Online viewers and a small in-person audience at the Empire Theatre saw the Bay of Quinte riding federal election candidates together in one location in the campaign’s first all candidates event.
The 2021 Federal Candidates Forum, organized by the Belleville Chamber of Commerce in partnership with the Prince Edward County and Quinte West chambers, was not a debate but a question and answer session with responses being timed.
Moderator Paul Martin posed prepared questions to candidates Neil Ellis (Liberal), Stephanie Bell (NDP), Ryan Williams (Conservative), Erica Charlton (Green), and Janine Leclerc (PPC).
Find out more about the local candidates by clicking here.
WHAT PROGRAMS TO SUPPORT SMALL BUSINESS WOULD YOUR PARTY CONTINUE, CHANGE, OR CANCEL?
STEPHANIE BELL
Bell said the CERB program (Canada Emergency Response Benefit) was big and helped a lot of people get through the COVID-19 pandemic. She reminded the audience that it was the NDP that demanded the CERB payments be made higher or they would not support the plan as originally proposed by the Liberals. Bell thinks a guaranteed annual income would be a big help to small business by alleviating poverty.
ERICA CHARLTON
Charlton said the pandemic hurt everyone but especially small business. She said supports from government need to continue but it should flow directly to individuals and not be filtered through big corporations. She believed tax credits would help small business.
NEIL ELLIS
Incumbent MP Neil Ellis reeled off a list of around a dozen government programs put in place to help both individuals and businesses. Programs mentioned included the CERB, an emergency wage subsidy, a rent subsidy, and the Canada Recovery Benefit. He pledged his government would continue the supports as long as they were needed.
RYAN WILLIAMS
Williams said small businesses were really struggling and had been for a long time. He stressed the need for employees, adding job number one was government investing in training to get people ready for the many jobs available. He said his party would expand business loan programs and offer a 25% tax credit for new businesses, among other initiatives.
JANINE LECLERC
Leclerc said her party would help get small business back up and running by developing a fund specifically designed for them.
THE LABOUR SHORTAGE IS A MAJOR PROBLEM. HOW WOULD YOU DEAL WITH IT?
NEIL ELLIS
Ellis said more temporary foreign workers are needed and stressed the need for more immigration to build up the labour force. He said the federal government was already testing some programs involving immigrant workers. He also said his government’s $10 a day childcare program, signed on to by eight provinces so far, would allow many more women to get back into the workforce.
JANINE LECLERC
Leclerc said there definitely was a labour shortage in the region and said municipalities needed to get more involved in solving the problem. She thought it was a good idea to find out why people weren’t taking available jobs wondering if they were afraid of COVID-19 or didn’t want to work because they were on CERB or other government support programs. Leclerc did not want to open the borders to more immigrants to boost the labour force, believing there were plenty of people already here to fill job vacancies.
STEPHANIE BELL
Bell said the labour shortage was a major issue and blamed the lack of affordable education and training for the worker shortage. She believed affordable education would lead to more people taking on good jobs and naturally build up the workforce. She believes there needs to be a focus on the skilled trades.
RYAN WILLIAMS
Williams said he was a “solutions-based politician” and said he’d immediately sit down with manufacturers, tradespeople, labour representatives, and educators to hammer out a solution, with a focus on the Quinte region’s issues. Williams said his party will focus on providing incentives and supports for more job training to fill the many jobs available in this area.
ERICA CHARLTON
Charlton thought many people who’d lost jobs in the pandemic and ended up on government programs learned their lives were stretched very thin when working at jobs that didn’t pay very much and weren’t finding it attractive to return to them. She stressed the need for universal child care so people would have more choice about working or not and making trades training and post-secondary education affordable for people.
WHAT ABOUT THE AFFORDABLE HOUSING AND HOUSING SHORTAGE PROBLEM?
RYAN WILLIAMS
Williams said his party would offer several ways to boost housing supply, saying the lack of housing was leading to housing being priced too high for much of the population. Williams said more supply would naturally lead to more affordable pricing. He said his party would work to have municipalities adjust official plans to open up more locations for housing and various housing types. He said his government would invest in skilled trades training to build the workforce necessary to build more housing and ban foreigners from buying residential property for two years. There would be more rental units built under a Conservative government and they would turn 15% of federal properties over for affordable housing.
STEPHANIE BELL
Bell used her time to stress that she just could not believe a word Williams was saying about building affordable housing. Bell said Conservatives were known for cuts and not investments that would actually help working class people, pointing to cutbacks by the Ontario PC government. Bell was cautioned by moderator Paul Martin who said candidates were not to question the “veracity” of another candidate’s statement.
ERICA CHARLTON
Charlton said it was high time to declare an affordable housing crisis and appoint a Minister to lead a government department to work with the provinces and municipalities on the problem. She said some restrictions on developers should be lifted so more multi-family housing could be developed and that urban sprawl should be curtailed and “brownfields” made more available for housing.
NEIL ELLIS
Ellis said his government has invested billions in housing programs. He said the investments have led to more affordable housing units in Bay of Quinte riding and that in a few years the money will have been used to create about 300 affordable units. Ellis also pointed to his government’s releasing of the federal building at 1 North Front Street in Belleville to be renovated for affordable housing units. Ellis said his party would provide incentives for “rent to own” programs and would ban buying of property by foreigners for two years.
JANINE LECLERC
Leclerc said rental units were desperately needed and rent controls were needed as rent was far too high for most people to comfortably afford. Her party would ban foreigners from buying property forever and there would be a 20 % tax placed on the property already owned by foreigners plus other taxes to make the owning of property in Canada as unattractive as possible.
All of the candidates believed tiny homes, granny suites, and other forms of housing were good ideas and needed to be encouraged.
WHAT ABOUT CHILDCARE AND SUPPORTS FOR WOMEN?
ERICA CHARLTON
Charlton says the Green Party believes in universal child care. She said her party wants to provide easy access to education so women can be qualified for better paying jobs and that more public transit would allow more women to be able to get to workplaces.
STEPHANIE BELL
Bell said women and caregivers need affordable and universal child care. She said she’d been waiting for “eons” for action on the issue from previous governments but nothing has happened and she’s sick of waiting. She says the public is ready for change, change that really helps people live better lives and that the NDP are ready to make the changes.
NEIL ELLIS
Ellis said his government plans on creating new child care spaces. He again stressed that his government had signed off with eight provinces on a plan to provide $10 a day daycare. He said the program would allow a lot of women to get in to or return to the workforce. Ellis said the plan would cost parents about $200 a month per child instead of the usual $1,000 a month or more for daycare.
LECLERC
Leclerc said she didn’t want the government raising the country’s children. She said any government subsidy was taking money from one person and giving it to another. She said her party would eliminate the deficit by the end of its first mandate allowing taxes to be cut allowing people to have more money in their pocket to pay for things the family needs.
RYAN WILLIAMS
Williams said his party’s tax credit proposal for childcare would send money directly to parents so they, not government, could choose how best to care for their children. Williams didn’t think government child care was particularly effective and believed the tax credit system would lead to more “great entrepreneurs” offering quality care.
You can find information on the federal parties’ campaign platforms here:
Liberal: https://liberal.ca/our-platform/
Conservative: https://www.conservative.ca/plan/
NDP: https://www.ndp.ca/commitments
Green: https://www.greenparty.ca/en/platform
PPC: https://www.peoplespartyofcanada.ca/platform
