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Restoring pride

THUNDER BAY -- Vic Fedeli wants his party to give people a reason to vote for them rather than against them.
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Nippissing MPP and PC leadership candidate Vic Fedeli. (Jamie Smith, tbnewswatch.com)

THUNDER BAY -- Vic Fedeli wants his party to give people a reason to vote for them rather than against them.

Running for leadership of the Ontario Progressive Conservatives, Fedeli said the party has lost four election in a row, the latest in June being an especially horrible blow. Restoring pride first in the party ranks itself, Fedeli wants to see less ideology at Queen's Park and start recognizing a good policy for Ontario is a good policy no matter what party it's from.

"Good ideas don't necessarily have apolitical stripe attached to them," Fedeli said Wednesday afternoon in Thunder Bay.

"For me it's not about being on the right or being on the left or being in the centre. It's about doing the right thing for Ontario."

If chosen next May to run the party, Fedeli said he wants to see local riding associations have full autonomy over their candidates.

"I have faith that they know how to pick the best and brightest people," he said. "Not something that's directed from Toronto."

As former mayor of North Bay and the only Northern Ontario PC MPP, Fedeli said he understands the isolation that Northerners feel. Most MPPs and bureaucrats have never been North of Vaughn. But he wants the province to come together no matter North or South, rural or urban. It's one of the ways to get Ontario back to being a leader in everything from education to health care.

"We should be first in everything we do," he said.

The Ring of Fire, which Fedeli has visited four times, is one way to turn the province around but development is not happening quickly enough, something he blames entirely on the current Liberal government.

Fedeli is a firm believer that the development can be Ontario's oilsands or potash but it's been five years and companies have stopped exploration because there is still know way to get the minerals out of the ground, let alone a transportation plan from the government.

"They can't even agree whether it will be road or rail," Fedeli said.

The Ring of Fire Development Corporation has been announced six times in nine months and yet business and First Nations haven't even been asked to partner yet.

"I'm really tired of announcements of announcements of re-announcements," he said.

"How can you take that seriously at all?"

Fedeli faces Christine Elliott, Patrick Brown and Monte McNaughton so far in the leadership race.


 





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