Dozens of community members showed up to an all-candidates meeting at the Royal Canadian Legion Wednesday evening, where Ontario NDP candidate Lisa Vezeau-Allen had the podium all to herself.
Why? None of the other candidates showed up.
It’s a detail that was not missed by the crowd, who did not mince words about the absence of all other candidates vying for power in next week’s provincial election.
“How can all these candidates be invited specifically and not show up? This is not democracy. This is not fair,” said one resident.
“The others just did not respond to you, a yay a nay or nothing?” asked another.
“Nothing,” confirmed moderator Adam Guizzeti, who said all candidates were emailed about the meeting.
Hosted by the United Steelworks Local 2251, a table with chairs and a podium were laid out for candidates to take turns addressing the crowd, but Vezeau-Allen spent the whole evening up at the podium fielding questions.
“I can’t comment on the actions of others. I can only comment on myself,” said the two-term Ward 2 city councillor, when asked about the absence of the other candidates.
“I care about this community. I want to be a good leader. You need to be a good listener, and to be a good listener you need to be around people and know what their needs are.”
From the party’s $4-billion plan to recruit 3,500 doctors to Ontario – including 200 family physicians, and 150 specialists to northern Ontario – to “listen(ing) to workers” to shore up service gaps in the community, Vezeau-Allen had the opportunity to share her platform completely unchallenged.
“We need to listen to workers – what do they need, especially in terms of those that may want to have retraining, and we need to connect retraining with where we're having gaps in our community,” she said.
“In the next five years, we're going to need to hire 30 more paramedics, so we need to actually connect where the workforce gaps are with those folks that might need retraining.”
With the looming threat of U.S. tariffs, she also mentioned the need to “get all levels of government” together with workers, unions and industry leaders to put together a plan.
“We need to look at diversifying our exports and diversifying our supply chain. We can't be reliant upon one country for all of that,” she said.
One parent expressed frustration with the reigning Conservative party, mentioning it took six years of waitlists to connect her child – who lives with autism – to the services they needed.
“I was really, really hoping that the other parties were here because I really wanted to hear the answers,” she said.
“I want to hear your answer, but I really want to know what the Conservative plan was, because it's just been a non-stop revolving door of different ministers in that position that have promised and promised and promised and promised. It's just the promises and nothing's been fulfilled.”
Vezeau-Allen, who said she has “been through this journey” with her own family, conceded that it’s “near impossible” to connect with services in the north.
“I don't think government has ever done it properly, so we need to talk,” she said.
“It affects the education system, it affects families, all of the above. There is a plan in terms of education and identifying needs to make it more data driven with the NDP plan, but this is something that I will push.”
The Other Candidates
PC Leader Doug Ford chose Chris Scott, the first candidate who announced that he was running, without holding a local vote. Scott was announced as the PC candidate on Jan. 28.
Gurwinder Dusanjh is the candidate for the Liberals.
Jaycob Jacques is running for the Green Party.
Arnold Heino is running for the New Blue party.
And the Ontario Party candidate is Paul Frolich.
Voters will head to the polls on Feb. 27.