John Mogk, New Democratic Party
Birth place: Kitchener, Ont.
Occupation: Clinical mental health and addictions counsellor, Fraser Health
Main reason for running? What do you want to accomplish?
Working as a mental health and addictions counsellor, I’ve seen so many people not get the help they need. When that happens it’s not good for anyone. And I know we can do better. I really want to improve our health care. I want to make sure everyone has the medication they need, the dental care they need and the mental health and addictions care and particularly around that for Maple Ridge, I want to see more out-patient treatment and more supports given to people that are in shelters so they can move to be more productive people in society.
Question: How would you or your party address the constantly increasing cost of living and housing?
Answer: We want to build 500,000 affordable housing units across the country. We want to make sure that telecom companies are not gouging us, like they are now, so we’re going to put limits on what they can charge for cellphone and internet service. The improvements in health care is going to save a lot of money for people … pharmacare and dental care.
Question: Why would your party be the most effective in addressing homelessness and mental illness in Maple Ridge?
Answer: Because we want to build affordable housing and lots of it. We have the most aggressive housing building platform of any party. By making mental health care part of people’s MSP, they can get that help without having to jump through all the hoops, it will help a lot. We want to improve detox services so that people can get it on demand.
Question: What is the most pressing environmental issue and how would you address it?
Answer: For our planet, the most pressing issue is climate change, we want do that by meeting scientifically based targets … so that we can meet our Paris-climate goals.
ocally, I think the most pressing issue is having a healthy coastline and being friends of salmon. The salmon are in danger and we want to make sure that for one thing, that the salmon farms that are in the water are moved into land-containment facilities, because the salmon farms are endangering our wild salmon. So that’s a real pressing issue that we need to get solved right away.