The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.
Four provincial Progressive Conservative leadership candidates didn’t outright apologize to Northerners two weeks ago at a Sudbury debate. But they did express affection and demonstrated a knowledge of northern issues at the first of six PC leadership debates.
Whitby-Ajax MPP Christine Elliott, Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli, Nepean-Carleton MPP Lisa MacLeod and Barrie MP Patrick Brown said all the right things at the Nov. 24 event at College Boreal in Sudbury.
They came bearing olive branches, and that the first of six leadership debates was held in the Nickel City was no accident. It was a mea culpa meant to undo a snub by former PC leader Tim Hudak for not participating in a May 26 northern debate before the June 12 election.
Hudak’s failure to attend and his party’s dismal showing are probably just coincidence, but would-be leaders and their party aren’t taking any chances. They have four years to rebuild a party in ruins and gain ground in
11 northern ridings. They represent a small portion of the province’s 107 electoral districts, but they’re important nonetheless to any party wanting to govern.
Only two seats are held by Tories — Nipissing by Fedeli and Parry Sound-Muskoka by stalwart Norm Miller. Three are held by Liberals and six were held by New Democrats until Sudbury MPP Joe Cimino announced his resignation last month. A byelection will be called to replace him, but Sudbury leans to the left or centre so it’s unlikely a PC will be elected.
The sense in the North is we haven’t been getting our fair share. Northerners are tired of hearing how our taxes will increase to pay for multibillion-dollar rapid express lines to move our southern neighbours more quickly. Two billion of those dollars would nicely build the infrastructure necessary to spur development in the Ring of Fire. Chromite and nickel mining in the Ring would create thousands of jobs for Ontarians and not just in the North.
A paltry few million, by southern Ontario standards, would pay for a positron emission tomography scanner for the northeast, the only region that doesn’t have the sophisticated medical diagnostic imaging system. That we don’t has become a symbol to Northerners of the inequity we believe exists in Ontario.
For the rest of this column, click here: http://www.thesudburystar.com/2014/12/09/ontario-tories-look-to-appease-northerners