In his own words: a Q-and-A with Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca
The Spectator reached out to major political party leaders ahead of the June 2 vote to get their thoughts on major issues and local questions ranging from pandemic lessons to the future of LRT. Only Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford did not respond to the invitation.
We've condensed answers and edited for clarity. Here's what Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca had to say:
What would your party do to address overcrowded hospitals and hallway medicine" in Hamilton?
In a nutshellThe Liberals say they'd invest $1 billion over two years to tackle surgical and diagnostic backlogs; allocate $4.4 billion over four years to help 400,000 older adults receive home care; create 3,000 new hospital beds and hire 100,000 health-care workers over six years.
I think the most urgent need that we have in public health care is to deal with the surgical and diagnostic backlog that exists right now - mostly because of COVID and mostly because the current Ford Conservatives haven't made the investments and frankly don't have a plan to deal with it within the public health-care system ..."
What is the most important lesson for the province coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic?
Obviously, the hospitals were overwhelmed. We saw, and we still see nurses and doctors and personal support workers who are beyond tired ... They've not been valued or respected properly by the current Ford Conservatives. I look at something like Bill 124, which Doug Ford rammed though the legislature, which artificially capped what nurses and personal support workers can bargain for in their contracts. So they're capped at one per cent while inflation is spiralling out of control."
Should the province allow the HSR to run Hamilton's new LRT, or a private operator?
Assuming that our municipal partners want that to be case, and assuming that we can make sure that the systems are running efficiently and running properly, I'm perfectly OK to partner with existing municipal transit systems to operate some of these."
What should or could the province do to ensure there is affordable housing along Hamilton's LRT line?
In a nutshellThe Liberals pledge to build 1.5 million homes and 138,000 deeply affordable homes over the next decade; propose an Ontario Home Building Corporation to be allocated $15 billion over 10 years.
We're going to get the province back in the business of dealing with this in a more direct way. I think if the private market could have dealt with this situation, we wouldn't have the housing affordability crisis that we do right now ... (The Ontario Home Building Corporation) would be able to access underused and unused surplus provincial-government-owned land ... We will be able to unlock and build on that land and every single unit of housing sold by the home-building corporation would only be made available to first-time homebuyers."
Are you worried about vote-splitting? Would you work with the NDP?
We also know in this province the only way to stop Conservatives in their agenda of privatizing, cuts and chaos is to vote Liberal. That's been proven time and time again ... If there's anybody out there in this province - whether they're in the NDP - whether they're in the Conservative party, or the Green party, or whether like most Ontarians, they don't belong to any particular political party - I'd be prepared to work with anyone."
The Liberals say they will scrap Ford's Highway 413, which will cut through agricultural and natural land. Instead, your plan is to invest $10 billion in schools. How will your party deal with clogged highways?
When you develop communities in a more sustainable and walkable and transit-oriented way, you reduce the requirement for people to need to access highways ... No. 2, buck-a-ride provincewide, we estimate in our modelling by delivering $1 transit fares everywhere ... that roughly 400,000 cars will come off of Ontario highways ... I think those two options make the most sense."
Teviah Moro is a reporter at The Spectator. tmoro@thespec.com