Dissecting the issues with the candidates in Conception Bay South
The provincial election race in the district of Conception Bay South may be a bellwhether for the entire province October 2. It features a popular incumbent, PC member Barry Petten, who has been elected in the district three times, defending the seat against a former mayor and MP, Ken McDonald, who retired from politics earlier this year only to return provincially to run for the Liberals. The Shoreline posed an identical set of questions to Petten and McDonald, as well as to the PC and Liberal candidates in the neighbouring district of Harbour Main, which includes a large slice of CBS. Here is an abridged transcript of their answers. By Craig Westcott
Q: Both parties are making a lot of spending promises this election. Where is all the money going to come from to pay for it?
BP: Well, I think you can find the money within (government) for a lot of it. There may be some new add ons, but I mean, you got a budget of 10 to 12 billion dollars. Look no further than the quarter of a billion dollars, $241 million spent on the travel nurses, and we know a lot of that was wrong, it was inappropriate spending. For some reason, the government always seems to find extra monies when they need to, and it’s not always spent correctly. So, I think it’s about proper finances, managing the budget properly… and we know over the years there’s a lot of waste.
I don’t think there’ll be anyone hurt because of it. I think it’s just (a matter of) wiser spending and putting the money in the right places.
KM: Even though (PC Leader Tony) Wakeham says he’d tear up the deal with Gull Island with Quebec, I think a lot of money is going to come from there. Now when you say a lot of promises, whoever gets elected got four years to do all those promises. Now will they all get done? I don’t know, but you know, I’m sure they’re not going to go out and start doing something right away and bang, bang, bang, bang, all our promises are done.
You know better than that. Promises sometimes is a way to get votes. And I heard Mr. Wakeham on (radio) yesterday, I think he was promising to have doctors everywhere and building four ferries. So, I don’t know where he’s getting it.
Q: Do you have any idea what the size of the deficit is now? Because there seems to be some confusion over it. And what would your party do to reduce the deficit?
BP: I think you’ve got to spur the economy. That’s something that Progressive Conservatives have been known to do over the years. You’ve got to create an economy (so that) people want to come here and live and prosper and start businesses. And one of the things that maybe people are not realizing is that to address the cost of living, one of our things is to increase the minimum threshold (before you get taxed) to $15,000. Any tax break you can give people, there’s more money in your pocket. There’s more spending. It generates income, and it eventually ends up back in the government’s hands anyway, through taxation.
KM: To reduce the deficit? I don’t know if you can do much in reducing the deficit because one of the ways governments have in the past tried to eliminate deficits is to up the sales tax or up the income tax or whatever. And I think that’s the wrong approach. If we can weather this for the next year or so and start getting some revenue from Quebec, I think that’s where it’ll come from.
Q: Have you been in an emergency room in the last 10 years? Do you think healthcare in this province is better than it was 10 years ago? How would you make it better?
BP: I’ve been the Health Critic for the last number of years and, yes, I’ve been in emergency rooms and when you’re going to wait 24 hours for urgent care, and 36 hours for non-urgent, we’ve got a problem. There’s no doubt it’s worse. I’ve never seen it so bad. And if we don’t start trying to address the core problems and try to do different things, we’ll never get ahead. Instead of just throwing money at it, throwing these bonuses and what have you at it that we know are not working, we’ve got to get more creative. But healthcare is no doubt worse, much, much worse than it’s ever been.
KM: I think we have a good complement of doctors, whether it’s at the hospitals or at the Bliss Murphy Cancer Center. And we’re lucky to have them. Do we need more? We need more of something because I know of people that have gone to the emergency room of the Health Sciences and slept on the floor waiting to be called to go in. That’s not kosher. People shouldn’t have to do that. They go to an emergency center because it is an emergency, and to be left there lying on the floor asleep is not right. It’s not right. We’ve got to do something to fix it.
Q: What do you think of the criticism of the Churchill Falls deal by fellows like (political blogger) Des Sullivan and Danny Williams? Have you read the MOU and do you think it’s a good deal?
BP: We debated the MOU in January, and I’ll say the same.We didn’t vote for or against it because we didn’t feel comfortable either way. We asked for an independent, not Dennis Brown, not a Liberal appointee, we asked for an independent review of the MOU. I suggested Justice Richard LeBlanc pick a panel, go in and do this review, and then come back to the House of Assembly and have a proper debate on what the independent review told us and vote accordingly. That wasn’t the way, of course. They picked Mr. Brown (the Consumer Advocate and a former Liberal campaign manager), and we know what’s happened since then. Mr. Mike Wilson (one of the government-appointed panel members) stepped down who was one of the so-called experts. He’s got big concerns and he’s muted because of this NDA (non-disclosure agreement) he signed with the Premier’s office. And I think that’s unfair. This is our resource. It’s something that’s going to affect us and our children and grandchildren for generations to come. We should have a right to know what the issues are. And I think that, Mr. Sullivan, Mr. Vardy (former PUB chairman David Vardy), they show no political stripe. What they’re saying makes a lot of sense. They know much more and they’re much more in tune with these power agreements than any of the rest of us. And we should be cautious.
KM: I think it is a good deal, and I don’t know why somebody like Danny Williams would come out and say it’s a poor deal, (that) we should wait till the contract expires and then do it on our own. The only customer we have is Quebec. Nobody is going building a transmission line down through the seabed to get the electricity down to the ‘States. So, we have to work with Quebec to get our power down to the US, and according to the numbers that have been beaten around, it seems like it’s a good deal. It seems like it’s a more fair deal. I was at the actual announcement at The Rooms. And Premier (Francois) Legeault made a point of saying it is time to right the wrong that was done in 1969. And for a Quebec premier to say that, that is something new altogether.
And for Danny Williams to lead the eight (prominent opponents of the deal), whoever they are, whatever they are and say that this is a bad deal? Look what happened with Muskrat Falls under his leadership. It was estimated to be $6.4 billion. It went to $13 billion, and it’s still not giving us any money.
Q: Lastly, what issues are particular to your district that you are most concerned about and, and how do you propose to fix them?
BP: Healthcare is by and far the biggest issue in our district. It’s throughout the province. This election will be won on healthcare, and I hear it at the doors every day, and access to services for healthcare in CBS with a population of 30,000 people. I talk about this often. We deserve better. Right now, we have no public transit, so we don’t have access to our acute care hospitals. If you don’t have a family member (to drive you) or you can’t afford a taxi, you’re not getting out to the hospital.
We’re a rural community. We’re not metro. They like to call us metro. We’re not metro because we’re not connected to the rest of the metro area. We’re basically 30 kilometres of highway with no public transit. We’re not connected. So access to healthcare is a big issue and it’s something that I’ve lobbied for in the past and have advocated for an urgent care center for CBS. I think we need it and we are a perfect model for it. They’ve got them popped up in St. John’s everywhere, but for some reason CBS is not worthy of one and it’s something that I’ve advocated long and hard for, and my own party is well aware of my views on that. That’s how I think you address it. And that will take a lot of pressure off emergency rooms because a lot of people in emergency rooms are from CBS.
KM: Well, one of the things I’m not happy with is the amount of infrastructure that gets done in the district that I’m running in, Conception Bay South. I don’t think we’re getting our share when it comes to infrastructure or replacement of schools. But again, you got to have the money to do it. But infrastructure is something that you partner with all levels of government, and for some reason CBS seems to be left out in the cold on a good many of these projects. And I don’t know if it’s because we’re represented by people who sit on the opposite side. They’re not in government, so maybe they (the government) are doing the areas where there’s government members fighting to get things done. I did an interview earlier this morning with CBC and I said I want to be sitting around the table fighting for the town in which I live in to get our fair share of work that needs to be done, whether it’s water and sewer, whether it’s sports facilities, and especially replacing old, outdated schools. I mean, you look at Frank Roberts (Junior High), my sister graduated from Frank Roberts when it was called Queen E back in 1975. So that’ll tell you how old it is now. But I will tell you that there’s a lot of discussions taking place on replacing that school.