2022 Ontario election special coverage presented by Pete’s Auto Body
To help you understand how the candidates on the ballot in Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound in the 2022 Ontario election feel about some key issues, Bayshore Broadcasting News provided several questions to the nine candidates running in the riding.
Housing affordability, inflation, climate change and labour shortages in key industries, were among the issues the candidates shared their thoughts on.
Independent candidate Reima Kaikkonen did not provide responses prior to the deadline for publication.
Over the next couple of days in the lead up to Thursday’s vote, candidate answers will be featured on bayshorebroadcasting.ca.
Some of these issues, and others, were addressed during the Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound All Candidates Discussion on 560 CFOS Monday morning as well. You can listen to the podcast here.
Below, you can view the candidate responses provided to a question about PSW, nursing and ECE labour shortages. Candidate responses to questions about housing affordability and inflation can also be viewed in separate posts. Tomorrow, answers to a question about climate change will be published.
Question: Our region has been dealing with labour shortages for personal support workers and nurses in hospitals and long-term care homes, as well as early childhood educators in childcare centres. What regulatory approach, if any, would you advocate for in government to incentivize more people to work in these industries?
Answers:
Rick Byers, Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario
I have heard the concern for nursing and PSW resources and support as I have knocked on doors in this election.
The PC government invested $763 million to provide Ontario’s nurses with a lump sum retention incentive of up to $5,000 per person and a further $1.3 billion to enhance wages of over 158,000 workers who deliver publicly funded personal support services.
Going forward, there will be a record $4.9 billion investment for training and hiring 27,000 staff including PSWs, nurses and doctors.
In our region, the new standalone nursing program at Georgian College is an excellent new program to enhance qualification resources for nurses, as well as encourage qualified nurses to stay in our community. Nursing students will no longer need to leave Grey Bruce to get their education.
I will work to ensure we have the proper support for nurses and PSW’s in our community and across the province.
Karen Gventer, New Democratic Party of Ontario
Ford’s Bill 124 left health care workers feeling underpaid and abused by a regressive government policy. It capped wage increases to 1%, which is well below the current rate of inflation, which means that these vital workers are making less every year!. Bill 124 prevents nurses and other health care workers from negotiating a fair wage. An NDP government would immediately scrap this mean spirited legislation.
Skilled personal support workers and early childhood educators do incredibly important work. They look after our loved ones and are underpaid. An NDP government would give personal support workers a raise of at least $5 above pre-pandemic levels. We would immediately increase the standard wage for child care workers to $25 per hour for Registered Early Childhood Educators (RECEs), and $20 per hour for all other program staff. Society cannot function without the contribution of these people. The NDP would seek to end the adversarial relationship previous governments have fostered with these sectors.
Finally, we must recognize the skills and credentials of foreign-educated health workers. We would immediately pass NDP MPP Doly Begum’s Fairness for Ontario’s Internationally Trained Workers Act, which addresses accreditation barriers for internationally trained professionals.
Selwyn Hicks, Ontario Liberal Party
Ontario Liberals will:
-End Doug Ford’s war on health care heroes by scrapping Bill 124, raise the Personal Support worker base pay to at least $25 per hour and increase wages for all health care workers.
-Ensure that mental health services are available for all health care professionals.
-Train and hire 100,000 nurses, doctors and other health care workers over the next six years (prioritizing full-time roles) as we replace retiring workers and expand our system.
-Clear the surgical backlog with a $1 billion investment in additional capacity over the next two years.
-Hire internationally-trained health professionals.
-Add more nursing and medical school spaces.
-Cover tuition costs for medical and nursing students working in a rural or remote community.
-Cover tuition costs for all Early Childhood Educators.
-Cover tuition costs for all Personal Support Workers.
-Expand the scope of practice for pharmacists to permit them to prescribe for minor ailments and administer more vaccines.
Danielle Valiquette, Green Party of Ontario
The Greens will repeal Bill 124, pay PSWs, nurses and ECEs a fair wage and hire 33,000 nurses. In the Leaders Debate, Green Party leader MIke Schreiner said, “If you want to build capacity in our system you have to invest in the people that deliver our care, and nurses are the backbone.”
The Greens will invest in healthcare workers:
-Establish a nurse-led task force to make recommendations on matters related to recruitment, retention and safety.
-Immediately repeal Bill 124 and the problematic sections of Bill 106 and allow all healthcare workers to bargain collectively for fair wages. Until then, provide a minimum hourly wage of $35 to registered practical nurses and $25 to personal support workers.
-Increase nursing program enrollments by 10% every year for 7 years and the number of trained nurse practitioners by 50% by 2030 to enable us to meet our target of at least 30,000 additional nurses.
-Support certification upgrades for healthcare workers through an expanded bridging program.
-Fast-track credential approvals for 15,000 international healthcare workers.
-Guarantee access to the most appropriate safety equipment in all healthcare facilities, and use the precautionary principle when protecting workers.
Suzanne Coles, Ontario Party
An Ontario Party Government Will:
-Streamline the process for accreditation of foreign-trained healthcare professionals who have been trained in jurisdictions with similar accreditation standards as Canada.
-Open up more spots in Canadian medical schools, which have become notoriously challenging to gain entry. Many smart, young prospective Canadian medical students are travelling to schools in Ireland, the Caribbean and elsewhere, and then finding jobs in the USA. Time to keep these smart students at home.
-Explore broadening the role of nurse practitioners and the creation of other, new healthcare provider roles.
-Protect and assist private and charitable organizations providing alternatives to established medical providers when caring for individuals and families in crisis situations (e.g., Crisis Pregnancy Care Centres; Covid Care Alliance).
-Enact legislation that will return all individuals who were unlawfully terminated, due to Doug Ford’s vaccine policies, to their employment.
-End The Ford government’s $10 day care plan which would cap the salaries of RECE’s and cause centers to shut down.
Vince Grimaldi, New Blue Party
First we need to re-hire our health care workers, from wrongly dismissed. To promote our educational system. Education system needs more hands on, in training programs, incentive programs with scholarships and bursaries, to students who desire to establish their education. Also develop agriculture in this area.
Joel Loughead, None of the Above Direct Democracy Party
Nurses are professionals who care for our sickest, most vulnerable, and most needy members of society. Their job is demanding and difficult, and should be recognized as such.
We’re quick to call them healthcare heroes, but where is the pay to back this up? The PC government shamefully capped nurses’ annual salary increase at one fifth inflation. What an insult and disservice to Ontarians.
Nurses, ECEs, and teachers deserve good pay and good working conditions. Period. Why do Doug Ford and the Progressive Conservatives get to speak for all Ontarians when only 4 out of 10 voters chose him?
Proportional representation and collaborative government ensures our public services aren’t sold out from underneath us and our civil servants are treated with the respect they deserve.
Joseph Westover, Populist Party of Ontario
UBI or universal basic income would be banned in the province of Ontario as UBI including CERB served as a disincentive to work.
We would rehire all fired nurses and doctors that refused to take the vaccine immediately.
We would immediately evaluate the College of physicians and surgeons of Ontario, The College of nurses in Ontario and the College of pharmacy in Ontario to determine how those entities can be revamped to function in the public interest and not in big Pharma.
We would completely decouple from big Pharma and we would ban all big Pharma lobbying of healthcare.
We would advocate for school choice everything from homeschooling to pod learning to charter schools to tutoring as well as introducing skilled trades in high school to equip our youth with the necessary tools when coming out of high school to be a skilled trades ticketed adult ready to work in a well-paying job.
*Editor’s note: Any incomplete answers were cut to meet the 200-word count limit on responses candidates were informed of.