Parkdale High Park forum includes new political party candidate at last minute.
New Democratic Party (NDP) candidate Cheri DiNovo, Green Party candidate Justin Trottier, Liberal Party candidate Cortney Pasternak and People's Political Party candidate Thomas Zaugg (not shown)at an all-candidates forum for Parkdale-High Park in Parkdale Sept. 13.
Staff photo/ERIN HATFIELD
Thomas Zaugg was willing to stand in front of the stage - quietly - for the duration of a recent Parkdale-High Park all-candidates forum. He said he would do so in protest of him not being included in the forum.
Forum organizers - the Parkdale Community Health Centre (PCHC), the Parkdale Activity Recreation Centre (PARC) and the West End Food Coop (WEFC) - said as Zaugg wasn't registered at the time they were planning the meeting, they hadn't made arrangements for an extra participant.
But when Progressive Conservative candidate Joseph Ganetakos did not attend, the other three candidates agreed to have Zaugg, a first-time election candidate running for the People’s Political Party, join them. Ganetakos had declined to participate, but according to organizers they had again requested he attend and hoped he would accept their invitation and had set a place for him on stage, which Zaugg then filled.
The People's Political Party is a small grass roots party that, according to Zaugg who is the president of the party, has eight candidates running in this provincial election.
"As the People's Political Party, this is our first chance to be able to address the public and we are very excited," Zaugg said. "We are a party that is focused on being real people and we are focused on finding a problem, identifying it and presenting a solution."
And although Zaugg didn't have a printed platform in hand, he did have ideas, ones that received much applause from the packed auditorium at St. John's Parish Hall in South Parkdale on Sept. 13.
Zaugg also shared ideas about banning lobbyist from Queen's Park, banning public sector unions, raising Ontario Works by $400 and adding the right to fresh water and clean air to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
"We are a new party and we are not interested in right verses left," Zaugg said. "We are all just people and valid ideas come from all sides of the aisle."
The most boisterous audience response came when Zaugg responded to a question regarding the current municipal service review at the City of Toronto.
"I think it is time to take (Mayor) Rob Ford at his word on his campaign promise of a one year, elected official rescindency plan, which basically means if the public is absolutely outraged with the mayor's service they should be able to throw him out," Zaugg said.
The forum focused on health, housing and food security.
Each of the participants, which included New Democratic Party (NDP) candidate Cheri DiNovo, Green Party candidate Justin Trottier, Liberal Party candidate Cortney Pasternak and Zaugg, were asked six prepared questions. These questions grew out of a report card on health, housing and food security, which the organizers had completed in advance of the election. The candidates were then asked four questions from the audience, which were drawn randomly from a box.
DiNovo, who was first elected as MPP of Parkdale-High Park in 2006, didn't spend much time reflecting on her personal record as MPP, but instead talked of the accomplishments she has made over the years.
"You make change happen, not the government," DiNovo said. "You got the $10 minimum wage, not the government; you get housing, not the government; you are the ones that built Edmond (Place) and that refurbished Runnymede (Healthcare Centre)...so keep on organizing and keep on fighting and never settle for second best."
DiNovo called Ontario the "poverty capital of Canada" and said the Liberal party is to blame.
"We have 150,000 families waiting an average of 12 or more years for affordable housing. We have one in six children living in poverty," DiNovo said. "This is a government that has in fact made poverty worse."
She said the NDP would continue to call for the end of the clawback on Ontario Disability Support Program, housing as a human right and moving to a living wage.
"We do not want to reduce poverty," DiNovo said. "We want to eliminate poverty in the New Democratic Party."
Trottier focused largely on a shift to land value taxation as a solution to many of Ontario's issues. But he refuted the Greens is a single-issue party.
"Every party has a central mandate that gives it force and ours is sustainability," he said. "Sustainability is seen throughout our entire platform from health care to job creation, transportation and in issues more local to this riding like affordable housing, decreasing the burden on the health-care system and the ever growing shortage of nutritious food."
Trottier said his goal is to offer a new and contemporary voice in Parkdale-High Park without commitments to vested special interests or inflexible established policies.
He said he wanted to empower local decision-making and suggested his background in engineering makes him resourceful in finding the people, ideas and technologies for creative solutions.
Pasternak relied on the Liberal party's track record during the forum and said Ontario is just now on the road to making it better for everyone.
Pasternak said the Liberal government has increased the minimum wage, raised social assistance levels and is creating jobs.
"In health care, Liberals have increased funding to health-care organizations based in Parkdale-High Park by more than 47 per cent on average since 2003," she said. "There have been significant increases in community health like PCHC."
Pasternak said this is not a time for protest, but a time for positive action. She said she believed by working with the community she could help to build on the progress made during the last eight years by being a voice at the table in government.
"There is always more to do and it seems like it is never enough," Pasternak said. "But that doesn't mean you stop trying."