The Local Community Food Center in Stratford hosted an all-candidates forum Thursday night for the provincial candidates in the upcoming Ontario general election on June 2.
Perth-Wellington’s slate of candidates in the June 2 provincial election had the opportunity to speak their minds and share their parties’ platforms around topics ranging from tackling the affordability crisis to protecting valuable farmland during an all-candidates forum in Stratford Thursday night.
Hosted by The Local Community Food Center and moderated by local radio host Jamie Cottle, the candidates — including Conservative Matthew Rae, Liberal Ashley Fox, NDP Jo-Dee Burbach and Green Laura Bisutti — each had two minutes to give their answers, in turn, to six questions drafted by community food center staff and based on feedback provided by food center users through a survey.
The following is the candidates’ answers to two of those questions. Please note that while the answers are written verbatim, some may be edited for clarity.
Poverty and the affordability crisis
Bisutti (Green): “First of all, for housing affordability we need to build livable, people-centred communities where we live play and shop. We have to expand zoning options to increase infill construction and build 160,000 affordable community rental homes in partnership with co-op and non-profit housing providers. We need to create thousands of jobs with the green-retrofit program and we have to support entrepreneurs in energy storage, electric transportation, smart transit and low-carbon materials. And we need to make sure that we have a basic income for everyone so that no one gets left behind, including people on disability.”
Fox (Liberal): “In order to focus on reversing the trend (of increasing food-bank reliance), we would obviously be looking at housing affordability and options that we would have in the community, and also supporting our communities. We know that community hubs need to function on not just housing alone, but business dynamics, food affordability, child care and equity pay as well. So we would focus on each of those and hopefully that would target the reversal. In addition to advocating, we know that social-service programs need to exist and we need them to be fair and approachable for our clientele, so we would work on that as well.”
Burbach (NDP): “Affordability is, I think, the prime issue in this election cycle. We’ve got housing prices on top of prices for gasoline and groceries that would all need attention. These are things that affect all of us with the exception of the privileged few. So we need to look at ways to reduce everyday expenses and one of those ways is to look at gas prices because that does affect food pricing. Every household has a transportation cost and there’s also a cost for getting food to the market. So regulating gas prices would be one of the things the NDP would look at to start controlling costs.
“Another thing we would do is look at raising the minimum wage. Our promise is to raise the minimum wage over four years up to $20 an hour. I’m pretty sure we’re the only party (that’s) planning to do that. We need people to be able to afford the rising costs. We can’t really control inflation, but we can control fair wages. We need to make sure that people are paid fairly (and), if they’re part of a union, that they’re able to negotiate for fair wages.
“Also, (for) people on (the Ontario Disability Support Program and Ontario Works), we have promised that we will immediately increase that by 20 per cent when we form government, just to get started. People right now are living well below the poverty level when they’re on (disability support or Ontario Works), so they need help immediately. Subsequent to that, we plan to reform the system, looking at things like basic income. The system isn’t really working for people, and we see that every day here in our community, and it leads to all kinds of consequences. We see a problem with homelessness and there’s a lot of challenges. Affordability is key.”
Rae (Conservative): “Yes, affordability is probably one of the top issues I hear at the door and our government has committed to cutting the gas and fuel tax on July 1. Also, to address housing … we’re investing $1.2 billion in the social services relief fund . An example locally is the $3.9 million the province contributed to the Britannia Street (affordable housing) project with community housing. To address the food portion of the question, we have some great agricultural producers in our area and I know, in our area, the chicken farmers contribute a lot if there’s excess for our food banks. We’ll continue to encourage that and work with our agriculture stakeholders to help fulfill the needs in our community.”
Protecting agricultural land from urban sprawl
Burbach (NDP): “Urban spray is a huge problem. It’s estimated that every day in Ontario, currently, 175 acres of farmland are lost to urban sprawl and development. Land-use planning is really important to protect our farmland and also green spaces.
“One of the first things we would do is encourage development within existing urban boundaries. So we would update zone rules to enable the construction of those middle-missing houses — housing like duplexes, triplexes, stacked townhouses, small apartment buildings — within rural communities. … We wouldn’t be facing things like huge condo developments and we would also discourage the sprawl that we see with single-family dwellings. We also know that, environmentally speaking, single-family dwellings that are sprawling out are actually really bad for the environment. In order to conserve, we would encourage intensification.
“We would also introduce a mandatory agricultural-impact assessment. So that would be working in partnership with the agricultural community who know and understand the true value of their land … making sure they have a say into which land is most valuable and which land would be suitable for housing because we do know we need more housing as well. But it’s how we approach that housing. We would also cancel certain big projects that would gobble up a lot of farmland like (Highway) 413 and the Bradford bypass which are really expensive and we would lose thousands of acres of valuable farmland.”
Fox (Liberal): “In regards to urban sprawl we would work with our municipalities. Our municipalities know us best and know what land is to be developed and what isn’t. For land that is currently under development but has been sitting, we would introduce a use-it-or-lose it tax to be able to establish urgency on that need. With affordable housing, we would also be looking at regulations for lower-level developments, making it easier for municipalities to build those homes within their organizations.
“We would also be looking at the Minister’s Zoning Orders and removing it so there’s a new, rules-based measure that would be limited to critical projects including affordable housing, but only with municipal-stakeholder feedback. In addition, as we have lost that ability to have stakeholder feedback, we would open it up with municipalities so there is (an opportunity for stakeholders to provide) feedback after hours, (on) social media and other alternative measures.”
Bisutti (Green): “With respect to farmland, we would freeze urban boundaries to stop the sprawl and permanently protect farmland.
“We would also … implement a grocery code of conduct to protect farmers and local food producers and consumers, and we would reward farmers for carbon sequestration. We’d also reward farmers for stewardship; (for) example, clean water, habitat preservation, soil health — very important — and carbon storage because farmers are able to sequester carbon and they should be rewarded for that.
“We should improve the income-stabilization programs for farmers so they’re more accessible to family farms and they cover a wider range of products and don’t penalize farmers who experience bad years. We want to make sure they stay in business and are able to afford their land.
“We would also double the size of the greenbelt to create a bluebelt of protected waterways and we would make it illegal to build any highways on the greenbelt. We would cancel Highway 413 and create a dedicated truck lane on the 407. The Highway 413 is a $10-billion climate disaster which eats up good farmland, greenbelt land, passes through waterways and affects endangered species.”
Rae (Conservative): “Coming from a family farm, I understand the importance of our agriculture land and the need to maintain it, and working with our municipal partners. We are in a housing crisis. I think everyone would agree at this table and we all have different ideas of how to address it, but the PC government will continue to work with our municipal partners because a one-size-fits-all (solution) does not work.
“What works for downtown Kitchener or downtown Toronto does not work, obviously, in Stratford or Mitchell or Listowel. And we’ll continue to work with our municipal partners moving forward. It was great to see committed in the budget, every single year of a re-elected PC government, we will bring forward an additional housing-supply initiative and work with our municipal partners to continue to build on the success we’ve had, and to continue to get that feedback locally from our municipal partners, and to continue to encourage the maintaining of our farmland, but also obviously addressing the housing crisis we are currently facing.”
For a full recording of Thursday’s Perth-Wellington all-candidates forum, visit youtube.com/watch?v=BZP1YanPSAY and skip forward to the 1:09:30 mark.