Gerard Kennedy thinks it’s time for action in the North.
The Ontario Liberal leadership hopeful said he wants a Northern strategy that sees faster results in development, including resource sharing to improve quality of life in the region.
“What I want to see is a strategy that has goals with outcomes in terms of both jobs and the kind of economic revenue you can generate,” the 52-year-old said.
Although Kennedy has served provincially and federally from Toronto ridings, he grew up in The Pas, Man. He said he understands that there is a distinct Northern voice and he’d like to bring it back to Queen’s Park. He would want to see a Northern strategy within six months that focuses on timetables everyone can agree on to create job growth.
“So young people do really feel their options are here, not just in law or medicine,” he said.
As for the Ring of Fire, Kennedy said people, from industry to First Nations, need to have predictability with development. Getting everyone to the table is something he’d like to do. Finding a consensus, rather than taking a side, is something the Liberal party is good at Kennedy said.
“We’re going to have to be very attentive as the catalyst I think that’s the role of the provincial government, not to control everything but the catalyst to get the right structure to get everybody to the table and on to a timetable,” he said.
“Why wouldn’t we want to get it right? Why would we want to go through conflicts and problems?”
Municipalities in the region worry that the suspension of the Thunder Bay Generating Plant conversion to natural gas will jeopardize the North’s ability to provide the mining industry with a secure power source. Kennedy said he shares those concerns.
“It would be one of my first questions in terms of how do we get past this pause,” he said.
Within the government, Kennedy wants to change a trend he’s seen in all levels of government where the leader has an unhealthy concentration of power. He would make the leader’s role more accountable, even putting in a recall structure if needed.
“When you get an elite structure like that even the Liberal party can get disconnected,” he said.
