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The Citizen, 1999-05-26, Page 10PAGE 10. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, MAY 26, 1999. Election ’99 Local candidates face off in FOA debate The issue of downloading of provincial responsibilities to munic­ ipalities brought sharp debate, and spontaneous audience participation when candidates in the June 3 provincial election took part in an all-candidates debate at Brucefield, Wednesday night. All four candidates in the June 3 provincial election were on stage for the debate: Progressive Conservative MPP Helen Johns; Linda Freiburger, for the Family Coalition Party; Liberal Ross Lamont and Tony McQuail of the NDP. Johns’ claim that the transfer of responsibility and increased taxing power (by taking education funding out of the local taxation pool) brought a groan from some munici­ pal politicians in the room. But Johns fought back. “You will see that we have,guaranteed and the numbers are revenue neutral,” she said. Lamont, however, said the figures don’t balance out and that in his vis­ its to municipal offices “I have yet to meet someone who felt it was rev­ enue neutral.” Municipalities had been given responsibility for land ambulance service but they don’t have the capacity to deal with that service, he Ross Lamont said. The Liberals Liberal would take that responsibility back to the province, he said. Noting that rural Ontario is very dependent on its roads, Lamont said, “It’s very unlikely the municipalities have the capital to maintain the roads (downloaded from the province).” McQuail drew laughter from the audience when he said that when he first ran for Parliament in 1980 PC stood for Progressive Conservative but now it stood for “Pure Chaos”. The consequence of the combina­ tion of municipal amalgamation and downloading is that you can’t com­ pare the books to know what down­ loading has meant, he said. “I think we’ve got a very serious problem and it’s one the next gov­ ernment is going to have to address and address very quickly, he said. During the question period, one paramedic drew applause when he noted that just before the election the province had announced it had taken back half the cost of operating ambulance service which it had downloaded to municipalities and asked Johns if this would be down­ loaded back to the municipality once the election was over. Johns said the government’s deci­ sion is to take back part of the cost of ambulances after discussions with municipalities. Personally, she said, she didn’t think ambulances should be downloaded to municipalities. On the rural healthcare issue, Freiburger said the Family Coalition Party would help encourage more doctors by taking the caps off doc­ tors fees. Money would be freed up for hospitals by stopping the funding of abortions and sex-change opera­ tions, she said. Lamont said the Liberals would invest $1.1 billion back into health care. A Liberal government would increase the number of positions for medical students by 15 per cent and would offer to pay the tuition for medical students willing to commit five years to serving in underser­ viced areas. However, he said, while the Liberals will try to replace the 10.000 nurses laid off at a cost of $400 million in severances, it will be difficult because many have been forced to go elsewhere in order to find work and may not want to come home to Ontario. Johns said there were 6,000 empty beds in Ontario when the Conservatives came to power. “We have made an effort to ensure that dollars are spent on patients as opposed to infrastructure.” In Huron and Bruce this has seen hospitals push dollars down from administra­ tion to the patients through a new business partnership, she said. She said it was hard to allow more doctors into the sys­ tem because the fed­ eral government has a cap on how many doctors are allowed each year. She had proposed a private member’s bill, how­ ever, to offer free tuition to medical stu­ dents who would pledge to work in rural areas for five years. But McQuail drew applause when he said the Conservative’s years in office had amounted to “three years of cuts followed by one year of advertising”. Health care workers were demor­ alized because of the cuts, he said. “Our health care system is being pri­ vatized a cut at a time,” he said and pledged an NDP government would stop the evolution to American-style health care and home care. A question on the number of uni­ versity students being used as teach­ ers in classrooms because of a short­ age of qualified teachers touched off vigorous debate on education. “We’re very concerned with what we’ve seen happen in education in the last four years,” said McQuail. “Not only do we see unqualified people being used but we also see a very demoralized teaching staff and school system.” McQuail promised to cancel income tax breaks for those earning over $80,000 and invest $360 mil­ lion back into the public school sys­ tem “to ensure that our local schools stay open, that we have qualified teachers and that we are supporting the education, especially the early years education, of our children.” The community’s trust in the edu­ cation system has been seriously eroded, McQuail said. Underfunding the public system cre­ ates increased pressure for a private system, he said. Freiburger said the Family Coalition Party believes in a vouch­ er system, making everyone more responsible for the success of the school system. With the voucher fol­ lowing the student, the parent will AQUALINKS "Backyard Swimming Instruction" Affiliated with Red Cross & Lifesaving Society 2 week sessions June 28-Sept. 3 < 9:00 a.m.-8:00 p.m. Price range $45.00-$150.00/session No more than 4 students/class Insured Pools, Qualified Instructors Courses offered: ■ AquaTots levels 1-3 ■ AquaQuest levels 1-12 ■ AquaAdults ■ Bronze Medallion & Cross ■ Aqua Fitness Prices include books, stickers and badges upon successful completion make sure the student is getting the best education or will put the child in a different school where there will be a better education, she said. “It will be up to the school to make the effort to offer the best edu­ cation, the moral teaching, the envi­ ronment for the child to grow educa­ tionally, mentally, physically, to make up their own decisions,” she said. “The responsibility is going to be up to the parent to pick the edu­ cation and the money will follow the child. The schools will have to com­ pete with each other and do the best that they can do.” But Johns said the Progressive Conservatives “definitely believe in a publicly funded system and we don’t believe in a voucher system. We will not have anything to do with a voucher system.” Johns said the College of Teachers, started by her government, will decide on the qualifications for teachers, who should be in the class­ room and who shouldn’t be in the classroom anymore. Lamont said the problem of unqualified teachers in the class­ room was caused by not enough people being attracted to train as teachers to replace those who are retiring. The profession must be made more attractive, he said. On the subject of the 20 per cent top-up under the school funding for­ mula to assist rural schools, McQuail said his party would change the whole funding formula by adding more money for the sys­ tem. Johns said the government had called it a “permanent” top up and she warned against abolishing the “fair funding formula” of her gov­ ernment. Before the formula was introduced, she said, Toronto schools spent $9,000 per student while Huron and Bruce schools spent $6,000. If the Liberals reverse Bill 160, she warned, “it will mean our kids go back to $6,000 and the city kids get $9,000.” Later, one questioner told Lamont that the Liberal’s pledge to get rid of Bill 160 would turn power back to the “bloated bureau­ cracy” of the school boards. McQuail, a for­ mer trustee on the Huron County Board of Education defended the effi­ ciency of that board. Bill 160 just turned power over from a local bureaucracy to one in Toronto, he said. “Every time you centralize you lose some con­ trol,” he said. The issue of spending on agricul­ ture under the Progressive Linda Freiburger FCP Conservative government of Mike Harris added some heat to the meet­ ing when Johns’ claim that spending is up from the two previous govern­ ments, brought an angry response from Jack Riddell, former Liberal Minister of Agriculture and Food. In her opening remarks Johns recalled a similar all candidates meeting prior to the 1995 election, saying she heard complaints that the two previous two governments had cut back spending on agriculture. She had listened and her government had increased spending by $128 million, she said. But she was chal­ lenged by an angry Riddell later during Helen Johns the question period, PC who said he had had­ n’t been planning to speak but he was biting his tongue over some of Johns’ statements until “I practically have it chewed off’ and he felt he had to “correct the record.” During his term in office he said, he had increased spending on agri­ culture from one per cent to two per cent. He challenged her as to what per cent of the provincial budget was spent on agriculture. But Johns stuck with her claim that there had been a decline in agri­ cultural spending during the two previous governments and told Riddell she’d be happy to show him the figures if he wanted to “drop over for coffee”. Today spending on agriculture is $386 million out of a total provincial budget of $53 bil­ lion, she said. (Someone in the audi­ ence later shouted out that this amounted to one half of one per cent of total spending.) Lamont said it was “great fun to play with figures” but “if it was an increase (in funding) I don’t know why we were shutting down OMAFRA offices across the province and cutting out services. I don’t hear too many farmers saying | WINGHAM AND DISTRICT | HOSPITAL CORPORATION Notice is hereby given that the Annual Meeting of the Wingham and District Hospital Corporation will be held in the Wingham & District Hospital Cafeteria, 270 Carling Terrace, Wingham, Ontario on Thursday, June 17,1999 at the hour of eight o'clock p.m. for the election of Governors; for the appointment of Auditors; and for the transaction of such other things as may properly come before the meeting. Copies of the Annual Report and Hospital Financial Statements may be obtained at the front desk of the Wingham and District Hospital effective June 10, 1999 and at the Annual Meeting. Memberships granting voting privileges may be purchased at the front desk of the hospital for five dollars ($5.00) prior to five o'clock p.m, Wednesday, June 2, 1999. No membership sold after that time will entitle the purchaser to a vote. Dated at Wingham, Ontario, this 28th day of April, 1999. By order of the Board of Governors. Margret Comack Site Administrator' 85 S Vice-President, Chief Nursing Officer K Huron Perth Hospitals Partnership _________________________ they’re getting increased services from OMAFRA.” However, Johns argued right to her closing statement that her gov­ ernment had been good for agricul­ ture. Answering the first written question from the floor, on the can­ didates’ commitment to agriculture, she pointed to the increased spend­ ing, including $35 million for research, as well as the Whole Farm Disaster Program, the elimination of the farm tax rebate in favour of lower taxes on farmland, the deci­ sion to eliminate the Retail Sales Tax on farm building materials and money set aside for rural develop­ ment programs promoting public/private partnerships. “We’ve put the taxpayers’ money where our mouth is,” she said. Lamont, who grew up on a Saugeen Twp. farm, defended the charge by Johns that the Liberals did not even mention agriculture in their 20/20 document, the party’s election platform. When the document was developed the party had not had a chance to consult with Ontario farm leaders and the Liberals have since published their agricultural platform calling for adequate funding of safe­ ty net programs and a rural ground­ water strategy. McQuail, a farmer all his adult life and a former president of the Huron County Federation of Agriculture as well as executive assistant to Elmer Buchannan as provincial Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, said agriculture is a very important part of the solution to some of the serious problems facing society. The NDP strategy is based on four prin­ ciples, he said: diversification, preservation, economic develop­ ment, and opportunities for rural youth. “We will work to restore the effec­ tiveness of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs,” McQuail said. “Our figures show the budget has been substan­ tially cut despite the promises there Continued on page 11 I