There was a candidates meeting the other evening for the federal election candidates in the local electoral district. It was this national election in microcosm. The event in a church was sponsored by the Simcoe County Alliance to End Homelessness. Like this election, the candidates’ answers to homelessness were too long and yet inadequate. And we learn from Sun Media’s Barrie newspaper that the Conservative candidate came for a cameo and left.
But what the Conservative candidate was not hiding was his fear. Watching him closely at a previous all-candidate event, you could see the anger and frustration that he has been building throughout this long campaign. He obviously has no confidence in his generally weak and poorly run organization. He lacks the experience or knowledge of political campaigning at this level to understand his problems.
He is hardly unique in that. The candidate with the most experience in multiple previous election campaigns is the Libertarian candidate. His contribution to the evening’s subject was to not tax seniors for funds for housing and to legalize cannabis. Luckily nobody is too concerned about the Libertarians running the country.
The conundrum for the Conservative candidate is that he is posing as having been raised in poverty in Barrie. Yet he fled the meeting because neither he not his party has any thoughts or ideas to contribute on homelessness or poverty.
At least the party platforms of the Greens, Liberals and New Democrats have monies allocated to affordable housing. The Liberal pumped the party’s housing-first initiatives along with the seven per cent income tax cut for the middle class. (To be fair, he also pointed out that the Liberals have committed to working closely with the provinces and municipalities on this and other problems.)
Not to be outdone, the NDP candidate complained about the unequal distribution of wealth in Canada. She said that the NDP will build 10,000 new housing units for Canadians in need while also providing $15 day care for everybody.
Not to be left behind, the Green candidate promised 20,000 new housing units and 10,000 fixed-up fixer uppers per year for the next ten years. He said that this would all be funded by a carbon tax on the oil and gas industry.
All of this was much easier to say without the Conservative candidate there to confuse the issues. Mind you, it is just one more issue that the Conservative platform does not seem to recognize. It is also why you can sense the fear from top to bottom of the Conservative campaign. The party has no answers for Canadians.
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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry
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