Ontario Conservative Party Leader Patrick Brown told members of the Timmins Chamber of Commerce that his party will correct the problem of the high electricity rates that he blamed on the policy of ruling Liberal Party under Premier Kathleen Wynne.
Brown was in Timmins, along with a coterie of MPPs, in a bid to return Northern Ontario to the Tory blue fold he told the gathering of Chambers members at College Boreal last Thursday.
“We are on a northern driving tour,” said Brown who was an hour late starting because of delays arriving in Timmins from Chapleau.
Brown brought with him a coterie of several other Conservative MPPs that included’ Norm Miller (Parry Sound-Muskoka), Lisa Thompson (Huron-Bruce), Vic Fedelli, (North Bay), Jeff Yurek (Elgin- Middlesex-London) and Todd Smith (Prince Edward—Hastings).
“I have been up to the north 24 times, since I became leader in 2015,” boasted Brown, who has been the leader of the Ontario Conservative Party 2015.
“But every year I do a driving tour and people ask me why would you be doing a driving tour across Northern Ontario in winter?” added Brown to a smattering of laughter from the audience. “Last winter we did, northwestern Ontario and this winter we are doing northeastern Ontario.”
“It is easier to fly up for a visit and then fly back,” said Brown. “But only by driving can you really see first hand the infrastructure needs of the north, by driving on the northern roads, going hours with no cell phone connections.”
“The Conservative’s driving tour of Northern Ontario is about listening,” according to Brown.
“It’s about making sure that Northern Ontario matters,” he said. “Because too often I feel that Northern Ontario gets forgotten at Queen’s Park.”
Brown said, Northern Ontario has tremendous potential, but it is important to have the right partner – the Conservative Party to make sure you have the tools to succeed.
Brown identified four areas needed for the North can succeed.
“I call these the four pillars of economic development, which are: investing in infrastructure to get products to market place,” said Brown. “And we are seeing in the latest Auditor Generals report we are not getting infrastructure dollars spent appropriately by the Liberal government. “
“Whether it is upside down bridges, paving or repaving roads every two years instead of every 15 years, or broken promises on the Ring of Fire – we are not seeing an urgency on infrastructure that we feel is needed, “said Brown.
However, the Ontario Auditor General never said the Ontario government paid for upside down bridges.
Rather, it criticized the government for paying for a project with upside down trusses at a Metrolinx pedestrian bridge leading to the Pickering Go Train station. The pedestrian bridge has been in use since 2012, and there are no indications it is unsafe.
A truss is defined as a tether or bind. To read the construction company’s side of the story please click here. http://thearchitectlink.ca/cgi-bin/story.cgi?id=304127&print=1
The Liberal party of Kathleen Wynne have also made infrastructure development and renewal a big part of their program as have the NDP. Since the 2014 election, Premier Wynne has billed her Ontario infrastructure program the largest in Ontario history.
The homepage of the Ministry of Infrastructure states:
“Ontario is making the largest infrastructure investment in schools, hospitals, public transit, roads and bridges in the province's history.”
Brown said the second pillar of economic development is the removal of red tape.
“Look at some of the mining projects in Northern Ontario and the red tape you have to go through to get projects and investments off the ground,” said Brown. “We have 383,000 regulations.”
“We have become the capital of red tape in North America,” Brown added. “We don’t want that to be Ontario’s Brand.”
Despite the implication of Brown’s statement that no one is doing anything about red tape reduction, the Ontario Liberal government announced it wanted to reduce red tape beginning with reduction in the financial services sector.
See http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=619b060d-c820-4d09-8709-b31742e2af38
Brown’s third pillar for economic development is affordable energy prices.
“Ontario has among the highest electricity prices in North America and if you want to succeed you have to have affordable energy,” Brown told the Chamber members.
“I think it hits home here in Timmins, where Xstrata closed down its smelter and moved to Quebec where electricity is cheaper,” said Brown. “Jobs are fleeing northern Ontario going to Quebec because of the cost of electricity.”
Brown’s fourth pillar of economic development is to better coordinate education to employment.
“We have a huge mismatch in our education system and the needs of our industries,” Brown stated. “We are graduating students for jobs that do not exist.”
“We graduated 90,000 students as teachers last year when there are only 5,000 teaching positions to fill,” Brown added.
Brown explained that this mismatch leads to other jobs going unfulfilled.
“We have a need for engineers, but cannot get students to enroll in engineering to fill the positions we need here in Northern Ontario," he said.
With policies and programs such as the implementation of his four pillars of economic development, Brown vowed to recapture Northern Ontario for the Conservatives and bring it back to the Tory blue fold.
“At one time, Northern Ontario was solid Conservative,” Brown said. “Under my leadership, I will lead it back to where it rightly belongs.”
