By Damali Nabagereka
Some voters in Ottawa Centre say they feel they’re having a hard time getting answers from some of the candidates at all-candidates forums in this election.
“I received no direct response,” said Tracey Lauriault, who attented a child-care forum at the Bronson Centre. Lauriault is a full-time student at Carleton University and a mother of two children aged 4, and 8. She asked for a commitment from the candidates to increase child-care spaces.
Instead, she got promises she says dodged the issue.
“We received potential long-term plans,” said Lauriault, referring to the Liberal candidate Richard Patten’s response to her question. “But it’s a four-year term where they will stay in power, long term could mean from 20 to 25 years. This won’t meet my immediate needs.”
Voeters at another, more general forum, at the Carleton Heights Community Centre, echoed the complaint that candidates weren’t giving straight-forward answers.
Lynda Davies, who teaches nursing at the University of Ottawa, for example, was unhappy with the resposnses she recieved to her question about reversing cuts to battered women’s shelters.
At the child-care forum, Patten and NDP candidate Elisabeth Arnold answered tough questions from a hand-picked panel and from the audience.
Because of scheduling conflicts, the Tory candidate Ray Kostuch was unable to attend, which drew harsh comments from the panel as well as some in the audience.
“You can’t get an unbiased opinion without the Conservatives here,” said Krissie Duhan. “It’s really easy to Tory-bash when they aren’t here.”
Duhan, a young mother who is awaiting an acceptance to university, remarked that the Conservatives failed to attend another forum she attended on education.
A spokesperson for the Tories pointed out, however, that their opponents have also missed some forums.
Patten did not attend the Carleton Heights forum. His absence drew a similar reaction from that audience. However, it was attended by Green candidate Chris Bradshaw and Communist Marvin Glass.
Along with Lauriault many in both audiences felt they weren’t given answers to their questions.
“They were very respectful,” says Sarah Gilbert, who attended the child-care forum.
“But I found they really didn’t answer the specific questions a lot of the time, instead they just repeated their platform again and again.”
Gilbert, a young mother with two children, has been accepted to Carleton University this fall. As of yet she doesn’t know if she can attend, it depends on whether she can get a space for her children in an adequate daycare facility.
Gilbert and Duhan agreed that both the NDP and Liberal’s plans to bring back the National Child Benefits supplement to people on welfare is a step in the right direction. Both said it was the only definite promise made during the child-care forum.
Even though Richard Verver agreed with some of the criticism, he said forums, nevertheless, offer the best opportunity that voters have to speak to candidates one-on-one.
“It’s the best option,” he said. “Literature is just party slogans.” Verver also likes the fact that he can hear from candidates, like Bradshaw and Glass, that don’t rely on television commercials.
The Carleton Heights forum also highlighted a clash between Kostuch and Glass.
Kostuch pounced on Glass, after the communist candidate had made a joke about the government’s drug testing policies for people on welfare. Glass suggested that such testing should be extended to people in Queen’s Park.
After several more jokes, Kostuch wondered why people had to listen to his Communist drivel. The exchanges garnered jeers from many audience members.
Q & A with Ray Kostuch
Centretown News: Why are you running?
Kostuch: Having been involved in the Conservative party for over 20 years, I haven’t seen any other party that has been so committed, so dedicated, filled with so much principle and integrity as our party has right now. We made certain promises four years ago and we’ve kept the vast majority of those promises. Some special interest groups have accused us for keeping our promises, but we have, and that is the reason I am involved. We believe certain things in our heart and that is why we are pursuing those and we know that we have taken the right stand on these issues. Our party doesn’t blow in the wind with opinion polls. We govern because we believe certain things to be fundamentally right. Four years ago, this province was on the brink of financial ruin and our party has totally turned it around in four short years.
CTN: What do you think are the issues in Ottawa Centre at the moment?
Kostuch: The economy. People are concerned about their own jobs, they’re concerned about their neighbours having jobs, and rightfully so because if people have jobs, people are generating wages and income taxes. They want to keep their income taxes low. People recognize that we’ve cut taxes by 30 per cent. Let’s be very clear on this. The NDP has promised to increase taxes. So you’ve got a choice to make. Do you want to increase taxes and go back to the bad old Bob Rae days of tax and spend or do you want to take a fiscally responsible course, to stay the course, vote conservative, vote for a tax cut, vote for increased job creation. We’ve promised additional 825,000 new jobs. We’re the only party that’s made that commitment. We made a commitment four years ago for job creation and we’ve exceeded that commitment. The choice in Ottawa Centre is very clear. The liberals are not an alternative.
CTN: How has the re-alignment of ridings affected the issues?
Kostuch: I think there’s a greater awareness in the new ridings of fiscal responsibility than before. Some people in the Ottawa Centre still want to tax and spend. I can’t believe it. I mean I don’t know how these people run their households. But they honestly believe, like Elisabeth Arnold, you should be having deficit spending. We know what her record is at City Hall. The City of Ottawa is the most indebted municipality in Ontario and Elisabeth Arnold is on that council and she has no problems with this massive debt, which the City of Ottawa is carrying. As a ratepayer, I have a real problem with that and a lot of other people do. Some of the people in her core constituency seem to buy that you can just keep spending money and you’ll never have to pay it back. I don’t know how they buy that, how they can possibly think the way they do.
CTN: What do you hope to accomplish if elected?
Kostuch: I’m a chattered accountant and a professional engineer who runs an engineering business and over the years I have certainly felt the hardships that Ontario contractors have felt because they could not get access to the Quebec construction market. What we have done is we have closed the border with Quebec. And until we have a two-way reciprocal agreement with Quebec that our construction workers can work in Quebec and have the same access and the same rights that Quebec workers have enjoyed in this province for over 40 years, I want to see the border stay closed. My hope is that Quebec will finally back down, recognise the fairness, that it should be a two-way street and that we can open our borders and that we can’t have construction workers moving back and forth across the bridges and working in both areas. Another achievement that I would like to work on is the accountability of the Ottawa hospitals. There are a lot of health care workers that live in the Ottawa Civic hospital area and they’re telling me that we’re spending 230 million dollars more on health care in Ottawa-Carleton than we did four years ago. There’s a recognition that we’re spending more now on health care than we’ve ever spent in the history of this province. But people are telling me that it is not going to patient care where it should be. I am concerned when I hear that from people that are working on the front lines. I hear that from the nurses and from the doctors that live in my neighbourhood. I think the Ottawa hospital board has got to be much more accountable to the community. They have a 450 million-dollar budget and they have an appointed board that can, at a whim, totally disregard the concerns of taxpayers in the Ottawa Centre. I think that is wrong.