Ford questions immigration plan
Doug Ford, Kathleen Wynne and Andrea Horwath take part in Friday’s leaders’ debate. Province should take ‘care of our own first’ PC leader says at debate
PARRY SOUND, ONT.— Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford says the province should be “taking care of our own first” before bringing more immigrants to sparsely populated northern Ontario.
In the second leaders’ debate of the June 7 election campaign, Ford said Friday he had concerns about replicating a federal pilot project underway in Atlantic Canada to attract newcomers to remote parts of Ontario.
“I’d be more than happy to sit down and talk to the folks and look at a pilot project. But number one — I’m a pretty generous guy — I’m taking care of our own first,” he told delegates to tthe Federation of Northern On- tario Municipalities conference here.
“Once we take care of our own and we exhaust, we exhaust, every single avenue and we don’t have anyone that can fulfil the job then I’d be open to that,” he said.
Both Liberal Leader Kathleen Wynne and NDP Leader An- drea Horwath expressed astonishment afterward.
“I have to say I took a pretty sharp intake of breath at that point, I have to admit,” said Wynne.
“That was a pretty shocking comment to hear from the leader of a major provincial party. We live in one Ontario,” she said, adding she was prepared to discuss with Ottawa such a program to bring people to the north. there’s “To have one Doug province Ford that’s say that for one kind of Ontarian and there’s another province for another kind of Ontarian — that just is the opposite of how I see this strong, vibrant, diverse society that we have built here.” aan Horwath, initiative, who told also reporters backs such it seemed that Ford “missed the point of the question.” “The point of the question was tthat these northern municipal- ities need more population,” said the NDP leader. “They’re opening their communities they want to the immigration provincial gov- and ernment and negotiate to step these up to the kinds plate of agreements with the federal government to get those kinds of skills and newcomers to come north.” Ford, who held a press conference earlier in the day, skipped the post-debate scrums done by the other leaders. The debate marked a tactical change from Ford, who leads in every public-opinion poll, but has focused his attacks on the Liberals, ignoring the New Democrats. On Friday, he dismissed Hor-wath and Wynne as "the same," then escalated the populist rhetoric. In Muskoka, Ford took aim at "downtown Toronto elites" and "extremists, the environmen-talists" that support his two ri-vals. The scion of a wealthy family — and a former Toronto coun-cillor whose late brother was the city's mayor — said he alone will fight for "the little guy?' "Both of them think they are smarter than everyone else and the people in downtown Toron-to dictate to the rest of the prow incer Ford said. "I'll tell you one thing — I'm not going to have a bunch of extremists in downtown To-ronto deciding what people in the north are going to do; he said, referring to those who op-pose mining projects, including Kingston-area NDP candidate Ramsey Hart, who has protest-ed mines. Wynne countered that it's im-portant to strike "a balance" to promote mining that is good for the economy while working with Indigenous communities and those concerned about en-vironmental impacts. Horwath bristled at Ford's suggestion that Hart was a rad-ical. 'Well first and foremost, the candidate he's referring to actu-ally is the executive director of a food bank and I hardly find that a radical activity," she said. Horwath, daughter of an auto-worker, scoffed at the notion the was an "elite" "I'm a Hamilton elite, come on, everybody knows that" The third — and final — lead-ers' debate is May 27 at the CBC Broadcasting Centre.