On June 7, Ontarians will be casting their vote to elect their Legislative Assembly. For those voting in the West Hamilton-Ancaster-Dundas riding, the riding in which McMaster resides, voters have four choices: the incumbent Ted McMeekin from the Liberal Party, Ben Levitt of the Progressive Conservative Party, the National Democratic Party’s Sandy Shaw and Peter Ormond, representing the Green Party.

Each of these parties have a unique approach to three major issues the McMaster Students Union has highlighted in the past couple of years: tuition, transportation and affordable housing.

Of the parties covered, two have released official platforms: the NDP and the Green Party. The Liberal Party released the Ontario budget back in March 2018, which makes up of what the Liberals plan on implementing. The PC Party has not released an official platform since the party leadership shifted from Patrick Brown to Doug Ford, and thus all points listed are taken from press releases or other media outlets and their coverage.

Tuition

In the past few years, the McMaster Students Union has committed itself to advocating for lower tuition, typically through their membership in the Ontario University Student Alliance. OUSA has released documents and blog posts advocating for the lowering and control of international students’ tuitions,tuition freezesand other like-minded initiatives. Previous MSU board members have also advocated for tuition freezes, such as former MSU president Ehima Osazuwa and his Tuition Task Force.

The Liberal Party has committed itself to creating more Ontario Student Assistant Program tuition grants for low-income students to pay the average cost of one year’s tuition.

The NDP, on the other hand, promises to offer tuition grants to all students who are eligible for OSAP. The NDP also plans on wiping any student loan interest either owed or paid to the government by any student who currently holds a provincial loan.

The Green Party plans on offering interest-free loans, meanwhile the PC Party has not made a discernible statement on post-secondary tuition.

Transportation

The MSU has advocated for better transportation multiple times, most notably with their delegations to City Hall in support of a light rail transit. Former MSU vice president (Education) Blake Oliver held multiple meetings with relevant city hall officials during her term to advocate in favour of bringing LRT to Hamilton.

In addition, improving transportation has been a major topic for MSU presidential candidates. Ikram Farah, the current MSU president, plans on working with Metrolinx to improve GO bus transit by extending key bus lines to run later into the evening.

The Liberal Party promises to invest $79 billion into different transportation projects all over the province and match a federal infrastructure grant of $5 billion, of which roughly $4 billion will go to improving public transit.

The NDP promises to invest over $800 million in transit all over the province, but most notably promises to immediately start construction on Hamilton’s LRT project, in addition to a number of other projects all over the province.

Since the Ford campaign has not put out a clear platform, it is still unclear what the PC Party plans to do with respect to public transit. The PC Party does, however, plan on taking a different approach to the LRT project by putting it to a vote, noting that the city will still receive funding for other infrastructure projects if it is voted down.

When it comes to public transit, the Green Party is squarely focused on making it more environmentally friendly and sustainable by phasing out combustion engines, as an example.

Affordable Housing

In the past year, the MSU’s main advocacy team worked extensively on projects aimed to improve the living standards of students. Both former MSU vice president (Education) Ryan Deshpande and current MSU vice president (Education) Stephanie Bertolo worked on projects such as the Landlord Wiki project, aimed to improve the experiences of student tenants. Such problems are a part of the larger affordable housing crisis going on in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area.

The Liberal Party promises to invest over $1 billion in affordable housing, with the aim of eliminating chronic homelessness in Ontario by 2025. The Liberal Party also promises $547 million over five years to improve social housing to make the buildings more sustainable.

The NDP’s approach to affordable housing is interwoven into their approaches to other issues such as mental health and the opioid crisis, but overall they plan on building more than 30,000 housing units for those marginalized.

To address the affordable housing crisis, the PC Party plans to allow some development in the Green Belt, the world’s largest protected green space.

If elected, the Green Party would institute a rule requiring all new developments include a minimum of 20 per cent affordable homes, in addition to other approaches such as laneway housing.

Each party offers its own approach to addressing the major issues highlighted by the MSU in the past years. If you wish to learn more about each candidate, you may check each party’s website for more information.

NDP    |    LIBERAL    |    PC    |     GREEN

Recently, the Sil took to the streets to find out what McMaster thinks about Ontario elections. You can watch the full video here.

On May 28 in the MUSC Atrium, the McMaster Students Union hosted an all-candidates debate with four candidates in the Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale riding for the upcoming June 12 provincial election.

The participants were Raymond Dartsch of the Green Party, Alex Johnstone of the New Democratic Party (NDP), Ted McMeekin of the Liberal Party, and Donna Skelly of the Progressive Conservatives (PC). Libertarian Party candidate Glenn Langton and Freedom Party of Ontario candidate Barry Spruce were absent.

It was an engaging and well-attended debate. The candidates had the opportunity to offer their perspectives on important issues within the riding before focusing on post-secondary education (PSE).

 

Opening Statements set the tone for the debate

Raymond Dartsch began by sharing his hopes for the GP’s success in this election. “It’s not a far-fetched idea that a candidate of the Green Party gets elected,” he said.

Donna Skelly, as might be expected from a former TV journalist, was always smiling and unmistakeably confident, but addressed the student audience too formally.

Johnstone, a former school-board trustee, began by highlighting her community experiences at McMaster and Hamilton. She was evidently the most nervous of the four, but recovered steadily.

Both Skelly and Johnstone made remarks about the state of provincial employment and debt rates under Liberal leadership.

Ted McMeekin combined personal anecdotes and past achievements as the incumbent MPP. McMeekin appeared as the most comfortable of the candidates, aiming to relate with the audience on their shared love of McMaster and the MSU.

 

McMeekin and Skelly: head to head on almost everything

In most of her answers, Skelly attacked Liberal governance, and on numerous occasions directed her accusations at McMeekin. Skelly spoke many times about the Liberal’s “blunders,” “corruption,” and “mismanagement.”

McMeekin concluded some of his own responses by rebutting PC platform points that Skelly hadn’t brought up.

While Skelly emphasized PC’s fiscal discipline, in particular in terms of cutting public sector jobs, McMeekin criticized the Tory plan as standing on “the backs of those who need us most.” Skelly stated that we have to “bite the bullet” with regards social cuts, while McMeekin countered that Ontario can only rebuild through investment, not cuts.

McMeekin responded well to criticism. A veteran to the area’s politics, he handled attacks against him and the Ontario Liberals calmly and maturely.

His responses to questions pertaining to PSE and to the criticisms of Skelly and Johnstone included a fine level of detail and knowledge of McMaster, its funding, and current projects. There is no doubt that McMeekin is well-informed on these issues given his incumbency.

McMeekin laughed off a number of Skelly’s attacks, though he did respond to Skelly’s accusations about the public investigation of officials in the Premier’s office. He told the audience, rather passionately, that he thinks if someone in Queen’s Park has done something wrong, the “bastard ought to pay for it.”

McMeekin conceded that Skelly’s attacks about the Gas Plant closure were fair, but that this didn’t pose a big problem for his overall performance in the debate.

The majority of Skelly’s statements were about issues unrelated to PSE. Skelly’s strategy might have worked for a different audience, but her repetitive attacks did not appear to have any effect on university students who wanted to hear about tuition and employment.

As much as Skelly liked to attack the Liberals’ platform, she failed to respond to McMeekin’s criticism of the Progressive Conservatives’ plan to tie marks to OSAP funding, Dartsch’s remarks about her support for the Niagara-GTA highway back in 2011, and Johnstone’s claim that the PC platform makes education inaccessible.

 

Johnstone garners audience support 

Johnstone’s energy and natural tone, along with her emphasis on accessible education, garnered her support from the audience throughout the debate. The majority of the audience’s applause went to her.

She criticized both McMeekin and Skelly on their respective party platforms, while agreeing with Skelly on the Liberals’ fiscal irresponsibility and with McMeekin on the PC’s attack on social services.

She jumped into some of the more heated points of the debate, but overall came across as a constructive critic instead of a relentless attacker. Johnstone focused far less on attacking the Liberal government and more on bringing forth NDP’s tuition plans.

She did not miss a chance to remind the audience to vote for the NDP this election.

 

Dartsch emphasizes the importance of fresh ideas 

Although Dartsch didn’t have a strong presence and seemed tired during the debate, he captured the audience’s attention with his honesty and refreshing approach to the election. He did not push for himself or his party, but for open debate and new ideas.

However, Dartsch was stumped by some questions, noting that he’s been too busy being a working parent with five kids to keep up with post-secondary news – a comment that might have left a bad taste in the mouths of some of the most involved students on campus. Dartsch went back and forth between making impressive, well thought-out points,  and repeating previous statements and admitting to a lack of knowledge on some topics.

Final Remarks

There was no clear “winner” in Wednesday’s debate. Overall, Johnstone and McMeekin out-performed both Skelly and Dartsch.

Skelly’s performance appealed to strong PC supporters, yet failed to engage undecided members of the audience due to her forced delivery, which at times sounded patronizing and too rehearsed.

Dartsch missed the opportunity to make a strong impression on McMaster students.

Johnstone and McMeekin gave the most natural and relatable answers. Both were friendly, and unlike their opponents they appeared to understand the purpose of the debate, and used this to their advantage.

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