Piccini ready to get to work
Riding includes Norwood, Keene in Peterborough County
NORTHUMBERLAND - After a resounding win on election night, David Piccini, the soon to be sworn in Northumberland Peter borough South MPP, said he is looking forward to the days and weeks to come.
Having experienced a mix of emotions leading up to and on June 7, when voters in the riding elected him with 27,368 votes, Piccini also looked back on a one-and-a-half-year campaign that took him to all corners of the vast new riding.
"There is an element of relief to it all and an element of anxiety before the results come in, " he told Northumberland News. "We knew by all of our metrics leading up to the election that we were going to do well."
He said the reception he and his team received during the final week was very positive, with residents telling him "I voted for you, way to go and don't let us down."
"We'd knocked on more doors than anyone has ever knocked on here, and I have been to every corner of the riding in my second vehicle after working one into the ground, " said Piccini.
After running out of campaign signs two weeks before election day, he said he knew his message was received and was accepted by voters.
"We were striking the right tone with the voters and there was a change sentiment, " he said.
Asked about the key issues facing this riding and the challenges ahead, Piccini said the Progressive Conservatives want to build a more prosperous Ontario.
"We feel, with this being vindicated on election night, that the best way of doing that will be through lowering our hydro rates with our 12 per cent promise, " he said, adding "I want to get government off everybody's back and we want to put more money in people's pockets."
Piccini also intends to lower the small business tax rate and lower the middle class tax bracket by 20 per cent.
"It's about ensuring those who are working part-time and fulltime on minimum wage aren't paying any income tax and have the child care support that they need, " he said, adding that he
saw a fundamental difference in approaches between the parties during this election.
"The answer that the Liberals and NDP were proposing I felt, and why I had to run, was wrong, " he said.
Pointing to the provincial government pre-Doug Ford, Piccini said,
"We've seen that government doesn't have a revenue problem - it has a spending problem.
"We're mismanaging and we have problems, but let's make it bigger and bigger and bigger, " he said of what he saw the Liberal government doing. "Ontarians categorically rejected that on election night. They wanted a smaller government, one that is modest and lives within its means, and that puts more money in their pockets."
He said his belief and message at the door that "a dollar is better spent in your pocket than it is in government coffers, " resonated with local voters.
When it comes to the challenges ahead, Piccini said he has no idea what the true state of the province's economy is, what the numbers are nor what the deficit is.
"I look forward to sitting down and reviewing the auditor general reports again, sitting with caucus and getting the real fiscal picture so that we can be honest with Ontarians, " he added.
Suspecting that none of the recommendations outlined in the 2012 Drummond Report - which looked at ways of reducing that deficit - "were listened to" by the previous government, Piccini said he would like to see that revisited first.
"I think that will be a step in the right direction along with being open with the people of Northumberland-Peterborough South, " he said.
"We have made essential promises that we have to keep. These are our election promises - our hallmark promises that we made - and we fully intend on keeping those."
With a new party now at the helm in the riding, Liberal candidate Lou Rinaldi, who has served as MPP for 12 of the last 15 years, told supporters "it's been the best 12 years of my life" as election results rolled in at the Carpenter's Union Hall on election night.
While he said he wished the circumstances were different, "this is still the best country in the world, " he told the crowd as the polls closed and he knew he had lost.
Rinaldi will likely not run again, he said at the time. Moving forward, he'll be looking forward to spending time with his grandchildren.
He'll be able to attend his granddaughter's hockey games now, he said.
Piccini said he received a call from Rinaldi that night and thanked him for the work he has done in the riding.
"I have a lot of respect and admiration for Lou. He has served our community with dignity and respect, with a determination and hard work ethic to deliver results for this community, " he said, adding that he admires and respects him for them. "I know I have big shoes to fill and look forward to doing it."
On election night Piccini was elected with 27,368 votes compared to the NDP's Jana Papuckoski with 14,794 votes and Rinaldi's 14,593 votes.
"I think things now have been turned over to a new generation in our community, " Piccini said, adding he wanted to set the record straight on a few things he heard during his campaign trail.
"Two of the great ones was that you don't live in our community, which is hilarious because I have lived here for the last year-and-ahalf, plus I grew up in this community ... and (that) I missed debates that I attended, " he said, pointing out that he resides in Port Hope.
"That's how I knew we were doing well when the opposition started getting so desperate that they said I didn't live here."
When it comes to attending debates, Piccini said he took part in four debates in Port Hope and Cobourg and would "make no apologies for getting out to the rural communities."
"Where I am vindicated is when you look at those election results. I engaged people in the furthest corners of this community, " he said. "From single moms who are looking after their kids to single dads who are the primary providers for their families and who are looking after providing child care - they can't come down to Cobourg."
During the next election he said he would like to see more debates take place in the furthest corners of the riding, places like Norwood and Keene.
"In the absence of that, I made a commitment to get out there. I did it and the poll results and signs up there speak volumes to how those people felt when for the first time in their lives, a politician actually walked down the driveway, " said Piccini.
He also weighed in on the Campaign Life Coalition, a national pro-life organization working at all levels of government to secure full legal protection for all human beings, from the time of conception to natural death, which released a list of supportable candidates before June 7.
The group states on their website that "to make our assessments, we reached out to candidates right across the province and evaluated the responses they provided to our in-depth questionnaire."
"To set the record straight on that, I had zero dealings with Campaign Life Coalition and I don't know where they got that, "he said of his name being on their supportable candidates list. "I've had zero interactions and filled out no questionnaire."
Piccini said his party will not legislate nor roll back any legislation that provides "choice for women, or their reproductive choices."
"You can hold true to whatever views you have. Where that concern derives from is people feel that based on whatever my views or someone else's views might be, will we legislate and we won't, "he said, "We've made it crystal clear - we will not introduce any legislation or reopen this debate at full stop, period.
We are the only party that actually gives people the freedom of choice."
Piccini said he will be sworn in at Queen's Park in Toronto on June 29.