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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Lucknow Sentinel, 2014-11-05, Page 22 Lucknow Sentinel • Wednesday, November 5, 2014 PC Leadership Hopefuls Pitch Their Platforms in Huron -Bruce Patrick Bales QM] Agency For decades, the words "Progressive Conservative" and "Ontario" were virtually synonymous. The Ontario PCs have formed govern- ment in 80 of the 147 years since Confederation, including a streak of 42 con- secutive years, which ended in 1985. Yet, the PCs have lost the last four provincial elec- tions, three of which have seen a Liberal majority formed. The most recent defeat, the stunning Liberal majority in June's election, has left the party at a cross- roads, and several leader- ship hopefuls - MP Patrick Brown and MPPs Christine Elliott, Vic Fedeli, Lisa MacLeod and Monte McNaughton - are looking to return the Ontario PC Party to its once former glory. Four of the five candi- dates who have officially announced their intention to seek the leadership role for the provincial Tories were in Wingham Saturday afternoon at a function to fete Huron -Bruce MPP Lisa Thompson and her support- ers after her landslide vic- tory in the June election. The lone candidate who was unable to attend was Elliott, who had a prior engagement overseas in honour of her late husband, former finance minister Jim Flarity. Elliott, however, did provide a pre-recorded message to bring greetings to the crowd of approxi- mately 100 Huron -Bruce PC Party members. The campaign unofficially began two weeks ago, when all five candidates were first together at the same func- tion, each with a chance to make a stump speech about their credentials. Saturday's event was the first opportu- nity for the public to ask the leadership hopefuls ques- tions, in an attempt to sway the undecided to a specific candidate. One of those undecided PC voters is Thompson herself. "Part of my decision mak- ing is based on today," she said before the candidates took the stage. "I am anx- ious to hear the messaging and see how people react to what's being shared by our candidates as anybody else." However, we shouldn't expect Thompson's endorsement based solely on what was said at the event Saturday. "It just starts here. I'm hoping today starts to be some door openers for our leadership contenders," she explained. "Then I want to see them coming back. I'm going to have some very specific questions for them as well in terms of how they're going make sure rural Ontario is not left behind as we look to focus on a win in Toronto." The rural -urban divide that has severed Ontario is perhaps no better exempli- fied than in the attitudes toward wind energy. While many in urban settings still champion wind power as the viable, green energy source the province needs, a majority in rural Ontario, the ones who face the wind turbines on a daily basis, see them as an economic and environmental disaster, as well as a detriment to our wellbeing. MacLeod is confident that that portion of the urban - rural gap will shrink very shortly, once people in the city take a look at their hydro bill. "We're going to see hydro rates skyrocket by 50 per cent over the next number of years," she said. "I think (people living in cities) will start to make a correlation... to the boondoggle that is wind turbine development across rural Ontario!' MacLeod has been against industrial wind tur- bine development through- out her entire career as an MPP and said if she lead the PC party to form a govern- ment she would replace the current feed -in -tariff pro- gram with a "more compre- hensive energy policy," one that would restore munici- pal autonomy to the deci- sion making process. Fideli, the current MPP for Nipising and former mayor of North Bay, has seen firsthand just what the high cost of electricity is doing to business in Ontario. "Today, the first of November, energy rates went up again, as a direct result of wind turbines throughout Ontario," Fideli said. "We have the highest energy rates in all of North America and we have PATRICK BALES/QMI Four of the five Ontario Progressive Conservative Party leadership hopefuls were in Wingham Saturday, November 1, 2014 for a meeting with Huron -Bruce supporters. The event was one of the first opportunities the candidates had to share their views on what the party needs to do to be successful in the 2018 election. Pictured from left to right: Nepean-Carleton MPP Lisa MacLeod, Nipising MPP Vic Fideli, Barrie MP Patrick Brown and Lambton-Kent-Middlesex MPP Monte McNaughton. 300,000 fewer manufactur- ing jobs in Ontario today because of high energy rates!' Not only does Fideli see the rural -urban divide, he also sees a north -south divide, neither of which are conducive to the province running efficiently, he said, citing a need to put "Ontario first!' However, the PCs can't heal the divide in Ontario, without restoring "pride to the party," which is one of the main reasons Fideli is running for the leadership role. McNaughton, too, feels that before the PCs can fix Ontario, they need to fix themselves. He, like Fideli, would have the members of the PC Party vote to approve any platform before it is released to the voters "I take two elections as examples of running on dis- astrous platform planks," McNaughton said, using the funding of faith -based schools in 2007 and the 100,000 job cut promise in 2014 as examples. "I think we need to allow party members to have the final say on the platform; that will avoid those mistakes!' McNaughton thinks the best way to rebuild the party is to start where its greatest support lies, such as in Huron -Bruce, and work its way out across the province from there. In August, McNaughton and his family did just that. "I've now been to all 107 ridings across the province; I've met with well over 1,000 PC Party members," he said. "I've also started reaching out to build a new conserva- tive coalition in Ontario. I've been meeting with PC Party members, but also meeting with new Canadians, stu- dents, young moms and dads very similar to my wife and me and blue collar workers. If we're going to win in 2018, we have to attract these groups to our party." Brown, a sitting member of Stephen Harper's major- ity federal Conservative government, believes an Ontario PC Party re -built in the image of its federal counterpart is best to way to heal the divisions within the party. "(The Harper government has) seen our plurality grow in every election," he said. "We've done that through building our tent, building our reach. I believe that the provincial party has a lot to offer the province, but we need to get back to building our membership." Brown, is the only one of the five leadership hope- fuls who isn't a sitting MPP, but he feels that gives him an advantage. "I'm the only candidate in the leadership (hopefuls) who has government expe- rience," he said. "If we aspire for government I think it's important to show you've been part of a government." Moreover, Brown, who said he's "tired of seeing our party lose" is also position- ing himself as the candidate who can provide the "fresh start" the PCS need, as he wasn't around for some of the party's missteps in the last number of years. "If you look at a lot of the associations that this party has lost - whether it's the OPP, the firefighters, the nurses, the doctors - you need a fresh start," Brown said. "It was a troubled rela- tionship with the current group and I think the estab- lishment of the party needs to be replaced. Being on the outside, I wear none of the baggage of past policy failures!' While five people are offi- cially running for the lead- ership role, the spectre of a sixth candidate, former Toronto mayoral hopeful Doug Ford, was an elephant in the room Saturday. How- ever, the candidates were not distracted by possibility of Ford's candidacy. Some, like Fideli or MacLeod, wouldn't bite at the chance to talk about one of the Ford brothers. "Never once in my career have I ever talked about a competitor," Fideli said. "I talk about what I want to do." "I'm just focussed on my campaign and restoring its prominence in the province of Ontario," MacLeod said. That said, MacLeod was just one of the candidates who drew the connection between a greater number of candidates and the greater number of new members to the PC Party. "The more candidates the merrier," Brown said. "The more candidates we have in the race, the more member- ships we're going to sell and the more attention we're going to have for the party. Whether it's five candidates or 15, I'm eager to get the rebuild of this party started!' One person who won't put her name into contention is Thompson, who said she never really considered a leadership run. With the number of committees she is sitting, and with her duties as environment and climate change critic, Thompson is content - and busy. "I am really pleased where I'm at," she said. "I've got a full basket" The PCs will elect a new leader at a convention scheduled for the spring of 2015.