Quinte News, in conjunction with the Lorne Brooker Show, has been interviewing as many of the candidates for the April 28 federal election as possible.
The Brooker Show has/is chatting with all Conservative, NDP, Green, and Liberal candidates in the ridings of Hastings-Lennox and Addington-Tyendinaga, and the Bay of Quinte.
Quinte News travelled to Cobourg last week to sit down with Liberal John Goheen and incumbent Conservative Philip Lawrence.
Polling site 338 Canada has the riding of Northumberland-Clarke as a single digit lead for Lawrence, however, just months ago it was seen as a slam dunk for team blue.
The resignation of Justin Trudeau, combined with tariffs and uncertainty in the United States, appear to have led to a surging of the Grits.
We chatted with Lawrence at his campaign office in Cobourg to get a sense of the main issues he is hearing at the door.
“Affordability is still number one, people are struggling to get by. Donald Trump is an issue right, with the tariffs and the impact. It sort of relates back to the same thing. As my dad said to me for many years control the controllables.
He discussed inter-provincial trade, and the focus on relying on better trade partnerships, rather than having such a focus on the United States.
“It has been a wake up call in the fact that in many instances it’s more difficult to trade across borders of provinces than it is from a province to a state, which should never happen. We need to eliminate those inter-provincial barriers. Make sure we can get Prince Edward County wine in B.C. and B.C. wine in Prince Edward County.”
Lawrence says there are consistent national issues like housing, affordability, the opioid/mental health crisis, and the Trump administration, however, he says there are also concerns inside the riding on Northumberland-Clarke.
“We’ve seen manifestations of national issues here in Cobourg. Not but five minutes up the street, there’s a Post factory they’ve announced they’re going to close. Talked to a gentleman who’s worked there for 27 years and now his employment is just done. He’s 60 years old.”
He finished the interview by indicating that the federal government needs to do everything it can to get industry back.
Lawrence scolded the feds for allowing the carbon tax (carbon pricing/price on pollution) to hurt Canadians until just days before the writ dropped for the campaign.
“Actually we’ve seen Liberal candidates actually go out there and make a big win that gas prices have gone down. This is the ultimate of the arsonist putting out the fire and then saying I should get credit for that.”
Quinte News will be in the Northumberland-Clarke riding on election night and will have reports on scene with the candidates.
