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 present 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.