“We will give an opportunity to people…”

 

A year-end conversation with Dalton McGuinty, MP.

Leader of the official opposition and leader of the Liberal Party of Ontario.

 

By Thomas S. Saras

Editor-in-chief

 

Portrait of the politician

 

 

 

Dalton McGuinty – Leader of the Official Opposition of Ontario and Leader of the Ontario Liberal Party in an exclusive interview.

Dalton McGuinty was born in Ottawa on July 19, 1955 into a family with a long tradition in Ontario Liberal politics.

His father, Dalton James McGuinty Sr. held the Ottawa South riding before passing away in 1990.

His mother, Elizabeth McGuinty, currently resides in Ottawa where she works as a nurse.

After graduating from St. Patrick’s High School in Ottawa, McGuinty worked as an orderly at Rideau Veterans’ Hospital. His experience as a caregiver would later form the basis of his values about health care.

McGuinty went on to complete a Bachelor of Science degree in biology and a law degree from the University of Ottawa.

Before entering politics, McGuinty practiced law and founded the law firm of McGuinty and McGuinty. He also taught business law at Carleton University.

Following in his father’s footsteps, McGuinty won the Ottawa South seat in the 1990 elections. He served as opposition Critic for Energy, Colleges and Universities, and Native Affairs.

He was chair of the Caucus Committee on Public Accounts.

An active MPP, McGuinty introduced several private members’ bills, two of which are now law. One of his bills made tougher for kinds to get hooked on cigarettes, the other helped increase donations to Ontario food banks.

His dedication and commitment to public service resulted in his election on December 1, 1996, as Leader of the Ontario Liberal Party and Leader of the Official Opposition.

Soon after becoming leader, McGuinty struck a task force on children’s issues. In February 1998, McGuinty produced his plan to improve the lives of our children, called First Steps. It contains 41 recommendations, including calls for giving mothers and their new born the right to stay in hospital for at least 48 hours after childbirth; providing job-protection, unpaid family leave for medical emergencies; setting up a province wide home visiting program for new mothers and their babies; and restoring senior kindergarten.

McGuinty and his wife, Terri (nee Taylor), a schoolteacher in Ottawa, were married in 1980. They have four children; Carleen, Dalton Jr., Liam and Connor.

Mr. Dalton McGuinty and his party, the Liberal Party of Ontario seem to be the first choice of the Ontario voters for the time being.

 

The interview

 

Dalton Mcguinty: “We need to transform politics by including people on the decisions that affect their lives.”

TS:     It is a pleasure again to be able to interview you. Thank you very much for the opportunity. How do you think the first year of the 21st century ended?

DM:     I am disappointed, as most Ontarians are, to learn that even though we have just enjoyed six of the most prosperous years in the history of our province, we are not in a position to weather an economic downturn. We are looking into the next year with the government telling us that we could be facing a deficit of $5 billion. Yet, this same government still has not learned its lessons. It does not understand that there is more to good economic policy than simply cutting taxes.  So, despite our facing a $5 billion deficit, they still want to cut corporate taxes by $2.2 billion. They still want to put half a billion dollars into the private schools and they are still wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on partisan political advertising. The Ontario Liberals, however, have an alternative approach: our Ontario Security Plan.

 

TS:     Can you tell us about this Ontario Security Plan?

DM:     My plan is all about the economic slow down. I think we should do with the provincial economy what our families do in their homes - when things start to get a bit tight you are prudent and you are measured. You do not do anything over dramatic. We should do the same thing in government. During the course of the last two budgets, the Tory government promised to invest $1 billion in capital projects - schools, roads, bridges, hospitals and the like. So far, they have spent only $14 million dollars on capital projects, although they said they would spend $1 billion.

I know what they are doing - they are saving up that money until closer to election time when they can have photo-ops and handout cheques. However, these are not usual times, so we are saying ‘take the money and invest it now - in our roads, schools, bridges, colleges, hospitals and universities - and create construction jobs.’ This way we can inspire some consumer confidence and, at the same time, not compromise our long-term fiscal flexibility, which happens when you cut taxes.

 

TS:     Since September 11, 2001 many things have changed in the North American markets as well as in the economy and society. This will probably affect our economy for the next five or six years. Ontario, which has the strongest economy in Canada and has been very supportive of the United States, will be affected more than any other province in Canada. Do you have any specific ideas with how to cope with a potential economic down turn?

 

DM:     Yes. 95% of our exports go to the United States. We are married for better or for worse to the American economy. The reason we have been so prosperous in the last six and a half years is not because of Mike Harris’ tax cuts; it’s because the American economy has been firing in all nine cylinders and because of a very low Canadian dollar. We have been an excellent place for people to buy their things from. But here is the real concern: we have problems at the border and in a just-in-time world, problems at the border are job killers. What we have to do now is work as hard as we can in co-operation with the federal government. I do not mean run ads accusing the federal government of one thing or another. I mean sitting there and working with the federal government to ensure there is a free flow of goods, services and people back and forth across that border at all times.

We also understand, unlike the Harris’ government, that in the new economy the drivers of growth are going to be knowledge and innovation, research and development, and commercialization. We recently had a study done, in my hometown of Ottawa, and we asked businesses:  “What will it take to come here and to invest here?”  We asked all around Europe and the United States and we gathered a list of twenty things. Number nine on the list is taxes. Do you know what number one is on the list?  Highly skilled and educated workers. Why? Because they are really hard to come by. So, it is really important to continue to support better public education as well as colleges and universities.

This government wants the lowest taxes in North America. I want the most highly skilled and educated workers. And I know what those people want. They are very mobile. They are as mobile today as financial capital. Human capital is as fluid as financial capital. What do those workers want? Those workers say, “We have families and we want the best schools for our families. We want to know that there is a doctor in our community, we want to make sure that there are enough nurses in our hospitals, we want air that does not make our children sick, we want water that we can trust.”  Those are the kinds of things that I have been talking about for eleven years.

 

TS:     Do you think that you will have the ability to implement these things when we know the problems that we will face in the near future will be very harsh, especially with a war that is permanent, even though they do not want to admit it? How can an economy improve under such circumstances?

DM:     First of all no one knows how long the economic downturn will last. Secondly, the downturn, I know you did not say this but just so your readers know, was not caused by the events of the 11th of September. Our financial accounting here in Ontario showed that we were into a serious downturn before that happens. But the 11th of September surely made it worse.

It is hard to anticipate when the turnaround will begin, but I think one of the things we must do now is get ready for growth. Now is the time for us to be prudent and measured. I do not think we have to run a deficit.  I do not think we have to raise taxes. But what I would do is cancel that corporate tax cut. That would give me $2.2 billion. I would also cancel the private school tax credit and I would ban political advertising.  Now I have up to $3 billion. With $3 billion, I would continue to support public education, the colleges and the universities. I would make sure that our knowledge workers, our highly skilled educated workers, could find good schools, good hospitals, clean air and clean water. We would lay a foundation that would be very attractive to investment. That is what we would do to prepare for the growth that will inevitably come.

The other thing that I believe we should keep in mind, another big driver of growth, will be a growth from our new understanding that it is in our own self-interest that we continue to expand the envelope of hope and prosperity. What I mean by this is that we now understand that there are many parts of the world, which are not as nearly as wealthy as we are. More than half the world has never made a telephone call. It is important for us to help other parts of the world develop and enjoy peace, hope and prosperity. And when we do that, they will need our products. Do you know who has the best brand in the world when it comes to international appeal? The Canadian brand. Do you know which part of our country has all the diversity that we need so that we can deal with and market ourselves in the rest of the world? It is Ontario and, more specifically, Toronto. All of those things are assets, which I will capitalize on.

 

TS:     I do not know if you travel by car within the greater Toronto area, but our roads seem to be getting more and more crowded and there does not seem to be any new plans for expansion. Under the circumstances, if your projections about growth are true, we are going to face serious problems with our roads. We have huge trucks, vans and cars bumper to bumper on any highway in Toronto. How are you preparing to deal with this problem?

DM      There are a few things that I believe we should be doing. The government has to be a leader that brings partners to the table. The federal government and the municipal government should be there. People want to have an option. They want to be able to get out of their cars so that they can travel to and from work without having to be stuck behind the wheel and having to contend with road rage and all the frustrations and exhaustion that comes with driving yourself to and from work. We have to get back into public transit. The other thing we need is more roads and we should be sitting down with the private sector and looking for creative ways that at all times serve the public interest when it comes to ensuring that we have more roads. It would be nice to say that we will never need to build more roads and put everyone on the public transit or GO trains, but that is unrealistic.

 

TS:     In the last few years, those citizens with very low income and means have suffered tremendously because of the cuts and because of the apathy of the society in general. Do you have any plans to improve this situation?

DM:     We have been asking the government to give a cost-living increase to those people who find themselves on welfare. The economy had been growing for six and a half years and suddenly it stopped growing. But those people find themselves in the same position as they were six years ago when Mike Harris cut their welfare. Recently the government came up with a $100 Christmas bonus. The problem with that [bonus program] is that it discriminates against children in families on social assistance because the program does not extend to parents on welfare.

 

TS:     Why does that apply only to children who are seven and younger? What happens if they are seven and a half or eight? What happens to those children?

DM:     The Tories spent another million dollars this week on an advertisement attacking the federal government over the healthcare issue. Well, if they really wanted to do something at Christmastime that will have a real benefit to families struggling to make ends meet, and then they could have put that money into their Christmas bonus program.

 

TS:     You have recently came up with a plan called the Democratic Charter; will you tell us about this?

DM:     I am very proud of that. It is all about taking power away from big money and people working in the backrooms and giving it back to ordinary people and their representatives.

One of the first things we are going to do is give people an opportunity, by means of a referendum, to decide if our current voting system is the best way to elect politicians. Right now, we have a ‘first-past-the-post’ system, which we have been using for close to 150 years. Many people have argued that there is a way to improve on it. Well, we will look at that and give people an option to make that decision.

We will also give MPPs more power to vote the opinions of their constituents. There will be some exceptions. If you run as part of the McGuinty Liberal Platform, you have to vote in favour of legislation arising from that campaign platform. Budgets and throne speeches must also be supported. But there are other things that come up in between and I think it is important for an MPP to be able to express the wishes of his or her constituents.

The other thing is that we will ban political advertising. If my government wants to run an ad, we will take the ad over to the provincial auditor and he will review it. He will either say, “McGuinty, this ad is in the public interest so its okay for you to run it and use the taxpayers’ money to pay for it.” Or he can say that the ad is not in the public interest, that it is about putting your face on TV and, so, your own party will have to pay for it.  This at least will ensure that an objective third party is making decisions to ensure taxpayers monies is not spent on political ads.

And the final thing is that we will have tight restrictions when it comes to how much money we can spend to win a campaign; how much money we can raise as a party and in a leadership race. The Tories are going to raise and spend one and a half million dollars each --- which does not include transportation. So, altogether you are looking at well over two million dollars per individual. Big money is becoming an unhealthy influence in Ontario.

 

TS:     What do think about the contenders going up for the leadership?

DM:     They are all the same, it does not make any difference. They all sat around the cabinet table; they all helped shape those policies; they are all strong believers in those policies and they all helped implement those policies. Whether we are talking about cuts to water inspectors in the case of Walkerton, or whether we are talking about letting go thousands of nurses, resulting in the fewest nurses per capita in the country. Whether you are talking about using teachers as political punching bags, which means our children are not doing as nearly as well as they should be or whether you are talking about the new 2.2 billion-dollar corporate tax cuts.  They keep telling us we are going to run a deficit -- so if we are running a deficit how can we afford another tax cut? None of them has said they are prepared to roll back that tax cut.  I know that the media like to talk about this person being on the right and this person being on the left or the center. Well I have watched them for six and a half years and from twenty feet away. Believe me there is no left or center, they are all on the right.

 

TS:     So you are saying that whoever is elected, it will have no effect on your plans. You have your plans and you are going to implement them, as you are prepared.

DM:     Yes.

 

TS:     As we do every year at this time, we are asking for your special message to our readers.

DM:     First of all, I want to thank you for your support. I want to thank the Greek community not only for their support of me, but also for their support of our province and for enriching the quality of our lives. I want to thank them for the significant roles they have taken on. Whether we are talking about the business world, culture, sports, or academia, the Greek community has had an influence for good and I wish everyone happy holidays.

 

TS:     Thank you for your time and the interview to us.