division of the justice minister and attorney general roles.
Environment
The environment was also the topic of many questions throughout the meeting, from party plans to climate change to banning single use plastics.
Bascombe said it’s never been a question about whether climate change exists – it is about whether or not money should be taken from the taxpayer to reduce climate change.
“We have big polluters that are polluting our environment who are getting away with it,” he said. “We have [Nestlé Waters] taking water out of our systems and getting away with it, and then we have our governments coming to us and saying you need to do more, you need to give us more money so that we can waste it.
“The NDP will attach climate change with a sustainable approach, which looks at coming up with real initiatives for jobs, education and most of all, being in it to win it.”
He said he would like to see the elimination of single use plastics.
Carle said most carbon dioxide emissions are naturally occurring but didn’t address climate change other than saying that Canada is a carbon sink.
As for single-use plastics, he said technology should be used so single-use plastics are no longer needed.
“I think we need to go further … our oceans are being filled with plastic dumped by poor countries,” he said. “How the plastic gets there is questionable, but rather than assigning blame, let’s work on solutions.”
Chong said no party has a plan to limit warming to 1.5 degrees, as set out in the Paris Accord.
“The fact of the matter is that governments of all stripes need to do better in this country to uphold our international commitments and I’m committed to holding those governments accountable, whether I sit on one side of the aisle or the other,” he said.
Chong added he’s hesitant to support the elimination of single use plastics by 2021 because it’s everywhere in the economy. Instead he said a more comprehensive approach to reduce, reuse and recycle is needed.
Martin said the Green Party proposes to reduce carbon emissions by 60% by 2030.
“We are proposing to retrofit buildings across Canada and when doing that we will create jobs, reduce heating costs and also reduce greenhouse gases and there will be various plans to finance that,” he said.
Martin said the Green Party is also proposing to ban single-use plastics by 2021 but they want the onus to be on the manufacturer to create a standard about what’s recyclable rather than leaving it up to municipalities.
Barron said there is “absolutely a climate crisis,” and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions the answer is a carbon pricing or cap and trade. She also said she agrees with banning single-use plastics by 2021.
Coverage of future all-candidate meetings will continue up until the federal election on Oct. 21.
