ONTARIO LEADERSHIP CANDIDATES TACKLE NORTHERN ISSUES

'THE DAY YOU ARE SWORN IN, I WILL BE IN YOUR FACE TO UNLEASH THE FULL POWER OF NORTHERN ONTARIO,' SAYS FONOM PRESIDENT

The focus was on Northern Ontario issues on May 10 when the leaders of Ontario's major provincial political parties met in North Bay for the first leaders' debate of the election campaign.

Hosted by the Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities (FONOM) as part of its annual conference, the debate included Progressive Conservative Doug Ford, the NDP's Andrea Horwath, Liberal Steven Del Duca,

and the Green Party's Mike Schreiner. The debate was moderated by Markus Schwabe of CBC Sudbury morning show fame.

Here are a few of the quotes from the candidates:

• ON PROPERTY TAXES FUNDING MUNICIPAL BUDGETS:

"I'll never support raising taxes," said Ford. "We don't need more taxes, we need more people paying taxes."

"Northern Ontario needs more autonomy," said Schreiner, calling property tax "a regressive tax" and promising a Green government would "upload 50 per cent of shelter, housing, and transit costs."

"Spin isn't going to move this province forward," said Del Duca adding that a Liberal government would "share five per cent of collected mining taxes with northern municipalities."

• ON NORTHERN ONTARIO HIGHWAYS: Horwath, Del Duca and Schreiner all said that Highway 11 and 17 should be classified as

not next year ... we need to open up a discussion between both levels of government to come to an agreement to get those taxes down to a reasonable level," said Maynard. " ... We've taken truckers for granted for a long time."

"I recognize they want to bring our gas prices down," said Richter. " ... I want to get us not just relief at the pumps but relief from the pumps and it's going to take time ... it's going to take time to transition ...

I want to invest in you, to get you into an electric vehicle you can afford."

CLIMATE CRISIS

" ... We do know that housing is a huge part of it ... to be net-zero by 2030 that's on the new builds and to work on the retrofitting program ... so we can begin to renovate our homes," said Horvath, also emphasizing the importance of listening to Indigenous leadership when it comes to the climate crisis.

" ... We need to fund the appropriate measures forward to deal with the climate crisis ... when it comes to travel and carbon emissions ... we must get the Northlander back ... we need stops not just in South River but here in Sundridge and all the way down," said Richter.

" ... The New Blue completely supports Indigenous rights and let's face it they know how to take care of the Earth better than we've proven we can so we need to involve them on some level to teach us how to care for this Earth," said Maynard.