Niagara Falls Review e-edition

Candidates tackle a long list of issues

St. Catharines election hopefuls discuss COVID recovery and child care

GORD HOWARD THE ST. CATHARINES STANDARD Gord Howard is a St. Catharines-based reporter with the Standard. Reach him via email: gord.howard@niagaradailies.com

St. Catharines riding candidates covered many issues in an election debate Tuesday night, and the shadow of COVID-19 hung over most of them.

With less than a week before Monday’s federal vote, they offered plans, and criticized opponents, over business support, childcare and other topics.

All five candidates — incumbent Liberal Chris Bittle, Rebecca Hahn of the People’s Party of Canada, Trecia McLennon of the NDP, Catharine Rhodes of the Green party and Krystina Waler for the Conservatives — were part of the debate sponsored by Greater Niagara Chamber of Commerce.

The debate can be viewed at GNCC.ca.

Moderator Hugo Chesshire, of GNCC, questioned them on their parties’ plans for national childcare, noting families in many cities pay as much as $10,000 a year.

“The pandemic has seen all the gains of women in the workforce disappear, we’ve seen a labour shortage. We need to get women back into the workforce,” said Bittle.

He said the Liberals were able to negotiate $10-a-day daycare programs with eight provinces, “unfortunately, Ontario isn’t one of them.”

He accused the Conservatives of wanting to “cut these deals and rip them up” and reduce federal spending on childcare.

Waler responded, saying “the federal Liberals have been promising a government-regulated childcare system for nearly 30 years and they haven’t delivered.”

“Now, on the eve of an election that Canada does not want or need, the Liberals are making promises once again,” she said.

Waler said the Conservatives would “convert the childcare expense deduction into a tax credit to cover 75 per cent of the cost of childcare.”

“Our plan will make families earning $150,000 or less better off, with the biggest benefit to families earning less than $50,000.”

When Bittle responded “a tax credit scheme is great and will help certain families … (but) it’s not going to create any spaces,” Waler said, “Our plan is for right now, to help parents immediately. The Liberals have a plan to help parents five years from now.”

McLennon, for the NDP, said “parents are tired of the patchwork quilt that we’ve been calling childcare up until this point.

“We’ve seen Quebec do $10-aday childcare for many years, and there’s no reason why the rest of Canada … can’t reap the benefits of having such a system across the board.”

She said the NDP would continue to work with the provinces to implement a plan at that cost to families: “Having safe, affordable, reliable childcare will pay dividends for our society, not just right now but in the future.”

Rhodes, for the Greens, said she was able to get her education as a single parent because of federal assistance, and she knows the importance to families of affordable childcare.

Her party would “incentivize business to include childcare in their programs for their employees, so that you don’t have to go a ridiculous distance to drop your children off.”

It would be flexible, she said, noting many St. Catharines families include shift workers and “they’re not going to be served by a program that is just 9 to 5, they need options outside of that.”

Hahn said while she didn’t believe the PPC has a childcare policy, “we are committed to investing in … better jobs and higher-paying jobs for Canadians, that will definitely help with making childcare more affordable.”

She blamed lockdowns and business restrictions imposed as public safety measures during the pandemic for exacerbating the problem of child-care for families.

The PPC has pledged to end all lockdowns, and she said “when you close the schools down and then we expect nurses and PSWs to keep working, it creates a massive issue with childcare.”

Ending government-ordered lockdowns “once and for all” is also key to helping businesses throughout the rest of the pandemic, Hahn said, when asked by the moderator about government assistance for businesses and individuals.

“The PPC’s plan is to first and foremost end these unconstitutional lockdowns once and for all,” she said.

After that, she said, a People’s party government would “phase out the CERB (unemployment benefits) to incentivize people to return to work,” ensure schools remain open and then cut “unnecessary” regulations she said hamper businesses.

Rhodes said the Green party would extend COVID-19 benefits to individuals and businesses, while creating “shop-local campaigns, create local websites like Amazon that are agsites, and allow our resigregate dents to shop locally” more easily.

Canada’s “archaic tech infrastructure” hurt businesses at the start of the pandemic, she said, forcing them to play catchup.

McLennon said the NDP would extend benefits, and said early on when the Liberal government wanted to provide unemployed workers $1,000 a month, “the NDP fought to double it to $2,000 a month.

And when the minority government called for a 10 per cent wage subsidy for businesses, “we got it to 75 per cent. And (Conservative Leader Erin) O’Toole didn’t get a single benefit for Canadians during the pandemic. Nothing.”

Waler said the Conservatives “are prepared to extend the current program through the end of the year should the pandemic continue … but as the pandemic changes, so do the needs of the businesses and the needs of Canadians.”

She said the government needs to reduce its borrowing, which she said drives up the debt and leads to inflation.

“Life has become unaffordable for us in St. Catharines and across Canada, and if we don’t start addressing that soon we’re going to be in big trouble.”

Bittle said he spoke with businesspeople who said they couldn’t have made it through the pandemic without the wage rent supports the governand ment provided.

He said 95 per cent of the jobs lost early in the pandemic have been recovered.

“We’re going to be there with more grants and loans available for highly affected sectors,” he said.

“But, ultimately, the path to getting out of this health crisis, and economic crisis, is through vaccinations.”

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2021-09-16T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-09-16T07:00:00.0000000Z

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