By MPP Bobbi Ann Brady
Next week, I will be dividing my time between the Pink Palace (Queen’s Park), and our wonderful area. I have my marching orders about what you want me to tell Premier Ford.
Throughout the summer and fall, you have been sharing your concerns. And I had the distinct pleasure of meeting you at my booth during both the Caledonia and Norfolk County Fairs. Beside the joy of meeting you, I heard loud and clear from you about what is wrong.
So, to our government I will be asking questions and making statements based on your input. The high cost of living for example. Inflation has many people making decisions we should never have to make, such as choosing between heating and eating. I will be pushing the government to find ways to create better affordability.
I am curious to see Premier Ford’s reaction to my ideas. Last April, I stood in the Ontario Legislature to suggest the government follow the lead of Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe and refuse to collect the federal carbon tax on home heating. Given the cooler weather is upon us, the financial pinch is going to be harder.
In terms of affordability, I imagine during this session, the Premier will reiterate the idea he has been kicking around about digging a massive tunnel under the 401. I am all for ingenuity, progress and moving people, goods, and services faster; however, how would that multi-billion-dollar project, which could drag on for decades, help with our provincial deficit and debt?!? It would only add to our tax burden, and likely spur induced demand, which is where you build more roads and more people decide to use them, paradoxically causing more traffic slowdowns. It already takes me more than two hours each way to Queen’s Park and home. I am encouraging the Premier to produce a better solution.
Speaking of traffic, there is the Argyle Street Bridge and of course the issues at Haldibrook Road and Highway 6. I am the only person who has stood to ask the minister of transportation when reconstruction will commence for this 1927-built bridge that long ago hit its expiry date. Four times since 2022, I have asked two transportation ministers to start re-construction. They give me nothing but platitudes or change the channel. You can bet these items are on my agenda.
Other issues you have told me to keep pressing include maintaining my stance on the Ministerial Zoning Order (MZO) in Nanticoke. I am in favour of smart development, not development like building a city of 40,000 on job-abundant industrial lands. I will continue to express the will of the people of Haldimand County—they do not want this despite the results of a council vote.
We must work, and we must eat; therefore, we also need to continue protecting farmland to do both. I am sure the fiasco in Wilmot township will be front and centre during Question Period. I maintain there is no sense in this province where a farm can be paved over, but a farmer cannot have a reinvestment or succession-planning lot.
Given we are returning later in the season, time will be tight therefore I will have to be strategic in what and when I broach certain subjects.
Bobbi Ann Brady is the MPP for Haldimand-Norfolk