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The Citizen, 1995-06-07, Page 26AJ Nobody knows hay like HESSTON AGCO A HFSSTON AGCO HESSTON HAY DAYS SEE THE CUT AND DRY STORY ON HESSTON Field Demonstrations from 11 a.m. - 4 p.m. Wednesday, June 7, 1995 Hesston's 4900 Large Bale System is the most advanced See this machine perform RADFORD'S Farm Equipment Ltd. Londesborough, ON (519) 523-4519 Sickle and Disc Mowers in use Guaranteed to make the final cut Various Styles of Balers in use Hamburgers will be served from 11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. Company Representatives will be on hand to answer your questions PAGE 26. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 7, 1995. Candidates assure crowds of prow. ag. priority The five candidates for the Huron riding in the provincial election June 8 did their best, last week, to assure farmers that even though government must cut back, agricul- ture will be a priority for their par- ties. Speaking to about 250 people in Holmesville at an all-candidates meeting sponsored by the Huron County Federation of Agriculture, each of the candidates outlined how things would be better for farmers under a government run by their party. John Jewitt, the Liberal can- didate, said Huron farmers would be best represented by a farmer like him. Kimble Ainslie, leader of the Reform Ontario party, said he could provide Huron with a party leader. Helen Johns, Conservative Party candidate said that a Mike Harris government would reduce costs of government and cut taxes but wouldn't touch the agriculture budget because it had already been cut more than other ministries under the NDP government. Paul Klopp, NDP incumbent, said that Agriculture Minister Elmer Buchanan now sits beside Premier Bob Rae in the legislature, showing the importance agriculture has taken on under his government. Phil Cornish for the Family Coali- tion said the family farm, like the family, is the building block of the province but he said the long term success of the farm would have to come through greater competitive- ness, not government support pro- grams. Each of the parties came under criticism from their opponents. Klopp claimed that Mike Harris of the Conservatives and Lyn McLeod of the Liberals only think about agriculture at election time. Jewitt said there wasn't even a reference to agriculture in the original draft of Harris's "Common Sense Revo- lution". (Johns countered that an entire book had been printed outlin- ing where the Conservatives stand on rural issues.) A panel formulated the questions for the candidates, based on written questions submitted from the audi- ence. The question posed most often in those questions, said Steve Thompson, Federation president, was about the impact on rural areas of Harris's proposal to reduce the number of ridings by 31. Johns defended the policy saying it would mean Huron had a riding about the same size as the Huron-Bruce fed- eral riding. It costs $250,000 per riding to operate constituency offices, she said. Ainslie claimed Harris wants to reduce rural representation because he doesn't care about rural Ontario but cares only about Toronto and Bay St. He promised Reform Ontario would give more power to individual MPPs through the com- mittee system and would use refer- enda to let voters directly decide major issues. Cornish said the savings in reducing the constituencies weren't worth the trade-offs. "When money is short centralization takes place, taking power away from local peo- ple and taking it mostly to Toron- to," he said, pointing out moves to reduce the number of school boards and the move to district health councils. Klopp also claimed Harris was trying to centralize more power in Toronto and wondered, if Johns was going to take part of the Bruce riding, what would happen to the Bruce PC candidate. Jewitt argued- that representing a riding that takes an hour and a half driving time to go from one corner to another is much more difficult than an urban riding that is only several blocks. "We just cannot allow this proposal to happen." Changes to landfill site selection receives support All candidates but Klopp promised to change the lengthy, expensive process of landfill site selection and open up the way for other technologies such as incinera- tion. Jewitt said far too much money had been spent during Huron County's search for a landfill site, on studies of potential sites on class five and six farmland when it should have been obvious that soil and hydrogeological conditions would have made these sites most vulnerable to leaching. Common sense says it would be better to pay someone more on a class one or two farmland site to get a safer site without so much waste of engineer- ing studies of high-risk sites, he said. The Liberals would also allow incineration, he said. Johns said there are now other technologies that can be used and said that incinerators have been developed in the last few years which create much less emissions. Ainslie said Reform Ontario would scrap the Environmental Assessment Act and start over. Cornish agreed the expensive assessment hearings must go but he warned, as a former member of the Mid-Huron landfill site board, incineration is "not entirely suc- cessful". Klopp ridiculed those who pro- moted incineration in Huron Coun- ty. That had been rejected for Huron long before the NDP took power because it wasn't practical, he said. There wasn't enough garbage to justify the high costs. "People aren't being totally straight with you," he said. The NDP has concentrated on promoting recy- cling and now the markets have been built up to a point there is actually a shortage of paper and cardboard, he said. Several of the candidates pledged to repeal the Agricultural Labour Relations Act and hold, or reduce the minimum wage. Ainslie said the minimum wage should be scaled back because Ontario is not competitive. He was against the labour legislation but he also said he was against compulsory check- offs for farm organizations unless there was a vote of approval by all farmers. Cornish said unionization was not appropriate for the family farm. Farmers, he said, know how to properly treat their employees. Klopp argued that claims the family farm had been unionized were wrong. Instead, he said, the labour legislation might ensure that small family operations can be competitive with huge 10,000 - 20,000-acre operations in the future by giving workers on those farms the right to unionize. As for the minimum wage, he said, with infla- tion low it was unlikely it will be raised in the future. Johns said the Conservatives will freeze the minimum wage until it becomes more competitive with rates in nearby U.S. states and other provinces. Harris, she said, had fought to have public hearings held on the farm labour legislation. "Agriculture should not be subject to industrial-style labour legisla- tion," she said. The Liberals, Jewitt said, will repeal the Agricultural Labour Relations Act and return the exemption from the Labour Rela- tions Act for the family farm. He proposed that all farm groups be brought together to create a code of practice for farm labour to promote proper treatment of farm employ- ees. While other candidates promised to extend GRIP support to 85 per cent of the last five years' average, Klopp said he'd love to be able to make the promise but a 30 per cent federal funding cut for support pro- grams meant that there is only money in place for 80 per cent sup- port. Ontario had taken a tough stand to get agreement from other the provinces and the federal gov- ernment, he said. Answering a question about funding for the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Johns claimed the cuts in spending proposed by Harris wouldn't touch agriculture. Klopp scoffed at Conservative and Liberal promises to reduce the civil service without touching OMAFRA. While his government had cut the OMAFRA budget they had done so Continued on page 27