Candidates out to score political points clashed in Pitt Meadows on Tuesday night.
Four of the five candidates running in the provincial election did verbal battle in an all-candidates meeting for the riding of Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows, hosted by the Chamber of Commerce for an audience of about 100 people .
Doug Bing, the Liberal party’s incumbent and a former three-term city councillor in Pitt Meadows, attacked the NDP’s election promises, calling their platform a “$6.4 billion crater.”
“Just removing and eliminating tolls between the Golden Ears Bridge and the Port Mann Bridge will mean a loss of $200 million a year,” said Bing. “This money is supposed to pay down the bridge over 40 years, as a $4 billion investment by the province, and it has to be paid for. You can’t just walk away from it.”
NDP candidate Lisa Beare, a member of the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows School Board, attacked the Liberal government for its record on homelessness, poverty and protection of children.
“This is the result of 16 years of BC Liberal neglect,” she said of the growing number of homeless. “This crisis has happened under Christy Clarke and the BC Liberals’ watch. They allowed our local homeless issue to grow to a crisis level, without any real solutions being provided.”
She said the NDP has identified solutions.
“We will create a ministry of health and addictions so someone is actually accountable and responsible for these issues. We will re-open Riverview, the facilities on those lands, to provide critical residential care, taking the pressures off our municipalities.
“Christy Clark and the bc liberals have starved our child protection system of resources, and failed to provide the basics of care.”
Steve Ranta, running as an independent, told the audience the mainstream parties are diverting the public’s attention away from important issues.
“Our parties have turned into marketing machines. They might have started with ideas that excited people, and got their membership going…” said Ranta. “Organizations like large corprations and political parties, they try to create a brand. And more dangerously, they try to stop you from thinking critically about the issues.”
Alex Pope of the Green Party talked about the need for investments in education, and his party’s plans to remodel the education system.
“I see an opportunity to improve standards of living for all bc residents by investing in clean technology and making choices that are more respectful of the environment,” added Pope. “I see our current government putting that at risk…”
They were asked how their parties would reform provincial taxes.
Bing asserted the government had a competitive tax system with the HST, but the issue became politicized. He suggested a government review of tax competitiveness might bring in a similar tax.
“I would think in the near future it (the HST issue) will be revived. If you look across the country, every province has gone to HST. We’re being left behind and it’s causing problems for our economy.”
Beare said the NDP would continue to oppose it.
“The BC NDP opposed the HST and will oppose the so-called made in B.C. Value Added Tax that the liberal governments panel on business taxation recently recommended, because it will massively increase taxes on consumers.”
Pope said the Greens would expand income tax credits, and favour a system similar to HST, which reduces bookkeeping.
“Equal societies are happier,” said Ranta. “There has to be a mechanism in a capitalist system to redistribute income from the top to the bottom, because it naturally accumulates at the top.”
The candidates clashed over daycare. Beare supported the idea of $10 per day daycare, similar to Quebec.
“Economic studies have shown that affordable, accessible child care generates significant economic activity and it pays for itself over time,” she said.
Bing said targetted child care is a better system, because it provides support to those who need it, rather than Quebec’s “harbrained scheme.”
“If this was so successful, then why does Quebec have one of the highest unemployment rates in the country?” he asked.
On the issue of tolls, Beare said the NDP will replace bridge tolls with lasting, fair solutions. She spoke with a father who had a toll bill of $1,200 recently.
“He didn’t know how he was going to pay his mortgage that month.”
Bing said the government is also making mortgage payments on bridges it has built, so they cannot be eliminated. However, the Liberals propose a cap on tolls of $500 per year.
“For the NDP to toss it out as an election bribe… it just won’t work,” said Bing.
Ranta said P3 partnerships only exist because corporations are looking for safe places to invest, and called the tolls “a step back into the Middle Ages.”
Pope said the Greens support mobility pricing in a variety of ways, and suggested the best might be a tax on mileage driven.