The Canadian economy and its rebound from the global recession was a common theme Sunday evening at Port Moody's Old Orchard Hall as four federal candidates spoke to voters in the riding of Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam.
Incumbent MP and cabinet minister James Moore told about 100 people at the all-candidates meeting hosted by the Pleasantside Community Association that his Conservative government set policies to ensure the country could weather the financial storm, including spending on public works to stimulate growth and create jobs.
The 10-year politician pointed to a number of Tri-City projects that received cash from the Economic Action Plan and through other recent funding programs: the Belcarra potable water; the East Road reconstruction in Anmore; upgrades to roads, the Port Moody recreation centre, Rocky Point Park and Hyde Creek recreation centre; and commitments to paying a third of the costs of the Evergreen Line from Burnaby to Coquitlam.
"Our government has invested more money in more projects in the Tri-Cities than any other government in Canadian history," he said.
But while Moore painted a rosy picture of the economic recovery, the Liberal and NDP candidates took shots at the Tories' priorities and spending.
Liberal candidate Stewart McGillivray, 19, a second-year UBC political science major, called Stephen Harper's five years as prime minister "mediocre," described the PM as untrustworthy and out-of-touch, and zeroed in on the Conservatives' initiatives.
"The Conservative platform makes middle-class families go to the back of the line and wait for at least five years behind jets, jails and corporations," he said, adding, "The last Conservative prime minister to bring us from a deficit to a balanced budget was John A. MacDonald in 1889. Canadians have no reason to trust Stephen Harper to balance the budget by 2016."
McGillivray said the Liberals left a $13-billion budget surplus behind when Harper took power in 2006. (In his rebuttal, Moore said the opposition under Michael Ignatieff supported past business and corporate tax cuts.)
NDP candidate Mark Ireland - the oldest on the panel at 42 - likened the economy to a food chain, with sharks (i.e., corporations) at the top and fish (i.e., working middle-class families) at the bottom.
He said his party would help the fish, who are struggling to make ends meet, as opposed to the corporations, which are getting tax breaks. The result, Ireland argued, would create a stronger economic foundation by providing well-paying jobs and social programs such as group health care and universal childcare (the NDP have promised a $4,500 job-creation tax credit to all businesses for every new hire and have vowed to lower the tax rate for small business to 9% while hiking the corporate tax to 19.5%).
As well, Ireland said, the NDP would get rid of burdensome taxes such as the HST.
Green Party candidate Kevin Kim, a fourth-year UBC student, mainly reiterated his party's stance on environmentally sound transportation, job creation and affordable housing initiatives. A first-time candidate whose six-page campaign brochure has three empty pages, Kim said he has heard from voters who say they are "tired of the hate politics today" and he plans to "rise above it," if elected.
Other topics raised by constituents at the all-candidates' meeting included proportional representation, affordable housing, white-collar crime, climate change, immigration, union donations and childcare.
jwarren@tricitynews.com
Check out Tri-City candidates' latest answers on page 18
