The Waterloo Record, our local newspaper, hosted an all candidates
debate for the Kitchener, Waterloo, Conestoga and Cambridge voting
districts this past week.
Yesterday, it was the candidates from
Kitchener-Center that participated, answering questions from the
audience and sparing amongst themselves on several controversial and
wedge topics that have been most prominent in this election.
The
candidates were: John Milloy, the Liberal incumbent, PC candidate Dave
MacDonald, NDP hopeful Cameron Dearlove, Green Party candidate Mark
Vercouteren and independent Mark Corbiere.
Each candidate made
an opening statement of two minutes after which they all fielded
questions form the audience that was and from the audience that
was watching the action live from the Waterloo Record website.
The
debate turned out just as I expected, with the PC and Liberal
controversies debated the most: like the PC comments on the new Liberal
immigrant tax credit, taxes, the Green Energy plan instituted by the
Liberals, HST, Smart Meters etc. In my opinion it was really a two way
conversation, with the NDP’s Dearlove making some remarks here and
there. All questions were directed to either John Milloy or Dave
MacDonald, with a few asked of all candidates.
Unfortunately, it seemed to me that most of the questioners on the PC side sounded as if they were asking scripted questions.
The
first question posed directly to Milloy was in regards to consulting
fees. It sounded something like this: “Mr. Milloy, according to the
Ontario auditor, the McGuinty slash Milloy government paid courtyard, a
consulting firm with very close ties to your Liberal Party, fees ranging
from $375 to $450 per hour, during the E-Health 1.3 billion dollar
scandal. How do you justify such a contract without asking for
competitive bids contrary to the Ontario law when there are so many
people in this community and elsewhere in Ontario who have lost their
jobs?”
Pretty damn specific question don’t you think? This lady did her homework.
John
Milloy, being the polished politician that he is, responded in the
following manner: “I guess there are two issues being raised about
E-Health. One was that the Auditor General did a report and he found
that there were some problems with the contracting that went on. Steps
were made to correct it, in fact the minister of the day resigned over
it. Second thing is with what the auditor general found, and that is
contrary to what rhetoric comes from the opposition, he found that alot
of money had been put into building the E-Health infrastructure but not
much money or not much time had been put into actually populating it
with health records. And since the time of that report we’ve seen about
400,000 Ontarians with electronic health records up to now about 50%, or
6.5 million.We’ve made progress in addressing it and we’ve certainly
addressed some of the issues he raised about consulting contracts.”
That sounded very prepared to me. John Milloy didn’t flinch or choke for one second.
Other
questioners included a little boy of about elven years old asking Mr.
Milloy why he is already $40,000 in debt at that age to cover Liberal
spending.
I was asking myself: “You know what, the Liberals may
not be a very disciplined group, but we’d never use kids to put the
other candidates on the spot.”
Regardless, this question did not
faze Milloy either. He responded: “Listen, the story of what’s happened
in Ontario, is the story that’s happened in every province in Canada, of
what’s happened in Ottawa and of what’s been happening internationally.
We had three balanced budgets and then the recession hit, it was one
heck of a recession. All governments were engaged in stimulus spending.
Now we’re starting to roll back that spending. We’re not making the
slash and burn cuts that we’d see from our friends in the PC. We’re
gradually rolling it back to 2017-2018, is our target to once again
balance the budget. Which ironically is the same date the PCs say they
will balance the budget. We did the responsible thing of injecting
stimulus in the economy. Stimulus which helped in terms of
infrastructure projects and investing in things like education, which
that young man is benefiting from.”
These were all very well
answered questions I think. But Mr. Milloy was just getting himself
started. In fact one of the questioners made the mistake of bringing up
the Liberal promise for an Ontario tax credit for hiring new immigrants,
the issue the PCs hoped would be their wedge solution.
The
questioner asked the following: “Why is the current government giving
employers $10,000 to hire new immigrants but you won’t support our
apprentices in skilled trades in Ontario. Ontario is the only province
left in Canada that requires three certified journeyman to one
apprentice. This rule imposes tight limits which provide very few
opportunities for those who have to work. And compounding this unfair
situation in the skilled trades is that you cannot hire new apprentices
due to this rule. Which one of you candidates will do this right away
and which should you form the next government with my vote?”
I
saw this question as a bundled attempt at attacking the immigrant tax
credit. I thought Dave MacDonald knew better than to plant a
Conservative stooge to ask a question on an issue that has damaged his
party’s image with Ontarians.
But, always prepared, John Milloy
answered it again boldly and with plenty of gusto, killing two birds
with one stone : “As you may know Matt, under the Harris Eves government
not a single apprenticeship ratio was changed. Under our government
there have been a series of changes; we in fact formed a college of
trades which is going to do a comprehensive review of apprenticeship
ratios. But I do want to pick up on this $10,000 issue. I quite frankly
have been offended by some of the ways in which its been portrayed by
the opposition. The fact is, we put forward in our platform the idea of
offering some help to those people, those Canadians, that are
professionally trained from outside the country, to give them a one year
internship, a total of 12 million dollars before it and we got
bombasted with things about these people not being Ontarians, these
people being foreign workers. I found that whole advertising campaign
appalling and I’m still waiting for an apology from Tim Hudak and the
Progressive Conservatives.”
To which the audience responded with plenty of applause, cheers and vigorous comments.
The truth is that the entire event was a back and forth between Milloy and MacDonald, a veritable mano-a-mano vibrant debate.
The
NDP candidate Cameron Dearlove had some stage presence, but in my
opinion was overshadowed by Milloy’s political acumen and polished style
of speaking and MacDonald’s TV charisma.
The Green candidate, Mark Vercouteren was barely audible and mispronouncing his sentences.
And
the independent Mark Corbiere was more focused on talking about native
oppression, G20 misconduct and promising vague boy scout initiatives to
help improve the local economy. None of which had anything to do with
Kitchener-center and its citizens.
Thus it is my
belief, being there and asking a question, that John Milloy carried the
day. He was astute, knowledgeable, prepared and lively.
It just
goes to show that he has matured much since being elected first as an
MPP back in 2003 and it also shows that he is the most qualified out of
all of the candidates to lead Kitchener-center in to a bright future
again.
