An urban national park, a new hospital, better healthcare and the housing crisis were among the main talking pieces during the first all candidates meeting Tuesday night.
With a packed crowd in the Italian Canadian Club (and only one notable heckler), three Guelph candidates for the upcoming provincial election shared their views on a range of topics, including incumbent Green Party candidate and leader Mike Schreiner, NDP candidate Cameron Spence and Liberal Party candidate Mustafa Zuberi.
PC candidate Robert Coole was absent.
The event was hosted by the Guelph Wellington Coalition for Social Justice.
Perhaps the most pressing issue every candidate agreed on: kicking Doug Ford’s Conservatives out of office.
All three agreed the Conservative government is to blame for a number of issues from healthcare to housing; each offered different solutions for moving forward.
“I oftentimes talk about the climate crisis, but I think we have a deeper crisis in Ontario right now,” Schreiner said. “It’s a crisis of caring from the Ford government, and it starts with a lack of investment in our healthcare system.”
He, Spence and Zuberi agreed they are sick of seeing Ontario come in last in per capita funding for healthcare.
“We need to change that,” he said.
For the Greens, that means investing in team-based healthcare and paying frontline workers fair wages with good working conditions.
Spence said the NDPs would start by hiring 3,500 family doctors and 15,000 nurses over the first three years, as well as funding mental health and building supportive housing.
“We need to properly staff our hospital first before we build a second, but we will build a second hospital,” he said.
Zuberi likewise said the Liberals will be looking to bring in family doctors for everyone in the first four years and increase healthcare funding in Ontario.
“We have an aging population here in Guelph, and that’s a major issue. We don’t have enough long-term care, we don’t have enough hospital beds. Guelph General Hospital is operating at over 100 per cent capacity at the moment which is absolutely wrong.”
He added GGH infrastructure needs to expand while a second hospital is being worked towards, and echoed Schreiner’s statement about team-based care.
Though not a debate – it was a chance for the community to get to know what each of the candidates stand for – a few jabs were made in laying the blame of major issues like underfunding in healthcare and the housing crisis.
“That’s pretty rich,” Spence said in response to Zuberi’s comments. “Part of the reason we have this crisis is because of the successive liberal government’s cutting.”
Zuberi rebutted by saying he doesn’t remember hospital wait times being this long under the Wynne government, and that negative spending adjusted with inflation over the last seven years is the cause.
“The last time the GGH expanded was under our government,” he said. “When we bring the liberal government back in office, the issues we are facing today will be history.”
All three candidates said they would support all-day, two-way go transit between Kitchener and Toronto with a stop in Guelph.
Zuberi, who frequently lamented positive strides made under the Wynne government, like plans for a bullet train, which were squashed under the conservatives.
Both Schreiner and Spence said their parties would ensure the province funds 50 per cent of local transit operations to make transit more affordable and reliable in Guelph.
In terms of climate change, Zuberi said the Liberals want to invest in EVs and local townships to help Ontario grow, and noted a lot of green policies Ford is backtracking on now were liberal policies from years past.
Schreiner said he is often the only vote to push back on climate change issues in Queens Park from carbon pricing to pipelines, and noted he introduced the No Fossil Fuel Free Act and legislation to help EV drivers and pushed for free heat pumps for people who earn under $100,000.
“An NDP government will not build the 413, that’s a start. We’re also going to work on climate change mitigation,” Spence said. “We need to look at building regulations, make sure that we’re building net positive or net zero, and that (those buildings actually operate as net zero). We need to restore power to our conservation authority.”
“(Housing) is the number one issue in this election, full stop,” Schreiner said. “The Ontario Greens have the best housing plan any party has put forward. It starts by legalizing … gentle density housing so we can build homes that people can afford without paving over our farmland, our wetlands and our greenspace.”
It also puts forward a plan to protect renters and to move back to deeply affordable, non-profit housing.
Spence said the NDP intends to legalize fourplexes, ensure renting is safe.
Zuberi noted Guelph fell short of provincial housing targets last year, and that the Liberals would eliminate the provincial tax to help families save an average of $13,500 when buying a new home.
“We’re going to resolve land and tenant disputes within two months of when they start. We’re going to bring back rental control,” he said.
Other topics candidates agreed on included not ripping up the Greenbelt, more funding in education and mental health to combat violence and overcrowding in schools, a second hospital and an urban national park.
However, there were some differences of how to go about the latter two.
Schreiner wants to allow the GGH to include the York Lands in its land evaluation.
“If they determine that those lands are not suitable (for a new hospital), I fully support the effort for a national urban park,” he said, noting that ideally he would like to see both.
But Spence and Zuberi argued while they want to see a second hospital, it is not the right place for a hospital, with Spence noting the land being susceptible to floods and runoff from the hospital.
“Let the Indigenous people decide what they want to do with it,” Zuberi said.
Some other points include the NDP wanting to invest in a universal school food program so kids can eat in the morning or afternoon.
“When we fund education, it becomes safer. It’s simple,” Spence said.
Some other key points:
- Liberals and greens intend to double ODSP rates
- Zuberi said the Liberals plan to lower income tax by two per cent.
- Spence said NDP will build 60,000 homes for people suffering from homelessness and deliver on $10 a day childcare
- Schreiner said greens will advocate for a $20/hour minimum wage and introduce a tax credit for people who earn under $65,000
- Liberals plan to lower income tax – a rate of 7.15 rather than the 9.15 per cent it currently sits at