Kim Craitor – Liberal incumbent for Niagara Falls Riding – Addresses Ontario Election Issues

(Niagara At Large has previously posted a full address by Wayne Redekop, the former Fort Erie mayor running as the NDP candidate in the Niagara Falls riding, and covered his nomination meeting. NAL did not make it to the nomination meeting for that riding’s Liberal incumbent, Kim Craitor, and has yet to post a full address by him on the issues, as he sees them, in this provincial election. Therefore, to provide some balance, we are posting the following remarks Craitor made this September 6 during the opening of his campaign office in the Fort Erie, Ontario end of the riding. Regardless of your political leanings, we hope you find them informative.)

Good afternoon. It’s wonderful to be in Fort Erie. And a perfect place to kick off my 2011 campaign for Niagara and Fort Erie’s Future.

I love this town. I spent a lot of time working here when I was working for the Unemployment insurance office  here on Jarvis Street for 10 years and so did my wife Helen, when she worked for over 10 years at Gilmore Lodge
So when the riding was redistributed last term in 2007… I was delighted to have the chance to represent the citizens of Fort Erie’s communities of Ridgeway, Crystal Beach,  Stevensville, Black Creek, and of course Fort Erie itself.

I was surprised and disappointed when the former member, Tim Hudak decided not to contest his home riding and run against me in 2007. But it was not to be. He obviously went to a safer place and the rest is as they say… is history!   And here I am, back again. . Absolutely delighted to continue to represent the citizens of Fort Erie for four more years.

Over the past four years, no make that five years…I have strived to be the best representative this community ever had.  I say five years because I remember the start quite well.

Fort Erie was hit with a terrible pre-winter snow storm;  some call it the October Surprise.  Even though I was not the Fort Erie MPP at the time…I remember that former Mayor Wayne Redekop asked for my assistance to obtain 1.6 million dollars in emergency assistance so that the taxpayers could save a projected 7% increase in property taxes that year if no help was available.  I asked him “why me?” when the sitting member was Tim Hudak. His answer  was I know you care about Fort Erie, you are with the government and you care about us. I was able to secure that emergency assistance in the fastest time ever from Queen’s Park.

I want to talk to you about the issues I see us facing in this campaign.
1.    1.      Your timely access to health care,
2.    2.      You and your family’s economic well being or as I like to say jobs, jobs, jobs.
3.    3.      And the one thing the opposition doesn’t want to talk about, because we own it… quality education for our kids.

Elections are never about the past… they are only about the future.
And the future is much brighter because of what we have been able to accomplish together over the last 8 years and the plans we have put in place for the next four years.  We have done a lot… but much more remains.

Eight years ago, when I was first elected we were left a lousy legacy of debt and destruction. You will remember… power black outs, teacher strikes, and downloading.

Downloading is where you asked the municipalities to tax your property so the provincial government can pretend to balance their books at your expense. The Conservatives left us a troubled NHS where they amalgamated 7 hospital sites into one (the largest in the province)  They put in place a poor inbred Board of Directors governance system. That made it almost impossible to make necessary changes from the outside.

Things were so bad they even had left in place a “pretend supervisor.”  –  Dennis Timbrill, the former health minister and paid him approximately $1000/day to work on amalgamating the hospitals. It was a terrible plan and I joined with the doctors, nurses and residents to vigorously oppose it.

When I came to office the NHS, created by Tim Hudak, which he fully supported, was given an annual budget of $200 million.  Since I have been in office we have increased it to over $400 million.

When I came to office in 2003 Tim left a $5 billion dollar annual operating deficit, hidden in the budgets of Hydro, Hospitals and Universities as reported by the Auditor General of Ontario.

So don’t believe the Tories when you hear they balanced their budgets and we have not. That’s simply not true.  The only year the conservatives (since the sixties) balanced their budget was when they sold off highway 407 to a foreign, private consortium. It took us nearly 3 years but we tackled that deficit and then produced the first real provincial surplus since Liberal Finance Minister Bob Nixon did it in the 80’s.  And we balanced the budget for three years running and drove the debt down.

Thank goodness we did.  Yes we may have a deficit now … that was caused when the world economy collapsed. Through no fault of our own we were hit with a recession verging on a depression I know that time, two years ago, was tough… really tough … especially on small businesses and the specialized manufacturing industry.  Every other day I would get a call and somebody else needed help.The only solution was to stop the bleeding … help out the auto industry and reform our tax code.

Let me tell you I personally I did not like the HST, I defied my party and refused to support it. However, over and over the leaders of industry, employees and unions would tell me it was the only way to go. The Conservatives, in my opinion, echo the US Tea Party line and said “Let the weak die, the market place rules.”

The NDP said “No to corporate welfare” They do not believe the government should be helping out corporations such as Fort Erie Race Track, Rich Products, General Motors, Vincor, etc.  But I thought there was a way forward and we would have to go there together.

I said “yes” to investing in the people of Ontario. I said “yes” to investing in apprenticeships. And I said “yes” to investing in education and today we have one of the best education systems in the world… second to no one!
Ontario in partnership with the Federal conservatives was fiscally strong enough to invest in a great infrastructure program.  So I said “yes” to investing in infrastructure and our future together with the Federal Government and my colleague the Honourable Rob Nicholson. Especially when the Federal government offered a three way co-equal partnership to share dollar for dollar with us and the municipalities.

Those investments kept Ontario and Niagara working. It has worked so well that now Ontario has one of the strongest recovering economies in the entire world. Second only to Germany.

Here in Fort Erie we were able to invest in sewers for Crescent Park to stop the flooding. Infrastructure investments such as  Garrison and Ridge Road, build recreational facilities such as your new Skate Board Park for our kids, to make Old Fort Niagara new again and revitalize it as a major tourist attraction.
Today is the first day of school and I am happy to say that I worked with the parent council and the school board in Fort Erie to secure funding for renovation of Our Lady of Victory School.

I worked with Eurocopter, Riches, DMI, the Fort Erie Race Track, the Slots and many others to ensure local good paying jobs would remain in this Town.  Speaking of the race track,  I remember when Tim Hudak along with John Tory came into the riding and told the people of Fort Erie that they were going to close the slots, layoff all employees as their solution to saving the race track.
I estimate that in five years Fort Erie got about $20,000 million in investments a support. Let me tell you without my working with the Government to get that support. . . those jobs would not be here today.I want to say something about the nature of this campaign… I intend to be positive… very positive!.  It is my nature.

I want to talk about ideas. If slogans were solutions… then we would live in a perfect world. We don’t.  The Tories are promising you “Change for your pocket book.”   “Chump Change” I say… the people of Fort Erie do not want small change. They want to earn real dollars for the skills they have, and want to support a real growing economy. So their Kids don’t have to leave Niagara after high school, never to return… because we did not invest in building this community’s infrastructure.

I intend to continue to work hand in hand with the local town council and the economic development team to ensure a much brighter future for Fort Erie. A future that retains good jobs, a  future that builds on a solid foundation,  a future that has worthwhile jobs for our kids that we educate in our own college and university.

The NDP have a curious slogan – “Change that puts People first!” The people of Fort Erie are very lucky. They don’t have to change to put people first. I have always put people first and that’s my personal belief and hence the theme of my campaign.”Putting People First” – not the party… not the politics, but the people that put me here!

That’s why I worked with your Mayor to oppose the HIP Plan.That’s why when the leader of NDP came down to protest about the closing of the ER at Douglas Memorial Hospital.  I was there with the people of Fort Erie
I spent hours and hours talking with Dr. Kitts to get him focused on some of the real leadership and governance problems at the NHS. I worked hard to get a 24/7 Urgent care facility in place until we can get our own ER back. I was the first to request that the coroner investigate the unfortunate accident of Reilly Anzovino.  I did so … so the public and the government could get an unbiased outside opinion of the harm that might have been caused by the closure of the ER’s in Fort Erie and Port Colborne. Then I worked to get the family status before the Coroner’s inquest. Then I got them funding so they could get effective legal advice before the inquiry. (Guess who the lawyer is that got the funding?)

Leadership and lack of trust in that leadership was and is one of the biggest issues to resolve at the NHS.

For ultimately the NHS is run by an unelected board that self appoints itself. It is a flawed model of governance and one of the reasons I have been leading the fight for openness and transparency for any board or agency that receives public money from the province.

I worked with the Mayors of Fort Erie and Niagara Falls to get their councils and then the regional council to ask for a review of the HIP. The region supported it 23-3.  Obviously there was a problem.

Let me tell you no other sitting member would ever be so visible against such an entrenched community board. The Minister supported our request for a HIP review and then late last month she decided, and rightly so, to bring in a supervisor. It was the right move. While it’s unfortunate it did not happen earlier. that review and the independent HIP review will result in substantial positive changes and better health outcomes for us all.

I believe in the future of Fort Erie. I believe in the people of Fort Erie.  Always have … Always will…

There are only three promises I will make. I will repeat the one I made the first night I got elected…
1.    1.      I will always be me… what you see …is what you get!
2.    2.      I will always be your representative, not a party puppet who is afraid to speak up on real issues!
3.    3.      I will always put the people of this riding first.

Thank you coming out today.

(NAL invites our readers to share their views on this post in the comment boxes below.)