Race to watch: Sudbury
Riding at the centre of bribery scandal a tight battle between NDP, Liberals,
SUDBURY— It’s a riding that has had more than its share of the spotlight since the last provincial election.
Sudbury was the main attraction last fall at the height of an election bribery scandal, and a trial that garnered provincewide attention as Premier Kathleen Wynne travelled here to testify.
It’s the home riding of the minister of energy, as hydro rates — and complaints — soared amid concerns of people having to choose between “heating and eating.”
And then, earlier this year, came news that a Sudbury senior had spent almost two weeks in the local hospital, his bed crammed into a bathroom beside the toilet in another example of the “hallway medicine” the opposition had been hammering the governing Liberals about.
Add to that a community that has been waiting for years for a PET scanner, and a general feeling in the North that it has been overlooked, and this has be- come a riding where voters are paying attention to the election campaign.
“People in general, but especially in the North, are upset with high hydro prices,” said Nadia Verrelli, a political science professor at Sudbury’s Laurentian University.
And while that issue alone may not sink the re-election bid of Liberal incumbent and Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault, it will affect the Liberals as a whole, she said.
“Health is huge — access to health, especially in the North, to general practitioners or nurse practitioners, and having specialists” available are seen as key, she said. And that PET scanner “has been on the agenda for a while.”
Thibeault and NDP candidate Jamie West appear to be neck- a and-neck, she said.
“It’s a pretty tight race,” she added.
“Glenn Thibeault has the experience on his side, he’s wellknown in the community — as is Jamie West ... both are quite comfortable with the community and the electorate” and are visible in the community.
But Progressive Conservative candidate and former NHL player Troy Crowder (who declined to be interviewed for this story) has been more visible than PC candidates of the past, she added.
In an interview last week, Wynne said her party was not taking any seat for granted, but called Thibeault “such a strong candidate.”
“He’s such a strong representative of the community. I really think that,” the she people added. of Sudbury “But you see know, it’s a fight. You know the fact is, we’ve got a fight on our hands in every riding. That’s the reality.”
Then, on Saturday, she publicly conceded that she will not win the election.
Thibeault said that will make a difference for his campaign because, going door to door, “most of what I’ve been hearing is that no one is really enamoured with any of the leadership can- didates,” he said.
“I think what Kathleen has done this weekend is allowed us as Liberal candidates to talk about local issues.” When campaigning, Thibeault said, “I’ve always tried to make this about my record and how passionate I am about the job and what it entails.”
He said as MPP and a former MP for the area, he’s been “that strong voice for the people of Sudbury,” and he finds that voters are extremely engaged in this election.
“I talk about the importance of voting local and the one vote that you do have is for a strong voice in Sudbury,” he said in a telephone interview during a break from campaigning.
Thibeault has been an elected representative for Sudbury for 10 years, both federally and provincially. In Ottawa, he represented the riding for the NDP, but was wooed away by the Liberals to run provincially. Now it’s a riding that the New Democrats are keen to capture from their former ally.
The NDP’s West, who works as a health and safety representative in the mining sector, says hydro bills grew exponentially under the Wynne government.
West said as he’s going door to door, he’s hearing “a lot of frustration and disappointment.”
Thibeault, he added, is “basically seen as the right-hand man for the privatization of Hydro One,” which the NDP has pledged to reverse by buying shares the Liberals sold off.
Residents have been waiting for years for a PET scanner, which the community pitched in and raised funds for, and is still waiting to receive – although construction is under way and is expected to be in- stalled in a new suite at the hospital next year, he said.
West said the problem is politicians like Wynne and Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford come up North, “but they talk about the south” and not the issues affecting those in Sudbury.