Platform released

Under an NDP government, FedNor would see its budget doubled to $100 million, says the party’s Thunder Bay-Superior North candidate.

The Northern Ontario plan would also see the economic development agency restored to a standalone ministry status, at arm’s length from ministerial interference, said Bruce Hyer on Thursday, unveiling the 15-page document at his Memorial Avenue campaign office.

Asked if the idea would fly in places like Conservative Alberta, where government waste is the dirtiest phrase in the book, Hyer emphatically defended his party’s plan.

"They should have no complaint whatsoever because the Atlantic provinces, Quebec and Western Canada have always had standalone development agencies which are removed from political interference … and have more long-term stable funding," Hyer said.

"All this does is bring Northern Ontario up to parity with those three other important development agencies."

Decisions made at the local level are best for the region, he continued. That hasn’t happened for years under the Conservatives, who folded FedNor into the industry ministry, he added.

"It’s become politicized and it’s been subject to the political whims of a minister who may or may not approve projects, depending on how it looks for the optics of their party," Hyer said.

However, his Conservative opponent says FedNor is not broken and the NDP should thusly stop trying to fix it.

Richard Harvey said FedNor has been very successful in its present form.

"The reality is now is not the time to be tinkering with FedNor. FedNor works well," Harvey said, reached via phone Thursday afternoon.

"FedNor has brought an unprecedented amount of money into Northwestern Ontario and as soon as you start moving into an agency, the flexibility that we currently have within FedNor is gone.

"You increase the red tape and bureaucracy and that certainly is something that I would have real concerns about doing."

Yves Fricot, the Liberal candidate in Thunder Bay-Superior North, said Harvey is way off base.

"There’s a fundamental difference in terms of how an agency works and (being) a budget-line item in the minister of industry’s budget," Fricot said, agreeing with the NDP that FedNor should be its own agency with a much higher budget. "I guess the Conservatives can say that, but I have a very different view about what Northerners are entitled to know both in terms of what we’re working toward and how well we’ve done in terms of achieving the directives that we set out."

Fricot also chastised Hyer for not fighting hard enough for the riding’s share of federal dollars.

"Out of the 10 northern ridings, Thunder Bay-Superior North ranked second last in terms of total program spending in things like the Community Building Fund and all these other things," he said.

While Hyer had plenty to say about FedNor, he was at a loss for words when questioned by a reporter about the local specifics of the Northern Ontario platform as compared to the NDP’s federal plank.

"Just let me think for a minute," he said, asking for television cameras to be turned off while he referred to the bullet points he’d highlighted for his speech.

His Thunder Bay-Rainy River counterpart was a little more prepared when asked what part of the platform he thought will benefit Northern Ontarians the most. John Rafferty said removing the HST will help make life more affordable.

"What I hear more and more from people at the doorstep is they can’t put food on the table, they can’t pay their electricity bills. They can’t put gas in their tanks, they can’t heat their homes. And that’s probably, for me, the most important thing. Everywhere I go in this riding, I see people cannot afford to stay in their own homes," Rafferty said. "It’s a question of dignity, it’s a question of respect."

Other highlights of the plan, according to the NDP incumbents, include a plan to cap credit card interest rates to prime plus five per cent, the appointment of an oil and gas ombudsman, eliminating senior poverty, a job creation tax credit, a Made in Canada Act and weaning First Nations communities off of diesel-powered electricity.