Endorsement

If elected on Thursday, Kathleen Wynne has promised to spend a billion dollars to build road and other transportation infrastructure into the Ring of Fire—a mineral rich region situated in the James Bay lowlands, 500 kilometres north of Thunder Bay.

Wynne has also promised high-speed railways linking Toronto to Kitchener-Waterloo and London. Windsor was feeling a bit put upon by the surprise announcement, so Ontario’s City of Roses has been added to this dream line.

In Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, Liberal MPP Grant Crack is at risk of falling to his Conservative challenger Roxanne Villeneuve. So just before the election was called, trade minister Eric Hoskins was dispatched to eastern edge of Ontario to dispense $2.4 million to help create 40 jobs in a wood moulding plant in Alexandria, a cheese factory in St. Albert, a canning plant in Hawkesbury and a goat farm in St. Eugene.

In every corner of the province where Liberals feel vulnerable, a big basket of taxpayer dollars is being lavished upon distracted voters. And where there aren’t cheques being presented, there is the promise of investment. Like the gambler on a losing streak, doubling down seems like a logical bet.

In Prince Edward-Hastings, we have been spared the flattery of being bribed with our own money. Liberals know they have no chance of taking this riding back in this election.

Todd Smith has been a solid and responsive representative at Queen’s Park. He has, in fact, grown into the role, taking on increasing duties as small business critic for his party, as well as building important bridges with South Asian communities in the Greater Toronto Area.

Meanwhile, frustration with Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal Party still runs hot through PrinceEdwardCounty. As many as 35 industrial wind turbines are poised to be erected in South Marysburgh and another 32 on Amherst Island, despite the loud and persistent objections of residents, businesses and local government.

Ontario’s debt has ballooned, nearly doubling in the 10 years since Dalton McGuinty was elected. An emblem of this financial mismanagement sits ,six-storeys high alongside the MoiraRiver in Belleville. The city’s $90-million courthouse will have cost Ontario taxpayers more than $272 million by the time the financial arrangment expires in 30 years.

The provincial deficit (the amount it spends less the money it takes in) continues to expand, meaning we are piling on debt at an even faster rate. Kathleen Wynne has promised not to let the province’s ailing finances get in the way of her infrastructure gifts to ridings potentially favourable to her party.

Meanwhile, in a community already on edge about the fate of its much-loved hospital, the Liberal Party nominated Georgina Thompson, whose most prominent credential is that she was the first chair of the Local Health Integration Network (LHIN). The LHIN controls the purse strings of healthcare in the region and has presided over successive cuts to Prince Edward County Memoria lHospital and the closing of Picton Manor, which came with the loss of 72 nursing home beds in this community.

The Liberal Party would have had a near impossible task in taking Prince Edward-Hastings back in any event. But Thompson and her resume never stood a chance.

Meanwhile, the NDP and Green Party submitted little more than talking placards into this race.

Merrill Stewart rarely, if ever, veered off the script provided by NDP headquarters. He offered little insight into his or ambitions for the riding—preferring to recite party platform and positions.

Anita Payne, an earnest and surely wellmeaning retired science teacher from Perth, carries the Green banner in Prince Edward-Hastings. Her candidacy seems predicated solely on using the platform to warn of the threat to the planet due to climate change, and as the need to change the way we live and govern ourselves. Sadly, she seemed unable to narrow the focus to the issues and concerns of Ontarians, let alone those of Prince Edward, Hastings and Belleville.

It is too bad. It would have been good for this community to have been part of the Ontario election in 2014. There are important discussions that need to be sorted through. And it does no good for voter turnout to know the outcome before hand.

But the challenging parties decided their resources would be better spent elsewhere—so the campaign here was reduced to mere slogans.

The good news is that Todd Smith is deserving of another term. He has worked hard to represent this community and bring our issues to Queen’s Park. He introduced private members’ bills to return control over industrial wind turbine and large-scale solar installations to local government, as well as to reduce regulatory hurdles for wine, spirit and cider makers. He has been a vocal and consistent critic of the Liberal’s energy policies and the devastating effect they have had on electricity prices in Ontario.

His party, despite clumsy and ill-considered slogans, vows to reduce Ontario’s debt and create jobs. These are important ambitions.

Todd Smith has earned our endorsement.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca