All-Candidates Forum Q and A Transcript

    The all-candidates forum was hosted by the Fort Frances Chamber of Commerce on Sept. 30 in the Town Council Chambers. All four candidates: John Rafferty (NDP), Russ Aegard (Green), Richard Neumann (Conservative), and incumbent Ken Boshcoff (Liberal). Candidates were posed questions on selected topics by representatives from the local media and Fort Frances Chamber of Commerce members. After each question, candidates were given two minutes to respond, one minute for rebuttal, and one minute to answer any follow up question there may be. The debate was moderated by Pam Anderson.

• Opening Remarks
• Health Care
• Canada-US Relations
• Energy and the Enviroment
• Economic Development in Northern Ontario
• Labour Participation and Skills Development
• Fiscal Policy
• Closing Remarks

OPENING REMARKS:

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John Rafferty:
Hi everybody, thanks for being here tonight, and thank you Fort Frances TV for being here. I think we should all send a nasty letter to Shaw Cable after this event and after Atikokan tomorrow night. I’m very pleased to be here, I’m very pleased that you’re here tonight. I’m going to be talking tonight about my commitments to you and your families, I’ll be talking about hope and opportunity for you and your friends and your neighbours. A future where you come first. I’ll be asking you: What kind of Canada do you want? What kind of Canada do you want five years from now? Ten years from now? 25 years from now? What kind of Canada you want to show the rest of the world, what is the face of Canada that you would like to see in the rest of the world?
But before I’d like to talk about the next 25 years, let’s talk about the next 25 months. Mr. Harper, as you know, is much more concerned about the board room table than the kitchen table, and I say that for Mr. Neumann because he wanted me to say it last night, but I didn’t say it, so I am saying it tonight and you know what, there are lots of families here tonight and I know at the doorstep, or when I get invited into someone’s home that you know, you’ve got two piles of bills on the kitchen table. Ones you can pay this month, and ones you’re going to have to leave until the next month, and a lot of families in Northwestern Ontario are living that way.
Mr. Dion of course, and his carbon tax, you know I think in Northern Ontario, I think the carbon tax is a good thing if you’re prepared to see your hydro rates go through the roof, your groceries, your fuel and oil to heat your home. And neither one has shown that they’re the kind of leader that we need for the next four years, much less setting the base for what we need for the next 25 years.
Mr. Boshcoff said last night, it was interesting, at the debate in Stratton, he said ‘The world is run by those who show up,’ Well we know that Mr. Dion skipped 43 confidence votes, and essentially gave a rubber stamp to Mr. Harper, for the last 25 months, and Mr. Harper was in fact governing as if he had a majority.
So tonight, here’s my first commitment to you: I live here, I’m a very good listener, I work hard and I’m eternally optimistic and I will fight for you and your family. Thank you.

Russ Aegard:
Hi, I’m relatively new to this game, my party is relatively new too. An interesting thing that happened to me today, I haven’t done much door knocking in my time as a politician. I work full time as a teacher so that sort of inhibits a lot of that, so for the first time today I actually went and door knocked and I ended up sitting down and talking to the gentleman for an hour and a half. So I guess at that rate I should be able to get to everybody’s house by 2030. So I’ve got to figure out how to cut down that time.
Why vote for us? We’re sort of a party that takes a look at politics and we look at it like it’s an opportunity to work with other parties. We look at it as an opportunity to exchange the great ideas that are out there amongst the parties and be able to incorporate that. We have too much of an antagonistic system right now and as we saw in the past 25 months, it hasn’t been working very well. Just for example the green shift policy, that the Liberals have tabled. That is our policy, they took it from us, but you haven’t heard in the media that we’re worried about them stealing our ideas because we believe any good idea is a good idea. We don’t care who tables it, as long as it gets done. So that’s our approach to politics. We’re not playing blame games, we’re not happy to take credit for every little thing that happens. So the important thing is for Canadians, and that’s where we stand.
Our solutions are rational because the Green Party understands there are scientifically-verified limits to growth set by the carrying capacity of our climate. We must work within these limits, otherwise we’re going to exhaust our resources, degrade our environment and put our economy, health and children’s future at risk.
Our solutions are realistic because they follow the best practice already in place in other parts of Canada or other countries. These practices are cost-effective, deliver results and benefit people, the economy and environment. Our down to earth solutions will work in Canada because they’ve worked around the world. Many have been successfully applied in Europe, where Greens are elected at all political levels, including European Union and national parliaments.
Countries where Greens are elected are the countries creating new high paying jobs while simultaneously meeting targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They are the countries where the gap between the richer and the poorer are small, this is very important to note. We have a problem, and we’ve seen it in the United States and what’s happening down there. The problem is, there’s too many greedy people and the gap between the rich and the small is increasing, increasing, increasing. We don’t have an infinite amount of resources, we need to fix [sic] a solution.
In Europe, for example, the CEOs are only allowed to make 25 times more than the frontline workers. Here, the average is 425 times. We have a ridiculous system that causes our economy to bust, and we already have workable economies in other areas of the world that show green economies work, but yet we want to continue to ignore it. So it’s very important that we can learn from our friends from around the world and make it a better place for everybody. Thank you.

Ken Boshcoff:
Thank you very much Madame chair, my worthy opponents, members of the media panel, honoured guests. There’s one thing that people want most from their elected representatives. They want them to do what they promised. This is the politics of trust and accountability, and for this part of the riding, when I was first elected, people were very worried that they would be left out. I promised that I would open an office. I did. I staffed it and I come to this part of the riding, which I also call home.         Home for me is anywhere between the Manitoba border and Lake Superior. Seven and a half hours driving over two time zones. And I do that because I believe very strongly in the future of Northwestern Ontario. I believe that a member of Parliament should be accessible and available and I believe that over the past number of years, people have come to realize that I’ve done what I said I would do.
My experience as a councillor, as a mayor, as a president of several major municipal organizations, as a member of Parliament, as chair especially of the rural caucus, bringing small communities to the forefront of the platforms for not only the Liberal party and leader Stephane Dion, but basically for all parties who had to catch up to the rural platform.
But as your representative, that helped me have an influence, because I was taught and nurtured and advised by people of the Rainy River District. That’s why my four major campaign thrusts this time are of course on the economy, which you have seen some of the results already with what I have been able to do as a member of Parliament. The first of course, the “Buy Canada” motion that was passed unanimously. So if you ever wonder if things could be difficult, try getting something passed unanimously in a minority government. And of course the forestry report which was accepted by the national resources committee and forwarded to Parliament, was also widely acclaimed by both labour and industry and community leaders. In agriculture, I have been a champion at buying local and food safety. In health care, you know my issues in terms of developing a national health care strategy. And in environment, developing the clean technologies.
I have a plan, I’m part of a team. I have the leadership. That is why I’m running today. Thank you very much.

Richard Neumann:
For 31 months, Conservatives have provided the leadership to move this country forward with confidence and determination. We have faced challenges, however with a deliberate and focused plan we believe we are on the right track. In just two years of Conservative government, we have reduced the GST by five percent, reduced personal income taxes, reduced corporate income taxes encouraging investment and productivity, and we have introduced pension income splitting reducing the tax burden on our seniors.     In every action we have attempted to put more money in your wallet, not shift it to the government. Our aggressive tackling crime agenda is dedicated towards protecting your rights and not the rights of criminals. And we have increased spending on social programming, not decreased it.
Here in Thunder Bay-Rainy River, we are concerned about our forestry sector. We have had enough reports, committees, consultations, plans and promises. It is time for us to move forward and take action on these reports before the sheer volume of the paper used to write them is sufficient to save the industry.
The Liberals offer as their economic social and environmental policy only their carbon tax, an experiment of social engineering not so cleverly disguised in green. There crime policy is again predicated on banning weapons already effectively banned and a continued assault on law abiding hunters and farmers.
I am one to believe that the vast majority of Canadians regardless of their political stripe, believe in a common future. We all want to see an end to poverty in our land, expand individual freedoms, protect our loved ones and end violence in all of its evil forms. But where we differ is on how to achieve these goals.
Conservatives understand that social progress has always been contingent on the economic success of our society. We take great pride in our social programs and to a degree, we believe that they form an important part of what defines us as a people. But we also understand that as much as we want to do more, much more, it is our economic strength that guarantees what we have today and gives us choice in the future.
In this election you have a choice between a Conservative vision of the future and a host of other options that all involve more cost to you and more strain on our economy. Now is not the time to institute a new social experiment. Now is not the time to retreat, and elect another voice in the wilderness. Now is a time for your voice to be heard  where it can do the most good. Let me be that voice. Thank you.
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HEALTH CARE:
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Question on health care
Posed by Marlene Deschamps (The Westend Weekly)

Because the federal health minister is the person that negotiates with each province in regards to the amount of transferred dollars they receive to administer the health system, within the mandate of the Canada Health Act, I’d like each of you to tell me what you personally would try to do to make sure those negotiations with the province of Ontario include the Rainy River District for delivery of necessary programs and services, and the number of doctors and professionals to provide them.

Russ Aegard (Green):
Health care is very near and dear to us. There’s many problems why the funding, why it feels like it’s overburdened, and many, many factors. First of all, poverty. We live in a resource rich country. We’re very wealthy and we seem to pride ourselves on that, but the fact is, one in eight children live in poverty, actually, it might be one in six, but anyways, the fact is people are living in poverty which leads to poor health issues which leads to a strain on our health care system. So if you don’t invest in trying to eliminate poverty, our health care is going to go up. So you can have all these corporate welfare dollars going all over the place to these rich wealthy corporations, or you could help out people that really need the help, and that will reduce the cost on our health care system.
Unfortunately, that’s sort of a short-sighted thing, with governments always trying to get elected every four years and they’re trying to get power and that’s all they want to do, they don’t want to look at the long term situation.
Privatization, another issue, it’s creeping into our system. We are completely against privatization, we’d stop it immediately if we were elected on Oct. 14. This is a shame that people are making money on people that are sick.
And again, the environment. We’re poisoning ourselves with the food system. I was talking about how I can’t even buy raw milk from the farmer on the corner, but the government will allow poisons like aspartame into our food system, which is a known carcinogen, yet we ingest that. And the government seems to think that’s okay. So if you are wondering about why we’re unhealthy, and why we’re having to utilize the system, and for the first time ever in our history, a child born today will not have the life expectancy of their parents, and there’s a reason for that, and that has to do with our air systems, our water systems, food systems, and our last two governments really have not addressed that issue, and that’s the direction we would take with health care. And then that would help alleviate the problems on health care.

Ken Boshcoff (Liberal):
How many people can remember the last time any prime minister got all the provinces and territories to agree with anyone project? The answer is, Paul Martin did it twice. He did it with the health care which had as its very noble goals, reduction of waiting times and the national health care strategy as two of its fundamental points. All of that was lost in the election of January ’06.
On an individual basis, I’ve proven already from my experience that I can work on health care issues of the most difficult nature. As part of the team that got us the medical school, that was a full medical school for Northwestern Ontario. I was one of the major encouragers when the college expanded its nursing program so that we could actually have training right here in Fort Frances.
The Liberal federal platform has a doctors and nurses fund in it for rural areas, it has a catastrophic drug plan and it also understands that the Canada Health Act must continue to make sure that people have fair access to the health system regardless of their ability to pay. So these are some of the fundamentals that are part of the national system and I believe that when we talk health care, in terms of having someone represent and ensure that Ontario gets its fair allocation, that the northwest does, that you can bet that knowing how this works in parliament that I will be a strong advocate for that.

Richard Neumann (Conservative):
Well you’re absolutely correct in your assertion that the manner in which we as a country manage our health care system does present certain challenges. It’s clearly challenging to coordinate the health care efforts of 10 provinces and we see this all the time. We see this with the manner in which our government has spent money on the patient wait-times guarantee. It took a lot of very difficult negotiation with each and every provinces individual priority with respect to what they tended to first. So there are issues there. But there are opportunities as well with our federal system. We’ve got 10 individual provinces that are administering their systems in slightly different ways and I think where we’re missing out here is trying to capitalize on the fact that we have 10 different provinces that are all administering their health care in different ways. We have a tendency to do our own thing in each and every province without taking a look at what the other provinces are doing, their successes, their failures, their improvements, and we should be using our federal system to our advantage in this regard.
With respect to how the federal government might play a role in regional health care, I think the medical school brought up by Mr. Boshcoff is an outstanding example of the type of role that the federal government can play. That medical school exists because we made it very clear that we face specific regional challenges with respect to training doctors and nurses and getting them to work and stay and live in this region.

John Rafferty (NDP):
Ms. Deschamps, let me be the one to actually answer your question. I’d love to do that, because the question was federal government in Ontario, and I believe that when money comes from the federal government, when money is used, your tax money is used and given to a province like Ontario, I believe that there should be strings attached. Provinces and territories don’t like that but what happens is we’re faced with a situation like we have in Ontario. Now I know everyone will remember Mr. McGuinty’s promise to hire 8,000 nurses—well money was given. Federal money was given to McGuinty for that. There were no strings attached, but enough money was given to him to do that. Did he hire his 8,000 nurses? No, he didn’t. There’s a situation right now in Ontario that has not hit the media yet, but probably will soon, that the slight increase that was given to long-term care facilities, private providers of long-term care, some of them have used that money to settle lawsuits with employees. They haven’t used it for patient care at all. It was intended for patient care, and it seems to me that if your federal tax dollar is going to health care in the province, like Ontario, or going to Northern Ontario, promises from a health minister or from the premier of Ontario, there should be strings attached to that money because it’s your hard-earned money that’s going there, and our commitment is to ensure that there are strings attached.
I do also want to talk about the rest of our platform, we have quite the extensive  part of our health care platform, including doctors and nurses and underserviced areas and working with the provinces to develop long-term strategies. I encourage you to look at NDP.ca to get the full thrust of what our health platform is.

Aegard:
The Green Party would institute a national physical education program in all schools, and also a national school lunch program, supported by the local producers when necessary, which would be great for the economy as well, the local farmers that are in the area.
This is the problem with our health care system, it’s almost like “sick care” now and we need to transfer it back to a healthy way of living in order to reduce the costs. Yes we need to hire more nurses and doctors now, but that’s not the solution we need every single election. We need to figure out the problem, to figure out why we’re getting sicker and why there’s such burden on the health care system.
So those are a couple of programs that we would institute to make sure that children are healthy and that every child in Canada is getting one healthy meal a day, because that’s not happening. There’s a lot of child poverty, and when you haven’t eaten [well] in 18 years, you’re going to see stresses on your body. And giving that one meal a day is going to make a huge difference in our health care system.

Boshcoff:
What town in Canada has the fastest turnaround time for knee replacements. You’re absolutely correct. It’s right here in Fort Frances. I know, I’ve had 14 knee operations, so I believe in direct response to your question that if a community such as Fort Frances can make this case that we can also do the same thing for such things as assisted living facilities. So I know that when you have a representative making these pitches and these cases to the federal government using examples such as the med school, and such as the fact that in Northwestern Ontario this kind of service can be delivered, then I believe that you have the justification and the proof that there’s ways to do this effectively and cost-effectively.

Neumann:
I believe that when we speak with a single voice, then we get the most done, and that has to extend not only to all levels of government, but all political parties as well, and the issues, with respect to health care that face the citizens here in the northwest, are the same regardless of what politician you’re talking to. They’re the same if you’re talking to me, as you would be talking to a provincial representative and therefore we need to coordinate our efforts. We need to all be speaking to all these issues from the same song book if we’re going to accomplish anything. So I would try to remove partisan politics from the issue of health care as much as possible and work with our provincial counterparts, our municipal leaders as much as possible to identify those areas that we need to address locally.

Rafferty:
As you’ve probably heard the statistic, five million Canadians don’t have a family doctor. We have a solution in our platform for that. As you know many patients are in very expensive hospital beds when they should be in long-term care facilities. We have a solution for that. Promoting good health, and we certainly see eye to eye with the Green Party on that particular issue and in our platform we have solutions for you and your family, for healthy living and for preventative medicine.

Follow-up question: Deschamps asked candidates to comment on why Canada, which was studied by other countries who wanted to copy our system, has slipped from being ranked at the top for health care?

Aegard:
You’re correct because in Europe, in countries like France, that have complete universal health care, you know, no paying $200 for drugs or whatever. They have a doctor that goes around on-call at night, to come to your own house. How can they afford that, and where have we gone wrong?
Well, when you look at Europe, they have very strict rules when it comes to genetic engineering of food for example. We allow that here, our government allows that here, which is a hurt to our farmers. They’ve banned things like Dasani water. Dasani water is not allowed to be sold in Europe because of chemicals that are in it. This is a problem that our government does not have a plan when it comes to dealing with corporations that are poisoning us with foods and chemicals and everything else that it’s in.
I raise my own chickens and I get my own beef from down the road and when you eat a farm fresh chicken, you never go back to the store, and when you dip them in formaldehyde, for the smell and to make sure they’re antibacterial, that’s pretty disgusting and that’s done to our food system, and I don’t know how many people are aware of that, and that would directly answer your question because we’ve become a sicker nation and we’re overburdening our health care system.

Boshcoff:
I have to reiterate, Marlene, directly to your question, that it was Prime Minister Martin who achieved the health care accord that was directly aimed to re-establish Canada’s position, and there was a plan, and that plan was very clearly to re-establish in some form through national and measurable standards so that we can benchmark ourselves, and I’ll go back to the term, a “national standard.” So that what may be one province’s or one territory’s benchmark means that when you go from one province to another, or to another territory then you do get a different standard. So the attempt was not only an attempt but it was achieved. There was agreement between 10 provinces, three territories and the federal government. So I say let’s do it again, under a new Liberal government.

Neumann:
Well, let’s talk about finance minister Martin versus Prime Minister Martin, because the decline in the federal contribution to health care funding began in 1993 under finance minister Paul Martin. It took until, I believe, 2001 for the federal contributions to return to their 1993 levels. Now I’m not saying that it was not important to address the financial issues of the day and that the health care had to, there had to be a role in that. But nevertheless, let’s understand that the declines of the nature that you mentioned, Marlene, don’t occur overnight. And those funding cuts had an affect, and when you’re talking about health care, quite often what we do today we don’t see the result of until 10 years hence, and we’re paying for that now, and it will take another five, six years before we get the doctors and we get the nurses trained and we get them back into the health care system, serving the public.

Rafferty:
Marlene, we’re a large and diverse country and there have been pressures in the last 10 and 20 years that have caused direct pressure on our health system, and I’m thinking of things like the pressure to privatize for example, or the pressure of an aging population and demanding the same level of service that they were used to as children, and so, as we try to keep up with that—and well we should and well we can—other pressures are also pulling at the health care dollar. But I think the biggest reason is that we haven’t changed with time.
For example, you know what, we can train more practical nurses—practical nurses can run clinics, practical nurses can take the pressure off the shortage of family doctors. But we’ve been very, very slow to embrace that and we’re years behind other countries in terms of just that one thing, for example.

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CANADA - US RELATIONS:
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Question on Canada-U.S. Relations (Tourism)
Posed by Christine Denby,
President of the Fort Frances Chamber of Commerce

Given that tourism is vital to the economy of Northwestern Ontario, in Sunset Country alone, tourism employs nearly 10,000 individuals and contributes $451 million to the economy each year. More than half a million tourists visit Sunset Country area annually. Most come in through Canadian ports of entry. What will you do to ensure that tightened security procedures do not restrict the passage of our most valued tourists?

Boshcoff:
What do I do very well? I bring people together, and when this issue was first posed to me, after being elected I brought all the parties together to address these issues so that rather than people talking and then convening another meeting with another party, we had them all in the same room. And this year, you can see that we have achieved considerable success in the improvements and, in fact, it is this area that set the goal that is now essentially the national standard. That if we’re going to have border crossings, we all need to be safe and secure but we want them to be welcoming, and that to me is a very fundamental part of it.
To enhance this, I took my role as MP by helping to form and join three major organizations that were all party committees: the border caucus to address these issues specifically, an outdoors caucus because just the very nature, and the tourism caucus. And we have met, and I have met numerous times with every possible tourism organization to address these questions head on. I spoke in the House with regard to the passport question many times, and indeed it was this area that provided the leadership in getting the support from the United States, whether it was senators, congressmen or other mayors from border towns. So as we continue with this discussion in the next few minutes, please know that this issue is one that we will prevail.

Neumann:
From the people that I’ve spoken to at the doors, from the people that have come into our campaign office to chat with me, to a business leader whom I spoke to, a local business leader who I spoke to earlier today, the situation at the border is clearly unacceptable and remains a significant concern to the industry. I’m not satisfied, from what I’ve heard and what I’ve read over the course of the last year, that any progress has been made at all on this particular file. We have to understand that what we’re trying, what we’re seeking to accomplish here.
Yes, security is important but so is our tourism industry, so is welcoming people at the border because the border is the very first impression we leave with somebody as they come in and if we mess it up there, we’re almost guaranteeing that it’s going to be very difficult to recover that customer afterwards.
We need to do a better job of turning our border service into a more service oriented force. We also need to do everything we can to solve the problems at the border before they get to border, because once they get there, and once we turn somebody around, we’ve lost not only everyone they were a party of, but everybody that they know, and we will probably never see those people again.
So we need to be able to make sure that we address potential or future issues that may occur at the border before they ever get to the border, by providing whether it’s a 1-800 service, whether it’s some form or means of straightening these application issues out before you arrive, all of these need to be taken care of in advance, not when the vehicle stops at the border.

Rafferty:
Of course this issue has been on Sunset Country’s tourist operators’ minds for a long time and I think it’s time that we started to think outside the box. There’s no reason why in-effect and I will fight for this, that Sunset Country can’t be designated as a tourist-designated area and in the summer months have a gas tax holiday from the federal government.  
It’s been done before and it can be done again, it can happen right here in Sunset Country. It can be one of the drawing cards for people to come to Sunset Country and travel here, and even travel through here, if they’re traveling from other parts of Canada or parts of the United States. We need to ensure that these sorts of ideas are presented and that we work towards implementing them.
The actual story of immigration and custom issues on the borders, I want to be very clear that I believe that immigration and customs officers do a fine job. I think they do a job that is valuable for us, but I would like to see them go back to the older days when they had a little more discretion. They didn’t have to follow the letter of the law. It seems to me that if somebody is coming from the United States with a 20 year old D.U.I. offence, and they’ve long since paid their debt, whether it was a jail term or a fine, or whatever it was, if it’s good enough for the United States that they’ve paid their debt then it’s good enough for us, and I don’t see that that’s a big problem.
The last thing that I’d like to mention is talks that are going on right now to create a security perimeter around North America, and I think there are some inherent dangers in that, and it is related to the border question absolutely, so if anyone wants to after, I’d be happy to delve into that more deeply with you.

Aegard:
First thing a Green government would do is create a separate federal department of tourism to coordinate all aspects of tourism. The reason we’d do this is because of the fact that it contributes $61 billion to our economy. In 2005 alone, tourism constituted over two percent of Canada’s GDP, which is nearly as much as our forestry and agricultural industries combined. I was pretty surprised about that actually, I didn’t know, I was completely ignorant of that fact. But that’s the first thing that we do, is a completely separate department that would be in charge of making sure this economic structure is viable.
The other thing that we need to do is, we need to promote Canada to U.S. visitors as a safe and friendly neighbour to help break down the fear factor that increasingly isolates our U.S. neighbours from the rest of the world. There’s a lot of fear in the United States, and a lot of it is generated by the current United States government and not only that, but in Australia, did you know that we’re not even in the top echelon of safe countries to visit in Australia? Apparently our icy roads cause us to be a pretty dangerous country to live in. I thought that was kind of funny when I was looking that up.
The other thing that we need to do is that we need to launch an adept, rapid response to the U.S. media myths about Canada when they happen. We have to act within minutes to correct false statements about lax Canadian security, urban myths relating to 9/11 terrorists and Canadian immigration laws. How many times did we see them try to make a link to Canada to justify the security and we heard nothing from our government. There was absolutely no action done and this is one of the reasons why we have to be firm with them. We can’t be buddy-buddy with them. We need to be firm. We need to protect our sovereignty. We need to establish the fact that we’re Canadians, home of the true and free and we need to make sure that they understand that.
We’re exactly like them, we’re only a couple kilometres apart and they start generating all these myths about Canada. Finally, just in the last 10 seconds, Green Party also notes that this is all fine and dandy, but we have to look at the underlying problems. The 9/11 attacks changed America. We have to look at the reasons behind terrorism: poverty, frustration in the world. So that’s what we need to address too in order to correct the situation.

Boshcoff:
There are two ways, there’s probably several ways, to measure progress on this. One is the number of files that MPs are asked to referee and to investigate. The second would be the response that you would get from the federal ministers, whether it’s tourism that happened to be at the time someone you may now know as Mr. Gerry Ritz. Perhaps that explains some of the issues, who has still not resigned as Minister of Agriculture. But I know that NWOTA also presented a whole series of data to the public safety minister. And that data was compiled in large part with the assistance of the border services staff here, who indeed have been a part of the solution. And we confirmed that the minister was not getting the right information, and that the data that we have here is much more accurate and helpful . . . and it confirms that if you want to make a case for tourists and not terrorists, that the solution is one that we have already presented to the federal government in terms of a long-range solution.

Neumann:
I believe that the rules are certainly common from border crossing to border crossing, but the application of those rules are clearly different. The concerns at the Windsor-Detroit corridor are not the same as the concerns of Fort Frances, or the concerns at Pigeon River crossing that I live about 15 minutes from near Thunder Bay. When you’re dealing with large volumes of commercial traffic, the manner in which you attend to the security of the country needs to be different than when you are dealing with friends, neighbours and mostly customers, and for that reason we need to be vigilant in pressing home the point that we can in fact, keep this nation secure while at the same time recognizing that the nature of the traffic here in Northwestern Ontario just isn’t the same as it is in Detroit-Windsor.

Rafferty:
As a member of the Fort France Chamber of Commerce, Rafferty Communications, I know that the Chamber does all it can to bring tourists here and to keep them here, and I know that the members, by and large, are very supportive of that. So the Town of Fort Frances, in terms of businesses, they’re doing their part. They’re doing their part to attract people and the outlying areas too, they’re doing there part to attract. What I will do as an MP is ensure that we make it easier for tourists to come here and to have some added value for them when they do get here.

Aegard:
And also to encourage tourism, we will eliminate—from the party that says they don’t raise taxes—the Conservative government decision to eliminate the GST rebate for foreign visitors; we would reverse that. We would also increase I think John was mentioning 0.23 percent of our GDP when we signed the commitment that we would do 0.7 percent, and how does this relate to the border? I’m going back to the whole terrorism thing. Yes, we have solutions that need to affect it now, but we need to look at the future. We had a role in Afghanistan where everybody was behind Mr. Bush when the two towers were attacked. Everybody. And then when he abandoned us, and went to invade Iraq on his own agenda, and left us stranded, put our own soldiers in danger, put other soldiers in danger, he has created a more dangerous world. There were no terrorists in Iraq, and now Al-Qaeda is in Iraq. This is a leader that our Prime Minister has basically followed along his term and I think this does not help our Canada border relations. So we need to look at prime ministers who are looking at good solutions for the future.

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ENERGY AND THE ENVIROMENT:

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Question on energy and the environment
Posed by Jim Cumming, publisher of the Fort Frances Times

All of the political parties have created some form of carbon tax system or cap and trade system for reducing green house gases. Each has its benefits and limitations. Both systems have been praised and ridiculed. But eventually Canadians will pay.
Economists have projected that whether or not a cap and trade carbon policy is adopted or a carbon tax policy, the federal government will be the beneficiary of between $10 and $20 billion dollars annually.
Both the Democrat and Republican candidates in the US presidential election have suggested five million new jobs will be created because of green energy. Similar projections have been made for the Canadian economy.
How is your party going to use this windfall of cash to assist Canadian manufacturing and homeowners to develop and adapt to new energy sources and energy savings? And what percentage of the projected $500 billion global market for low-carbon energy technologies does your party look to develop in Canada and how will you direct manufacturing and research for those products to rural Canada?

Aegard:
Well, as everybody knows, the environment is our central issue. When it comes to Sierra Club rankings, we’re number one. We believe in carbon tax. Yes it is a tax, it’s a tax, it’s a tax. I know Mr. Neumann is going to say that, and it is a tax. The 10, 20 billion dollar amount though in our  plan will be shifted, and it’s a tax, but it’s shifted onto income taxes. So that means there will be a reduction on your income taxes. There will be a reduction on people’s taxes who get paid less than $20,000 a year. They won’t be paying any income tax under our plan. So it’s revenue neutral.  
It was mentioned yesterday that there would be nine billion left over or something. That’s somebody else’s plan. Our plan is completely revenue neutral. So there is no gain to the government. We’re not going to grab all your money and run away with it. So we’re going to make sure we help Canadians and basically, it’s a consumption tax. We want to tax the bads in our society, the cigarettes, the alcohol.
The fact of the matter is, carbon is detrimental to our health. As a teacher I see it in our kids. When I was a kid 30 years ago, nobody had asthma, nobody had any allergies, anything like that and pollution is causing this. So we really need to do something about it.
We can invest in local economies, we can help bring manufacturing jobs to this area. Germany exports all the windmill stuff to this country, why can’t we do something like that here? Because we need the willpower from the government, we need the will from the government to invest and believe in us instead of keeping on giving corporate donations to the big corporations that we depend on, and they just decide to leave and leave us high and dry and all the jobs are gone. So that’s another issue that we need to do, we really need to focus on.
It’s not a new social experiment as Mr. Neumann has said. Yes, for Canada it would be, because we haven’t tried it yet. But in the top five economic growing countries in the EU, [they] use a carbon tax system as well as a cap and trade system, and that’s what we advocate, the use of both.

Boshcoff:
The liberal platform is very clear that for individuals, for businesses, and for industries that are willing to make the conversions, there are tax credits and there are incentives so that they can adapt and modernize and not only compete but be able to sustain themselves with the directives that we have now. And in your question you ask about how we would be able to direct this to rural Canada.
In helping to formulate the policy, I understood very well that if we were going to adapt then perhaps we should take some lessons from some of the industries that have been able to do it. And very much, Fort Frances happens to have a flagship of energy conversion and systems adaptability. I went and met with the new owners of AbitibiBowater in Montreal because I’m concerned about the two plants that we have in Thunder Bay and here, and I learned very clearly from them that they intend to get off fossil fuel altogether. In fact, the former manager from here is leading that North American wide. So if there’s a desire, if there’s a belief, and if there’s government nudging and support then I believe the industry certainly can be a flagship and a demonstratable model of how to do things right, and we happen to have the AbitibiBowater mill in Fort Frances, when it opens with its new energy savings system, will be a model that will be copied all over the world.

Neumann:
I’d like to begin my response to that question by saying that as a Conservative, and I believe this is consistent with our party, that we do not view an environmental challenge as a tax windfall. We wish to regulate green house gas emission reduction, and we wish to use some of what you’ve mentioned with respect to a form of a carbon trading system, a cap and trade system. But we also wish to continue to foster economic growth, not only in our existing industry but also in new industry and new technology.
With respect to the carbon tax itself, part of our issue with the Green Shift is that it’s not revenue neutral as is being portrayed. It is not anymore neutral than any other tax out there, including the GST. It will, in point of fact, raised approximately $15 billion and see about nine and a half billion dollars returned in income taxes and not to the same people who are paying it. So we have some serious issues with that tax, and in point of fact, Stephane Dion himself opposed a carbon tax less then a year ago. We think he had it right then, and he’s got it wrong now.
With respect to how we apply ourselves to the issue of technology in rural centres, Ken brings up a very good example of how that can be accomplished. AbitibiBowater is a good example of how technology can be used with respect to meeting our future energy needs, and how that technology can be applied elsewhere. I think also we are not using the Atikokan generating station as it ought to be used with respect to clean coal technology and carbon capture. So there are opportunities there.

Rafferty:
Thank you very much for the question Jim, and I  would like to just clarify two things right off the top about our environmental policy: The first is that we do believe in meeting the Kyoto targets, and we are supporters of Kyoto, and the second, I’d just like to clarify for you Jim, in particular, is that all revenue from our cap and trade system will be put back into environmental solutions. You’d indicated that none of us are intending to put the money all back into the environment, well, that’s part of our cap and trade system and we are committed to that.
The carbon tax program of Mr. Dion might be something we could look at if all of that expected $15 billion over four years was directed back into environmental solutions too, but it’s not. It’s going to a whole host of other things, including to pay for some campaign promises. It’s not the environmental solution, ours is the environmental solution.
You know, manufacturing, research, Northern Ontario could be a leader. We’re committed to a three billion dollars “green collar” jobs plan and also an automobile plant for the production of low emission cars and we’re right in the middle of the country. In fact, we’re right in the middle of the continent practically. We have transportation systems and we have the wherewithal and we have the skilled labour, so certainly one of my commitments to you is to ensure that we have that opportunity to do the building in Northern Ontario.
We’ll be, now because this is a Chamber of Commerce, I do want to say that part of our environmental solution includes an innovation fund to help businesses reduce their energy use, and a large portion of that fund will be going to small business in particular and industrial large businesses to help them reduce their energy use. I encourage you to have a look at NDP.ca for a full look at our platform.

Rebuttal (Allowed one minute each)
Aegard:
We’re being left behind by our traditional governments, they maintain the status quo while around the world, “green” economies are thriving, and we’re sort of being left in the lurch, and the fact is that we’re going to run into a problem when these resources dry up. We need to look at something that’s innovative and can rejuvenate the economy, keep our young people in our communities.
The interesting thing is, the Conservative government commissioned a study to debunk the carbon tax theory, they actually paid for a report. When the report came back in January of last year, while Minister Baird called it ‘the mother of all tax grabs,’ he took a look at it and went like this and he was all excited, and then he’s like “Whoa, whoa, well we can’t let the public see this,” and he put it away.
The Green Party actually got it through the freedom of information act. It turns out that it will have less than point one percent impact on GDP, or five to 10 dollars on the family income for the following year. That’s what their own study found. But they continue to say that it’s this new social experiment that won’t work, which has been working in other countries.

Boshcoff:
One thing that is certain is that is that forestry can actually help be a part of the solution in terms of addressing the issue of global climate change, and when we find that out, that a type of forest management is a part of the solution, then we realize that Northwestern Ontario actually becomes a world leader because of our proved forest management techniques. For too long the environment has been pitted against the economy, and I believe very strongly that we as a region can be world leaders in developing “green” technology and demonstrating that through the forest industry in particular, but in just our lifestyle in general, to show that we can do it right and those two worlds don’t necessarily have to be at polar opposites.

Neumann
The NDP have some ambitious goals to be sure, if they feel that we can meet our Kyoto targets. You know, Kyoto holds a lot of emotion for many Canadians, and I understand that, be the case, however, Kyoto in all honesty was dead the moment that the United States did not sign on. The moment that they abandoned any attempt to get China and India, the largest economies in the world from signing on, and now we have to live in a post-Kyoto world.
With respect to meeting Kyoto’s goals, yeah you can do it, but you can only do it in one way and that’s through economic contraction. People who don’t have jobs, don’t drive cars. Businesses that are bankrupt don’t have carbon emissions. So long and short of it is we need to protect our economy and protect what we have, while we seek to achieve very real greenhouse gas reductions.

Rafferty:
Let me give you two examples of our environmental solutions that will impact right here in Fort Frances. The first one is, and it’s clearly laid out in our platform, to support pedestrian walkways and bicycle paths. Now as many of you know, I’m part of the rec committee here in Fort Frances, and that’s exactly what we’re talking about right now in Fort Frances. There is support, there is federal support, direct federal support for those kinds of initiatives, and Fort Frances will be a beneficiary of that directly.
The other of course is stable annual transit funding and I don’t see any reason why Fort Frances’ portion of the money available that we don’t have a regular bus service east and west across this town. A wheelchair-accessible bus, low emission buses that can be used to transport people east and west along the main route. There’s money for that.

Jim Cumming: I’d like to follow up, you’ve got half the question answered. The other half was of the $500 billion global market, for low carbon technology, what percentage would you like to see developed in Canada?

Aegard:
Well, 100 percent. I mean, I think all of us say that. In question is the willpower. Do we want to maintain the status quo? We hear a lot of talk on campaign trails. I’ve been voting now for 18, 17 years and I hear the same stories over and over again, that’s one of the reasons why I got involved. And when you hear the same things over and over again, it’s like hitting your head against the wall. And we want to bring 100 percent of that market here, even half would be great, but we have that opportunity but the government has to take a role in that.
We need to invest in local communities, we have to give local economies the chance to grow these businesses. I know a few people that live by me, they have to buy their windmill parts from Germany. That’s ridiculous. We should be doing it here. Again though, we need government investment, we need guaranteed loans to start up these businesses and make sure that they have the opportunity to build the economy locally.

Boshcoff:
There’s no doubt that we’ve already shown that we can do it here and as a supplement to that, had there not been an election, as we speak right now, we would have been debating the “Buy Canada” motion to extend that for all forms of public transportation, which means that we here in Northwestern Ontario, were the designers and manufacturers of public transportation, particularly that adapted to cold weather, the share of that $500 billion would be considerable, not only for Northwestern Ontario, but other parts of the nation would have speciality component production. So I believe it can be done, not only in forestry but in several other forms of manufacturing and that would certainly do a great deal to stop the bleeding in terms of manufacturing, particularly in Ontario.

Neumann:
Well, I think Russ got it right—clearly the desire would be 100 percent, and that’s the proper answer to the question. It’s not going to happen, however. I believe that this environmental challenge that we face collectively as nations on this planet does provide economic opportunities, and in this regard I believe that Russ is quite correct.
In order to harness those opportunities in the best ways possible, we need to keep focused on the fact that this is in fact a global challenge and that means not only solving our own issues with respect to greenhouse gas emissions, but also looking at what is actually causing these emissions worldwide. China in the course of this election alone, in these five weeks, will open up more coal fired generating power stations than we have in Northwestern Ontario. They’re not shutting those down. So what we ought to be doing is looking for solutions to the use of coal if we want to really have an impact.

Rafferty:
Jim, to answer your question, and it’s fairly simple. New Democrats intend to make Canada a world leader in environmental solutions, so in terms of the piece of the $500 billion dollar pie we would expect to be leaders and in the forefront to ensure that benefits Canadian workers.

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ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN NORTHERN ONTARIO:

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Economic Development in Northern Ontario
Question posed by Christine Denby,
President of Fort Frances Chamber of Commerce:

How do regional economic development agencies, such as FedNor, who support economic development strategies for rural and northern Canada fit into your platform? Does your party support these agencies, and if so, what will you do strengthen them? If not, how will you help economically challenged areas, such as Northwestern Ontario?

Rafferty:
Well, that’s a good question and thank you for it. You’ve noticed in the news the last couple of years, Conservatives and Liberals fighting over FedNor—who took more money out, who put more money in—and then they’ll turn around the next week and someone took more money out and someone put more money in. The fact of the matter is that Fed-Nor is so underfunded that it’s a bit of a laughingstock when you compare it to other equivalent agencies across Canada, and when you think of Northern Ontario, there are only three provinces larger than Northern Ontario. Northern Ontario has more population than four provinces, and we have the worst economic stimulus in terms of a government agency.
The Atlantic Agency, which is the equivalent of FedNor, is almost four times as large, both in money and people working for it, and what’s happened to FedNor over the years is that it’s become a sort of a rural Ontario, southern Ontario, Northern Ontario ... it’s sort of a little bit of a confused state. So my commitment to you, and the NDP’s commitment to you, in terms of FedNor is that we ensure that it has equivalent funding based on size and based on population compared to the rest of the country, and that means a huge infusion into FedNor. And the second part is that it’s designed as a Northern Ontario development agency, and that it returns to being a Northern Ontario development agency.

Aegard:
Developing this region is the intent of this government, we’ve only had two federal governments (parties) ever, and it seems like we continually have the same problem in the north, over and over again. I’m hoping that you’ll give me the chance, maybe in the next 30 years, that would be great, but one thing that we’re going to be doing is we’re going to be looking at stimulating the economy in the northwest, with for example, a Bombardier plant.
We’re planning on investing in VIA again, bringing rail back to the northwest. I had the opportunity to travel on the train with Elizabeth May from Sioux Lookout to Armstrong, and besides the fact that I was four hours late and got home at six in the morning, it was great, it was a wonderful experience. I had never been on a train before, so it was great to have that. But there’s so much more we can do.
We have the worst national railway system in the developed world. You have train systems in Europe that are going 350 km an hour. I would love to take the train to Fort Frances in an hour, instead of having to drive here four or five hours after work. So that would help to stimulate our economy, that would make more jobs, more manufacturing jobs in an industry that’s struggling right now in Ontario.
Looking at the kind of things like small businesses, investing in small farmers. that’s another role for FedNor. Help small farmers by providing markets for them. No more agri-business. We need to look at the local farmers’ market. My wife’s a vendor at the farmers’ market in Thunder Bay that generates $1.5 million to the local economy according to the Chamber of Commerce in Thunder Bay, and $3.5 million indirectly. That’s a lot of money and all it was was a group of people with a vision, and they had the willpower and while they did most of it themselves mind you, with not much support, and they were able to build on that, build a great community. It’s lovely and you should go, and well, the last three or four weeks with the food scares, that’s another important reason why we need to invest in small farmers.

Boshcoff:
The Liberal party has a very strong commitment to regional economic development and that has only been reinforced by communities such as Fort Frances, and those in Northwestern Ontario who have made their point very clear about what they expect from agencies such as FedNor. First of all, they want to see the funding cuts restored. But they also, when telling me, in the numerous meetings and town halls that I’ve held on this very topic across Northwestern Ontario and Northern Ontario, that there are several issues that can actually be done to improve it.
Application turnaround time—if it’s not going to be successful, then at least tell the applicant that it’s not going to go so they can do something else.
Size of some of the projects—because of the very limited nature of FedNor in terms of its actual resources, a lot of projects that they possibly should be funding simply don’t get applied for. And I will tell you that part of the Liberal platform of course, is not only to restore that, but to ensure that we can eventually ...
The provincial program is going to reach $100 million; I don’t know if FedNor will ever get there, but clearly for Northern Ontario that’s a worthy goal that I will be pushing for. So we know that in the recession of the late 1990s, had it not been for FedNor, Northwestern and Northern Ontario, that there were very few projects that were actually happening in some towns. So I think that all of us deeply understand how valuable FedNor is, not only to regional northern development but to Northern Ontario.

Neumann:
I think that it’s very clear from the debates we’ve had already that each and every one of us is committed to FedNor, understands the need. We’ve had some discussion regarding funding for FedNor. What I will say is that I will do my darndest to protect the funding that exists and if possible increase funding because I believe that we need it. With respect to some of the points raised by Mr. Rafferty, he mentioned size and population components in respect to FedNor, but we can’t forget the most important requirement that qualifies any region in this country for regional development and program, and that is the need. The need is very real in this region and we need to continue to press home the fact that there continues to be a very real need for an agency like FedNor.
One thing that I believe we need to remain focused on as well, as a federal member of Parliament, as that it touches on FedNor is that this regional development program should be focused on providing for the development needs of the north for northerners and we should not be accessing this fund for programs or transportation infrastructure, whatever the case may be, that are principally for the development of the nation or the province, and not necessarily for the region. So let’s make sure that the funds that exist in that FedNor pot are properly used and that we look to other sources of funding, government funding, for other projects that principally benefit the entire country.

Rafferty:
Just let me answer the second part of your question: I’ll just give you a little bit of background. Over 35 years ago, Canada signed a commitment with a number of other countries around the world to provide foreign aid to the level of 0.7 percent of its GDP. Now Canada has never come anywhere close to that, right now it’s sitting at 0.28 percent, our foreign aid commitment. But, many other countries have and have continued to each year exceed it. So I made proposal with my counterpart on the other side, Thunder Bay-Superior North, that we, as part of our foreign aid package provide building materials for disaster struck areas in the world. That would get us forestry fully working, plywood fully working, lumber fully working, and we would hope to meet our commitment by 2015 and that means that employers would be able to invest in their companies and invest in their employees and keep Northwestern Ontario working.

Aegard:
That’s a really great idea, and we’re okay with acknowledging that, I just want that picture to be clear, that’s very good. The other thing that we would do is we would establish a small cities green venture capital fund to support viable local green business start ups. We’re going to make sure that we eliminate large corporate subsidies and grant programs to even the playing field for the small local businesses. Small local businesses cannot compete with “big box” stores that make their products in other countries where they use children and have human rights violations and don’t check their food and don’t have any standards that we do in Canada. So we need to level the playing field. We need to support small business. We’re not doing that. We’re just letting the corporations come in and run amok with their products and they’re hurting us and we just seem to be sitting idly by and doing nothing. Well, there’s a lot of talk about it, but I’m pretty sure we haven’t done anything about it after the election. Build an electric car plant here—that’s something we can invest in, some plug-in electric hydro vehicles—and support that with FedNor. That would be a great idea.

Boshcoff:
Richard, I thank you very much for your commitment to FedNor. I just need a little bit more enthusiasm in terms of—I just want you to go to that Minister and extremely politely tell them that you’re at the town hall, at the candidates’ debate and the question of restoring the FedNor six million came up and that if you could do that, people would be very, very happy and would actually recognize you for being able to do that. Because we know that FedNor, the (Northern Ontario) Heritage Fund, the Rainy River Future Development Corp., all these organizations, the regional groups all are vital, and whether we think we need government involved or not, basically they are there to help, they’re there to act as the catalyst, they’re there to help and rejuvenate the communities and keep these projects alive, so I really hope that we see some real action on that.

Neumann:
I certainly hope that I am given the opportunity to do just that, however, I would like to turn my comments to the ideas that have been put forward in the last couple of weeks by the New Democrats with respect to the forestry sector and this joint idea of using hurricane relief as a means of assisting our forestry sector. First I’d like to congratulate the NDP for thinking outside-of-the-box, but let’s be honest here: there are several issues that they just didn’t think about when they put this thing together, which is typical of the New Democrats.
First and foremost, the companies in question are going to want to make a profit, and I know profits are something difficult to wrap the New Democrat head around, but that’s the case. Secondly, the aid agencies involved, these non-governmental agencies, want to buy their products from the countries where the disaster occurred because they want to support and get the maximum economic values out of those monies. So they’re not going to be too pleased with this particular solution.

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LABOUR PARTICIPATION AND SKILLS DEVELOPMENT:

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Labour participation and skills development
Posed by Cathy Emes, first vice-president
of the Fort Frances Chamber of Commerce

High unemployment premiums are a tax on jobs. Presently, there is over $50 billion of surplus in the EI fund. Only about half of the total EI premium revenues collected are used to support people who lose their jobs through no fault of their own, the original intent of the program. EI premiums now pay for a range of employment assistance services, parental leave, maternity leave, compassionate care leave, and transfers to the provinces so that they can conduct training programs, which supplement the wages for on the job training for employees, provide benefits for people wishing to start their own businesses, and provide funding for people who need to get work experience and to return to school and develop their skills.  
In Ontario, benefits run out much sooner than they do elsewhere in Canada. Last year the average unemployed worker in Ontario received $5,110 in regular EI benefits while the average unemployed person in the rest of Canada receives $9,070. That difference costs Ontario’s unemployed $1.7 billion. Reforms to the employment insurance are needed to promote employment and economic growth. Will your party commit to a review of the EI system, reduce the rates and provide the unemployed of Ontario with their fair share of the insurance fund?

Boshcoff:
Yes and as a member of the Natural Resources Committee, I was privileged to be meeting with Union and industry and commercial leaders from across the country, in Ottawa, but basically in Atikokan, Fort Frances and Thunder Bay who expressed those very same concerns. So I believe that the message has been received. I believe that the awareness, particularly in the field of natural resources, where we realize that the skills and trades are so desperately needed, in some parts of the country we have people who find themselves unemployed and experiencing those difficulties just as you say. Ontario the province has watched their essentially Ontario fair policy—I agree with it wholeheartedly.
And I think one thing that this issue brought to the floor, is that it really has demonstrated to everyone how very important our skills trades people are, and the need to keep them current, and to keep them in decent income when they’re not working because they have paid into it. So part of these problems as I meet with labour leaders, in particular besides that is also the interprovincial transferability that’s causing some problems and so I’ll just summarize by saying: I have been involved and working and have been voting on those issues that would help improve the employment insurance system.

Neumann:
I happen to agree with much of what has just been said. As both a Conservative and as someone that is concerned, and Ken will probably come back and hit me for what I’m about to say but as somebody who is concerned with surpluses in general. Overall I think the big issue here is that the EI system was set up to deal with a specific risk, a risk of unemployment and the fund has become a catch all to handle a number of programs, a number of issues that don’t fall within the original intent of EI and the problem with that is that a lot of these program oughta be funded from a larger cash basin of funds with more contributors than simply employers and therefore employers are actually paying a greater rate of premium than they should be to support these types of programs.
My fear is that as long as the EI surplus remains, the temptation is for governing parties, including my own, to go into the available set of funds in order to fund this program, that program and the next program and not have to go through the burden of explaining a tax increase to pay for it because the moneys already there and that detaches the program itself and the intent of funding from the whole issue of raising taxes to begin with, and I have serious concerns that we’ve gone down that route.
I believe we need to bring EI back to what it’s original intent was, that the premium should be based on risk involved and that a lot of those costs should be offloaded from small businesses and from other employers.

Rafferty:
Let me be very clear about EI, about employment insurance. That money belongs to employers and it belongs to employees. Over the last 15 years, governments have depleted that fund. They have no business depleting that fund. Billions and billions have disappeared from that fund. So if you work all your life now, you only have about a 40 percent choice of ever collecting employment, and there’s something wrong with that. Well the New Democrats are ready to make a commitment to you about employment insurance.
We will create more opportunities for training by broadening eligibility for EI benefits. Open doors to employed Canadians, those who take leaves from their jobs to participate in retraining, extend opportunity to employed Canadians engaged in full time training and retraining programs, who do not otherwise qualify for employment insurance. Waive the eligibility waiting period for EI benefits when tradespeople are entering courses and retraining. Develop partnerships with provincial and territorial governments. Make EI a key resource for public training strategies and for programs. Make the employment of certified apprentices and journeypersons a condition in federal government construction contracts. Support skills upgrades in the health sector through training leaves. Set Canada-wide standards for apprenticeship entrance requirements, curriculum and admission. Create incentives for employers to make sure apprentices complete their apprenticeship program, and develop a more effective system of job placement and expand, of course, the number of apprenticable trades in Canada.

Aegard:
Well I guess the simple answer is yes. We have an unfair system and that really hurts the most disadvantaged of our society, especially in a resource-rich country like we have. It’s appalling and so the simple answer is yes. Where are we going to focus our attention?
Well, we’re going to look at the small business issue, where small business owners who pay taxes but they seem to not be eligible for such things like EI. We need to look at women who are small business owners themselves, and they have to go on mat leave. We’re also going to reduce EI premiums for our green shift, our “Greenshift taxes,” that’s part of a program that we’re going to be doing. So the EI premiums will be lowered, and also the waiting periods. It’s interesting to note that we have an EI wait period.
I was on EI once long ago, and had to wait for a couple weeks, or whatever, and I’m kind of curious how many people’s bills wait a couple of weeks. It’s not a very fair system. So that’s something that we have to look at. That’s not in Green Party policy, but it’s something I would fight for as well.

Boshcoff:
When we talk about employment insurance, we know that the time frame is just not enough for regional industries, whether it’s seasonal or not. And that means that part of the Liberal platform of adding weeks to areas of high unemployment, designated zones, that may be hit with an industry wide unemployment in a major way, that you can have such measures as using your 14 best weeks. We also have, people don’t know that there’s some technical aspects to this, sort of the speed at which claims are processed. So I believe that there are field solutions and there are philosophical solutions that have to be both adapted at the same time.

Neumann:
One of the issues I think we face in Ontario quite often is that our employment picture is different than other regions of the country. Having lived there for a time while serving in the navy, in Halifax, and for a period of time in Shelburne, NS, which has got a little bit of note after that storm and was badly hit. I know that the manner in which EI is applied to seasonal employees in that region is quite a bit different than it is applied here in Ontario. Why that is, I suspect is past lobbying efforts on the part of Atlantic Canadian politicians. I know that the resulting effect in Atlantic Canada has been the EI system has been used as an income supplement, and it’s probably kept wages, to a degree, down rather than up.

Rafferty:
The fact of the matter is, is that like I said before that this money does not belong to the government. Sixty billion dollars has disappeared from the EI fund in the last 15 years, and so that’s why only 40 percent of the people qualify, because there isn’t enough money there, and businesses will tell you, and employees will tell you that more than enough money goes into the fund, and where does it go? So that’s the first thing that we need to do to ensure that the money goes where it’s supposed to, and when it does, that means that the employer contribution over time will become less.  
The other thing that I wanted to mention and I didn’t mention, is with skills training, is we have a commitment to Aboriginal people and new Canadians to ensure that they are encouraged to participate fully in skills training in this country.

Aegard:
One thing that I forgot to mention, too, is that we would use the surplus to extend industry-based job training and programs to address massive shortages of trained workers, as well, and John stole my other thing, but I guess that’s okay, that’s a good thing. It’s a good idea so I’m okay with it.

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FISCAL POLICY
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Question on fiscal policy
Mike Freeman (B93•fm)

Today the buzzword seems to be “financial meltdown.” We’ve heard it, we’ve heard it in the news, we’ve heard it everywhere. The economy in the south is devastated, the US is going through a very rough time and unfortunately, our economy is tied to the US. How does our party feel about the fiscal policy you’d implement to try and alleviate what is happening in the states and Canada, especially in Northwestern Ontario where we’ve been devastated in our forestry industry and others for jobs? Also, how would your party help keep Canada afloat in economic tough times in the United States?

Neumann:
Well certainly Canadians are rightly concerned about the recent events in the United States, this has actually been building for quite some time, and there is no question that the economic situation in the states is having a corollary affect here in Canada and will. We can only hope that they can get themselves in order so that effect can be be minimized here.
However, we need to remember that our financial system here is still solid and sound. That our budget remains on track and in surplus and that even though we face these particular economic challenges, there is no need for Canadians or for our government to panic. What we definitely cannot do is make the situation worse than it already is.         What we can’t do is impose additional taxes, additional burdens on our industry on our manufacturing sector and on individuals further curtailing spending at a time when people are being very cautious about how they spend their money. So we need to be focused, we need to understand that we are not the United States, although we are exposed to some of those risks, but at the same time, for heaven’s sakes, let’s not make the matter worse by imposing a whole new tax regime on Canadians and by driving up the cost of doing business in Canada and here in the north.
There’s only one party here talking about bringing those costs down, lowering the costs of doing business here in the north and lowering the cost of living in the north, and that’s the Conservative party.

Rafferty:
Let me answer your question directly, and it’s a good question. Let me first say that our fiscal policy calls for balanced budgets each and every year for the next four years. Of course the amount that we will do on behalf of you and your families will depend on the financial situation and that may fluctuate a little bit. But you know what, whenever you have a situation like the one we have in this world, and it’s not just America, where governments around the world have deregulated their financial industries, and people can buy and sell and trade, and buy leverage with nothing to back it up. Eventually something like this is going to happen.
It’s not been the same case, to the same extent, in Canada. But nevertheless, we intend to undertake an immediate top to bottom review of how banks insurance companies and other financial service providers are regulated in this country, and this review will ensure that our financial institutions are properly capitalized, it will ensure that they will fully disclose risk, it will ensure that they don’t substitute flawed rating systems for real risk management and it will ensure that they function with due care and prudence expected from the custodians of the savings of working families. That’s what we will initially do upon forming the government. And as I say, we’re not entirely concerned that Canada is going to follow the same route, particularly of two countries, Russia and the United States, which have been very, very highly deregulated, but we do want to ensure that the savings of ordinary Canadians and ordinary families are protected.

Aegard:
One of the problems with the United States is the deregulation and the years and years of basically, I guess it just comes down to greed. You know you have CEOs making an exorbitant amount of money—$50 million, $100 million dollars a year—while their companies are going in the tank and unfortunately the Bush government who has been aligned with the Harper government feel that this is the way to run an economy, to reward the rich and to steal to the poor to give to the rich. For example, their bail out package—it was going to give $15 million golden parachutes to the CEOs, even though they completely destroyed the economy. Now we’re not that bad, but we are approaching that when we have our own CEOs making way more than what the frontline is. Again in Europe where the economy is a little more stable, or able to go up and down, and manage that, their CEOs make 25 times more. There’s a big issue there, and if our government has the will we can force people, we can make people have realistic salaries not $20 million a year while their frontline workers are making 15, 40, 80 whatever.
So again, I don’t know how strong our economy is. Richard was just mentioning that our economy was pretty strong. I’m pretty sure we’ve had quite a hit in this area. We’ve had a lot of layoffs, we’ve had a lot of people migrating up to Fort Frances, again though it’s the same course, it’s the same status quo that we’re following and we’re refusing to get innovative, to get into value-added industry, supporting local economies because when local economies are strong, they’re not going to be affected by the markets because they’re going to be centralized just in their own little area. They’re not going to be dependent on world markets, what happens in China, what happens in the States, what happens all over the place. So this is a policy that needs to be taken up by the government, that we need to invest locally and not in big corporations that come in and take our profits, pay their CEOs big huge salaries and then they don’t care about what happens to the rest of us.

Boshcoff:
There is one qualitative difference between Canada and the United States, and Mr. Neumann mentioned it: Canada is better prepared than the United States for this type of turmoil thanks in large part to the previous Liberal governments. I know that we had a $12 billion surplus that is now down to zero. The current management of our economy, under Mr. Flaherty, has been rocky at best, and I’ll use the cost of the income trust issue, costing seniors and pensioners $25 billion dollars of losses income that they’d been saving for for many years.
Now it is inevitable that what happens in the United States will have an effect on us and the fact that we are all concerned about this here in this room and you question why the federal government doesn’t seem to be, and I believe that through Prime Ministers Chrétien and Martin, who had sound fiscal management policies that always had a three billion dollar contingency for these types of things that guided us through such issues as the Mexican peso crisis when it collapsed, 9/11 terrorist attack, the SARS downturn that dramatically affected the country, it was Liberal experience that guided us through those issues with steady hands. And right now, we do not see any steps being taken by Mr. Harper that will lend reassurance to the market or to individuals who are very very worried about their savings. So I offer that to the audience for their consideration.

Neumann:
Well, here we have a fundamental difference of opinion between Mr. Boshcoff and myself, the Liberal and Conservative party, and that is how we view a surplus. I happen to believe that a large surplus is a sign of economic mismanagement, not proper management of our tax dollars. Mr. Boshcoff and the Liberal party believe that a surplus is their money to spend as they see fit. We have returned the surplus to Canadians with tax breaks, in the form of putting back into your wallets because we know that it’s your money, not their money. If you want to get an impression or a feel for confidence measures for Canadians you juts need to take a look at the way the parties, the opposition parties here are shuffling position and making billions and billions of dollars in promises they can’t possibly keep, whereas we are not doing that—we are holding the course.

Rafferty:
Let me just talk about that, because we didn’t get an opportunity to talk about that in the fiscal statements that were made. The current corporate tax rate in Canada is approximately 21.22 percent. Our platform, as I mentioned earlier is prepared with no more tax breaks for corporations to meet our obligations and to your family. Mr. Ignatieff the other morning on television was suggesting that we’re taking $50 billion dollars away from corporations. Well you know in fact we’re not. We’re just keeping the tax scheme for corporations that’s been in place for the past four years, we’re just keeping it there for the next four years. We’re not taking anything away, we’re just not giving them $50 billion tax breaks, so all of the parties talk about fiscal responsibility, but I ask you, is it responsible when you have a company [cut off by moderator because time was up]

Aegard:
I’m kind of maybe the strange one up here. I might be the only one in the room, but when it comes to taxes, it’s always interesting because I like to say I like to pay taxes. I enjoy my health care and I enjoy taking care of people that are on EI, I enjoy having access to free education. That’s what being Canadian is all about, and I’m okay with that as long as they aren’t misspent, where some of the problems have come up. But I like to pay taxes and I admit that.
In concern with the Liberal government, I have to give Ken and the Liberals credit because they did run a good budget, they had surpluses and I think that’s not mismanagement of an economy, to have a surplus. I don’t know how you could call that mismanagement. Perhaps how they spent the money, sure, but having a surplus is definitely not mismanagement of the economy. There’s only one party up here that taxed income trusts, $30 billion, for a party to say that they don’t tax anything and that they don’t tax taxes, and they want to put more money in your pocket, they certainly took a lot of money out of the pockets of people who invested in income trusts without any study of it whatsoever.

Boshcoff:
I believe everybody here has admitted that there is some role for government to when there’s times of economic crisis and that involves leadership, guidance and protection, and I’m sorry that Mr. Harper does not understand the best way to stay out of deficit is to maintain a surplus, because then if your projects are out, by even a marginal amount, then you’re in a deficit and then your financial rating goes. So when you see on one hand someone trying to ignore this, just hoping that the United States will solve its own, so we don’t have to address it, and then the NDP with their tax hikes on business, which will be a job killer, and losing small business will be a tax on savings and investments of hardworking Canadians at that.

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CLOSING REMARKS:

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Neumann:
Ladies and gentlemen, this evening you have heard what we the candidates have to say about the issues that matter most to you. In this election, the Conservative party does not offer you a host of promises to spend billions of your tax dollars. We do not offer a litany of simple solutions to very complex problems. Canada’s faced with some serious challenges ahead.
There is little question that the economic uncertainty that is plagued the United States and spread throughout the globe serves as a warning that we must remain cautious, focused and determined as we chart our future course. As a Conservative, I am confident that with the proper leadership and a steady hand at the helm, we will come through this difficult experience stronger, and better prepared to compete and succeed in an increasingly competitive world.
I personally have a great deal of respect for each of the candidates with me here today, however I profoundly disagree with the direction that they would take this nation, particularly at this time. Our economic recovery as a region depends on our ability to compete. There is only one political party that is committed to lowering the cost of doing business in the north, and lowering the cost of living in the north.
We do not offer a carbon tax and try to disguise it as both an environmental and a social policy. We do not tell you that we represent the kitchen table and not the board room table, instead we say that a tax by any other name is still a tax and that those corporations that some here appear to despise happen to be the very same companies that put the food on our kitchen tables.
Ladies and gentlemen, I do not believe that we are a region in decline, but we are a region in seemingly perpetual transition and we are going to continue to languish in that no man’s land between an economy based on past assumptions and a future based on Utopian predictions. Until we accept who we are in the present, have the vision to make the changes that we must bring about to bring about economic prosperity in the future.
The Liberals and New Democrats have represented our region for as long as most of us can remember. Today I ask all of you to consider whether now is the time to elect another voice in the wilderness or is now the time to make a real and lasting change. I ask you today to consider your choice and to consider to elect a conservative voice for the region in a Conservative government. Thank you.

Rafferty:
Thank you audience for being here tonight, and thank you for hosting this event. It’s an important one and I have enjoyed this as I have the other couple of nights. Let me go back to a couple of things that I said in my opening remarks. The first is a question: What is the kind of Canada Canadians want to see? What’s the kind of Northwestern Ontario that people in Northwestern Ontario want to see, five years, ten years, 25 years? That’s a fundamental question and we have a vision, and it’s part of our platform, and it’s our commitment to you and your families.  
The second question was: What kind of face do you want to see Canada present to the world, and that is something that hasn’t been discussed in this campaign, and hasn’t been discussed in other campaigns. But I think it’s time has come. Now when we talk about foreign aid, and I do want to comment on Mr. Neumann’s comments in a minute, as you may know, I spent six and a half years working in Africa for an international aid organization. And I know what it means, when something comes wrapped in white plastic with a big Canadian flag with no strings attached, when it is a gift from Canada. I know the face that that presents to the world. And that is the face that I believe Canadians should want to present to the world.
So when we talk about the particular plan that I was mentioning, and providing building materials to places around the world, disasters aren’t going to go away and a couple of things happen. First of all, people get back to work and companies start up again and make investments. That’s the first thing. And then, when the upswing comes, and the upswing will come because it does come in the forestry industry, they can hire more people they can put more people on shifts, so they’ll be prepared to compete on the global market with the time comes. And I think that that’s a good use of Canadian’s tax dollars for the Canadian government to buy from Northwestern Ontario at market costs, so companies can make a profit and keep people employed and give that as a gift to the world when they need it, and to give that gift to the world with no strings attached. That’s the kind of Canada that I want to present to the world and that’s the kind of Canada that I believe Canada should be. Thank you.

Aegard:
I really need to start by clearing up something, because we continually hear that there’s only one party up here that will not commit to billions of dollars in spending, so I’m going to quote something here from a Sept. 10, Canadian Press article: ‘In the pre-election period alone, Canadians Taxpayers Federation has documented that they have made $19.2 billion in spending allowances, $198 million per day, $8.2 million per hour between June 2 and Sept. 6. Plus the $150 million that went towards the arts,” which it is a great idea, I love it, but we can’t be saying that we’re not going to be spending money and try to portray ourselves that we’re the party thats not going to be spending billions of dollars when you are.  So I think that we need to make sure that the facts are clear.
We all have budgets, some budgets I don’t agree with, some budgets I agree with like mine, and that’s the fact of the matter. But I think that we need to make it clear that every party here is proposing new spending.
Now, to go back to my speech again. Many people find it hard to position the Green party on the old political spectrum. We believe in sound fiscal management, strengthening our economy while making sure it is sustainable. In fact, we’ve attracted quite a number of the old Progressive Conservative party. I don’t know if I’m comfortable with that because I’m somebody who is really socially progressive, but that’s fine because we take all the ideas on board on the political spectrum and that’s great, we all work together. Does that mean we’re right wing?
We believe that the government must provide needed social services for protecting our environment, the rights of women, minorities and disadvantaged people. Does that make us left wing? We don’t think so.
More and more people are simply thinking the Green Party is the party of the future. The Green Party is different from other parties in one important way: we will never place the pursuit of power over our principle. We will never allow partisan politics to get in the way of good ideas and needed action, and I think I’ve demonstrated that tonight. We agree with Canadians who say it’s time for parties in Parliament to stop bickering and get on with the job of combatting climate change and better care of the environment, our health and economy.
The Green Party of Canada, founded in 1983, is now a major force in Canadian politics. Over 660,000 Canadians voted Green in the 2006 elections. No seats. We did not have a single representative. More than one in 10 Canadians are now saying they plan to vote Green. Frankly, my goal, I hope we get over a million votes and we don’t get an MP because then it will really show how ridiculous this system is. We have a million supporters right now and not a single MP in the House of Commons. How is that fair?
We have no Aboriginal representation, we have no Green Party representation. And parties enjoy majority governments with only getting 15 percent of the electorate to vote for them. That’s like saying in my class of 25 kids, if you’re in a class of 25 kids, you’ve got those four kids in the corner making all the decisions for you.
I’m not sure how that helps our country come together as a people and to make sure we work together, and bring all sorts of ideas to the table. So hopefully we’re able to take a look at that issue sometime in the future. Thank you.

Boshcoff:
Thank you very much. Thank you for the kind invitation to appear here tonight with my other worthy opponents. Who will represent you best? It should be someone who has a vision for a future, who does what he says, who works hard, who’s always available, accessible, and approachable. Who shares your concerns. Who takes your issues to heart. Who listens, speaks and acts. I believe that I do that 24/7 and I was going to add 362 because you have to have some days off.
The parliamentary record will very clearly show that I speak clearly for you and try to do those things, each and every waking hour. In the House of Commons, whether it’s during debates or question period or other types of meetings in the parliamentary galleries, in committees, in policy meetings, your issues are my issues. That’s why I’m very pleased that this platform presented by the Liberal party is a plan that we can all agree with. It is represented by a team that is best able to deliver that in a balanced manner, and it has the leadership to be able to carry this forward. I believe passionately in the future of Northern Ontario, and I thank all of you for welcoming me here to this district.
Over the past four and a half years, I’m here so frequently that I really do feel quite at home, and I know that four and a half years ago it was kind of “Who’s that guy?” and now it’s “Hi Ken,” and to me, I really do appreciate that. And I believe that people now have come to understand that my values in appreciating the values of teamwork, that they know where I’m coming from, that I make myself available and that I have the experience as we worked through different problems and issues, that I can achieve the results that we all aspire to. So this is a chance for me to thank you very much for the honour of being your Member of Parliament in Ottawa, for the opportunity to hire fabulous staff such as Wanda Botsford, who represents me here when I can’t be here, and for all of you, for the advice and guidance that you have given me to make me a much better Member of Parliament. Thank you very much, all of you in Fort Frances, thank you.

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