Richard Komorowski on the Ontario Provincial Election – Chats with Liberal candidate for SD&SG Mark A MacDonald – September 2, 2011

Cornwall ON –Provincial Liberal Candidate Mark MacDonald has some big shoes to fill, now that current MPP Jim Brownell is retiring. Although he has been campaigning for a while now, with the official opening of the Liberal campaign office on Pitt and Seventh in Cornwall, the campaign is now in high gear.Through talking to voters throughout the Stormont, Dundas and South Glengarry riding, Mark MacDonald is well aware that local issues correspond closely to provincial issues as a whole: the economy, education, the environment, and health care.

Green Energy Act – Helping Ontario’s Industry Diversify

The Harris Hudak Conservative Party is looking for simple solutions to complex problems, with no understanding of what the future holds.  What they don’t seem to understand is that “Green is the Future. Green is the new economics.” The province of Ontario is putting itself into a commanding position in green energy technologies, which the rest of the world is looking at with envy.

What would Harris Hudak do to buy votes? They would scrap Ontario’s Green Energy Act, that is propelling Ontario towards a green future, and they would hurt thousands of hardworking Ontario families by eliminating the new green energy jobs that benefit Ontario, Canada and the entire world.

At one point, Americans bought 17 million new vehicles every year. Since the 2008 depression, that figure has dropped to 12 million and shows no signs of ever returning to its former growth. Many of these vehicles are built in Ontario, so our manufacturing, especially the auto sector, is vulnerable to troubles in the US economy. The Green Energy Act is allowing the auto sector to diversify into new products and markets, which will be in increasing demand as fossil fuels price themselves beyond what people and society can afford to pay.

Harris Hudak’s solution? Let’s all get drunk and be happy. We’ll even help you by lowering the taxes to make beer a dollar a bottle (maybe). What Harris Hudak doesn’t answer, however, is how many Ontarians will be able to afford even a dollar a bottle?

Cashing in the RRSPs

What Harris Hudak wants to do is to cash in Ontario’s RRSPs, to save a few dollars here and now, and force future Ontarians to depend on outdated and increasingly unworkable technologies. What family in their right mind would sell off their RRSPs to finance a vacation to Disneyland during hurricane season? Yet this is exactly what Harris Hudak would do to Ontario.

The Green Energy Act is preparing us for the future. If we don’t prepare now, saving and investing while we can, we risk forcing the next generation of Ontario families to plan their schedules around power blackouts, worry about how they are going to get to work, if indeed they have jobs to go to. It was a combination of too little government regulation, and a sudden rise in energy prices, and having to decide if they are going to feed their children or pay the energy bills. We can’t afford for the province to become so strapped for cash that future OHIP cards will come complete with a VISA logo.

Less Government

Harris Hudak talks about less government, about letting Ontario families do everything for themselves, but is this what we really need? Other than saving and hoarding for the future, what can individual families really do in the grand scheme of things? Successful governments allow individuals the freedom to make choices about what is best for them, in their own particular circumstances, but also provide the necessary leadership for the long term, looking after the benefits and stability no individual family could hope to achieve on its own.The Harris Hudak concept of less government, however, is ambiguous. They talk about cutting taxes and expenses, but don’t say who will have to pay more to take up the slack. One thing Harris Hudak has promised is to shut down Eastern Ontario’s own Local Health Integration Network, which decides this area’s own priorities in health care, so that we get the best value for our money. Instead, the Harris Hudak Conservatives will appoint people in Toronto to decide what’s best for us.MPP Jim Brownell and the Ontario Liberals have made sure that SDSG is well positioned to “ride out” the rest of the global economic crisis.  From Lancaster to Long Sault, Winchester to Williamsburg, Morrisburg to Martintown, Cornwall to Crysler and all places in between have been positively affected by Jim’s hard work.

The Conservatives voted against our hospitals, health centres and recreational facilities.  Ontario is on the right track and it’s time to move forward together.