Continuing a trend this election season, the Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce welcomed five candidates in the Oct. 21 federal election from the major parties to College Boreal on Wednesday.
In the past, everyone registered to run was invited, and it led to an often chaotic, rambling event, not to mention occasional hate crime investigations involving one religious extremist with an affinity for running in every election to expose his views.
But on Wednesday, the modest crowd at Boréal heard from Conservative Pierre St. Amant, Green Bill Crumplin, Liberal Paul Lefebvre, NDP candidate Beth Mairs and the PPC's Sean Paterson, five of the eight people running, all of whom are members of larger national parties.
While lacking the fireworks the fringe candidates often brought, the format allowed candidates time to address business-related questions – some of which were asked more than once.
For example, incumbent Lefebvre was asked to explain why his party abandoned its pledge to balance the national budget. As he has in the past, he re-framed the question not in terms of breaking a promise, but as a “choice” the Liberals had to cut spending or invest in Canadians.
“The results speak for themselves,” he said. “A lot of countries are asking us how we are doing it, lifting people out of poverty.”
And he said Canada is lowering its debt-to-GDP ratio, a better indicator of a nation's fiscal health, allowing us to have a triple-A credit rating.
Mairs pointed out that “Paul didn't answer the question,” and said a New Democrat government is not going to be cutting spending to balance the books.
“The NDP is not going to slash, slash, slash,” she said.
Will instead focus on building “the Canada we all brag about,” an image she said has been tarnished in the last 30 years by decisions by Liberals and Tories to slash spending.
“It’s a matter of priorities,” she said.
Savings will come through such measures as ending tax breaks for corporations and a ban on fossil fuel subsidies.
“We need to build up social services, and we can’t do that without spending.”
Mairs said her party wants to make FedNor a standalone agency to spur the development of our economy.
“That will significantly help in terms of diversification.”
She also questioned Lefebvre's comments about the money that has come to Sudbury through FedNor. She said Timmins got more money because the funding depends on the quality of the application, not who is in power.
“It really doesn’t have anything to do with the MP,” Mairs said, so why is he taking credit?
“That is taxpayer money — money we already paid,” Crumplin agreed, adding any MP can “return tax dollars to our community.”
Lefebvre said he was glad to hear Timmins — held by the NDP — received money, because it shows it's not a partisan fund, which he said was the case under Tory Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
His government doubled the funding for FedNor, he said, from $40 million to $80 million, enabling people with good ideas to access funding across the North.
“We have created good jobs in Northern Ontario.”
Crumplin said the Greens are “not overly concerned” about balancing the books immediately, but will do so over five years.
They will end fossil fuel subsidies and cancel the pipeline purchase, saving billions in the process and freeing up money for social programs and to fight climate change.
St. Amant said he doesn't understand the Liberal plan when it comes to budgeting. You go into debt when times are tough to fund key programs, but that money has to be paid back.
“When times are good, you try to put money aside,” he said. “Over the last four years, times have been good. And the Liberals are forecasting a $27-billion debt next year, and $20 billion in the years after that.”
The Conservatives will make balancing the books a priority by cutting in certain areas.
“We want to reduce a lot of the corporate welfare that is being given out,” he said. “If we have a downturn in the economy, we’re going to have trouble. We are in a serious situation.”
Paterson said Canada is paying $21 billion a year just to service the interest on the debt.
“That’s half our health care dollars,” he said. “Increasing the national debt is not something we want to see.”
The PPC will balance the books in two years by ending foreign aid spending, ending funding of CBC and cutting out tax breaks for the oil and gas industry.
They will also offer low tax rates for low income earners.
“This gives purchasing power back to people,” Paterson said. “I’m not against helping foreign countries, but we can’t afford it when our deficit is $27 billion.
“We are not against immigration (but) we have a Canada first policy.”
Lefebvre pointed out the entire foreign aid budget is $2 billion, so where are the rest of the cuts coming from?
And Crumplin said it was “criminal” to talk about cutting foreign aid, when so much of our own wealth was acquired by “raping and pillaging” of the world and the environment.
“I see foreign assistance as a way to repay” that debt, he said.
On the carbon tax, St. Amant said it does more harm than good. The Conservatives would focus on reducing the harm caused by fossil fuels, rather than eliminating them.
“We know the carbon tax is not working,” he said. “And we want to make oil part of the solution, and not part of the problem.”
But Lefebvre said the consensus of top economists is that it does work, and wondered why the Tories never mention the rebates people will receive to offset the impact of the tax.
He said the Doug Ford government's “atrocious” stickers on gas pumps aim to ensure “people are not well informed” about the carbon tax.
“Putting a price on pollution is the right way forward.”
Crumplin said he was happy to see so much talk about climate change at a chamber debate.
“It’s no longer the elephant in the room, and that's is a tremendous achievement,” he said. “But if we’re going to take the moral high ground here, we have to do something fast.”
