Vaughan provincial election candidates toe party lines at debate

YorkRegion.com
June 12, 2014
Adam Martin-Robbins

Vaughan’s provincial election all-candidates’ debate last Thursday saw hopefuls pitch their party’s plan to boost the economy, pledge to increase funding for long-term care and support extending Langstaff Road — and one of them even vowed to layoff TVO host Steve Paikin and Polkaroo.

The debate, held at Vellore Village Community Centre, featured Liberal candidate Steven Del Duca, PC candidate Peter Meffe, NDP candidate Marco Coletta and Libertarian candidate Paolo Fabrizio.

Green Party candidate Matthew Pankhurst turned down an invitation to take part.

Del Duca, who appeared calm and composed, repeatedly emphasized, as he has throughout the campaign, the major infrastructure “investments” the Liberal government has made in Vaughan.

“Think of all the projects that we’ve funded over the last 10 years here in this community,” said Del Duca, who has served as MPP since winning a byelection in Sept. 2012. 

“From the subway that’s under construction, which will have trains running in 2016, to the Hwy. 427 extension that I secured the approval for in last year’s budget, to the additional money that we’ve put into the Viva Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). That’s the kind of crucial public infrastructure that we need in this community.”

He said the Liberals would further invest in education, including offering post-secondary students who qualify a 30 per cent tuition tax grant, and keep the corporate tax rate competitive among the lowest in North America.  

Meffe, meanwhile, came out swinging right from the opening question, primarily targeting the Liberal’s spending record during the past decade.

“It gets really tiring in the province of Ontario to hear a government talking about investing. Usually you know what that means, investing means spending your tax dollars and I think we have to get a grasp on that spending,” said Meffe, who stumbled a bit initially, but regained his composure fairly quickly.

He said his party would focus on job creation, reducing energy costs and tackling traffic congestion in order to stimulate the economy.

“The first thing we want to do is deal with this economy and how do we do that? You get jobs. … Two hundred thousand jobs can be created by the stroke of a pen of a minister (to change apprenticeship ratios in the trades),” he said.

Coletta said the NDP’s economic plan includes providing tax credits of up to $5,000 for companies that create full-time jobs; reducing the tax rate for small businesses by 1.5 per cent and increasing the minimum wage to $12 an hour over the next two years.

“Fixing the economy, as it were, it requires larger investments in education, larger investments in our infrastructure and it also means we have to make smart choices about how we use our money,” he said.   

More than 300 people, including several loyal supporters from the Liberal and Tory camps, turned up to the debate hosted by The Vaughan Citizen and Human Endeavour.

The event kicked off with questions from the organizers followed by questions submitted by the audience and closing remarks from each of the candidates.

Aside from a few outbursts from audience members, the debate was fairly civil.

Fabrizio, who was clearly relaxed, brought a lot of levity to the evening.

He cracked jokes and engaged with a couple of hecklers while hammering home his party’s position that the solution to most problems lies in shrinking government and assuming “personal responsibility” for what needs to be done.

“The way we get things going is we cut the size of government,” said Fabrizio, who vowed that after 16 years as a candidate this would be his final election. “As for the Conservatives (cutting) 100,000 jobs, in a Libertarian’s mind, we’re like that’s not even close enough. Things like TV Ontario that can be disappeared over night, gone. ... If I was in charge, Steve Paikin would be on the unemployment line with Polkaroo.” 

Most of the candidates struggled to answer a couple of questions that required them to stray from their party’s platform.

During the rebuttal sessions, Coletta took a couple of swipes at Del Duca, but his main target seemed to be Meffe and the PCs’ million jobs plan. 

“(Meffe) can talk about the strokes of pens creating jobs, but there’s no evidence that corporate tax relief is going to somehow magically create jobs. There’s no evidence that firing 100,000 people is going to create jobs,” Coletta said early on.

Meffe shot back.

“I think when you create a plan and we put our plan, the million jobs plan, for everyone to look at and just tear apart. But our plan is going to work,” he said. “You have a situation where Phil Cross, the (former) chief economist at Statistics Canada, … said that not only is it going to work, it’s actually going to create more jobs.”

Del Duca only weighed in during the rebuttal sessions to clarify his statements or reiterate his party’s position rather than going after the other candidates or parties.

In answering audience questions, all candidates supported extending Langstaff Road over the CN railway yard to help alleviate traffic congestion on Vaughan’s east-west routes. They were also united in acknowledging the need to improve the system for approving funding for drugs for people with rare diseases and to boost funding for long-term care.