Protesters from various causes all attempted to bend the ear of one of the Ontario Liberal leadership hopefuls as they arrived for their second debate.
The candidates made their way through the crowd of about hundred people as they arrived at Lakehead University Sunday. Only a few stayed to chat including Kathleen Wynne and Glen Murray. But when local MPPs Bill Mauro and Michael Gravelle arrived, the crowd chanted “kill Bill 115”.
The controversial Bill has been heavily criticized by unions for taking away collective bargaining rights.
Candace Rennick, secretary-treasurer of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, said they wanted to raise the awareness about the damage the Bill has caused and hoped to get firm commitments from the candidates on what they intended to do.
“We’re asking for the full repeal of Bill115 that’s what we’re calling on the candidates to do,” Rennick said.
“I think most of the protesters here are here because they feel their fundamental rights are being stripped away. We didn’t elect a government to come in and strip away our rights. We elected a government to support our communities, to protect public service and this government isn’t doing that.”
Rennick promised that as the debate heads to other cities that they would continue to hold protests.
Murray said that Bill 115 is becoming part of the problem and not the solution.
“I really think we have to think about parking it,” he told Tbnewswatch.com prior to the debate.
“I think we are making some progress right now and we should be using the models being uses at McMasters University and the college sector. I think we should look at that model for the public education sector.”
Fellow candidate Harinder Takhar said he thinks it is still possible to sit down and negotiate a collective bargaining agreement.
Takhar, who was the chief financial officer for the second largest school board in Ontario, said the government has to listen to their problem but at the same time teachers need to understand that the province has fiscal issues to deal with.
“Nothing is going to be resolved unless we go to the table and resolve it,” he said. “The issue here is we have a $14 billion deficit.”
Charles Sousa also spoke to the issue and called it unfortunate how the situation developed.
“Whatever happened, happened,” Sousa said. “What are we going to do moving forward is what is important. As premier, I would immediately have a discussion with my locals with the unions. I think we have acknowledged that it could have been done better. Let’s just get eyeball to eyeball and get it done.”
But the controversial Bill wasn’t the only issue being protested.
Irene Bond and many others carried signs in opposition to Horizon Wind Inc. placing wind turbines on the Nor’Western Escarpment.
Bond, the spokeswoman for the Nor'Wester Mountain Escarpment Protection Committee, said they stand behind Mauro and Gravelle who are also opposed to the wind farm and continued to say that the Nor’Western is a bad place for the development.
“We want this over, we want them to look at alternate locations,” Bond said. “Not every location is appropriate.”
