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Q&A: York-Simcoe NDP candidate Dave Szollosy

We asked the same five questions to all six of York-Simcoe’s provincial election candidates. This is what the NDP’s Dave Szollosy had to say.
Dave Szollosy
Dave Szollosy is the York-Simcoe NDP candidate for the 2018 provincial election. Submitted photo

What are the top three biggest issues facing York-Simcoe?

The biggest issue facing York-Simcoe is maintaining our quality of life and making life easier for families. These are reflected in hydro costs, health care, education and transportation.

Kathleen Wynne sold off Hydro One, and Doug Ford’s Conservatives have only promised more cuts and privatization. Only Ontario’s NDP has a plan to buy back Hydro One, which will allow us to reduce your bills by 30 per cent and keep them down.

We have a crisis in hallway medicine and our nearby hospitals are overcrowded. But we can have change for the better. We will invest in Ontario’s hospitals, lower wait times, and protect the health care that all our families are counting on.

And sadly, schools all across the province have been neglected for too long — the Liberals sat idly by while school infrastructure crumbled and life got harder in Ontario’s classrooms. We will make the necessary investments to address the $16-billion backlog in repairs, and overhaul the funding formula with a review focused on equity and quality. We will need to review what the impact has been of the rapid population growth in Bradford for our school facilities and work with the school boards to review growth plans.

The NDP will continue to expand GO Transit and build toward all-day GO train service.

The NDP will support the further integration of local transit systems to serve regional goals in the public interest because the time spent commuting to work is a vital component of health and quality of life.

How will you help Bradford West Gwillimbury manage its growth?

The NDP understands and respects local government, which is the closest to the people and provides services and infrastructure that people depend on every day. The Conservatives devastated municipalities two decades ago when they downloaded provincial responsibilities onto cities and towns with no way to pay for them. The Liberals had 15 years to undo that damage but chose not to.

An NDP government will stop and reverse the downloading of provincial expenses onto local governments — this means fairly sharing responsibility for transit, housing and child-care costs. For example, we will restore the 50 per cent provincial funding for municipal transit operations and will fund the province’s 1/3 share of the costs of social housing capital repairs. And we will restore funding for the Ontario Municipal Partnership Fund.

With respect to planning for growth, replacing the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) with the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal (LPAT) is a step in the right direction.

An NDP government will ensure that the LPAT lives up to its mandate to ensure local communities and local planners are respected and supported when they invest time and resources getting support for updated land use plans and policies.

Where do Ontarians experience the most red tape, and what needs to be done about it?

I don’t know that most Ontarians experience a lot of “red tape,” but I’m aware of many of the challenges businesses in our community are facing. Small businesses are the backbone of the economy, and when small businesses grow and prosper so does our community and our province.

Liberal governments for the past 15 years have made decisions that impact small businesses, and Doug Ford’s Conservatives have no plan to help small business in Ontario. Corporate tax cuts will only help large, profitable corporations like his.

The NDP believes that the best way a government can support a small and growing business is by buying their goods and services. That’s why we will work to provide greater procurement opportunities for small and scaling-sized business with the goal of awarding 1/3 of all government procurement contracts to small businesses.

We will also make greater use of Community Benefit Agreements for infrastructure projects to provide more opportunities for small business to participate in these projects.

We will also help reduce costs for small businesses, leaving them with more money to reinvest in their businesses and their communities.

Skyrocketing hydro bills have been hurting Ontario’s small businesses, and our plan will reduce those bills by 30 per cent and keep them down in the long run.

Andrea Horwath’s innovative Ontario Benefits plan will, for the first time, give small businesses an affordable option for providing basic dental care to all their employees, keeping them healthier and happier.

And in recognition of the important role small businesses play in our economy, an NDP government will maintain the small business tax rate at 3.5 per cent.

Small businesses, meaning those with payrolls below $1.5 million, will still be eligible for the Employer Health Tax exemption.

If elected, what would be your first priority?

If elected, my first priority would be to determine where to set up a constituency office and make myself available to my constituents as soon as possible. I believe the most important role of an MPP is to be the voice of the community in Queen’s Park, and I want to make sure people are able to reach me with any concerns they might have.

In keeping with my history as an activist councillor addressing the environmental concerns of York-Simcoe and the security of water supply, I will begin facilitating the conversations we need to review provincial priorities over the Upper York Sewage Solution, currently planned to dump 40 million litres a day of treated sewage into our drinking water source.

I will engage parties needed to review the plans to pave over the provincially significant wetlands of the North Gwillimbury Forest and I will press immediately to undo the Liberal deception and have the contaminated Thane Smelter site put back on the provincial clean-up list.

In terms of an NDP government, those priorities would include implementing our plan to bring change for the better to Ontario, such as increasing funding for hospitals and schools, and implementing our plans to bring in dental care and pharmacare for everyone.

What do you want York-Simcoe residents to know about you?

I’ve served as Ward 3 councillor in Georgina for three terms, and during that time I have been a strong community advocate serving on many committees.

I began my career as an analytical chemist with Environment Canada before I got an education degree and became a high school teacher. I worked as director of the Office of Social Justice in Victoria, and I’ve served on the Toronto Secondary Unit executive of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association for six years, including a term as president.

I’m committed to working alongside Andrea Horwath and Ontario’s NDP to bring change for the better to York-Simcoe and to all Ontario.