Feature Article March 20, 2003
LAND O' LAKES NewsWeb HomeTories, NDP to hold nomination meetingsby Jeff GreenBy Sunday night all three major provincial parties will have candidates nominated in Hastings Frontenac Lennox & Addington for an anticipated spring election.
Incumbent Liberal Leona Dombrowsky was nominated well over a year ago, and the Tories and New democrats are holding nomination meetings this weekend.
Ross Sutherland, a registered nurse who works at Hotel Dieu hospital in Kingston, and lives in the Loughborough District of South Frontenac Township, is a long-term NDP activist. He is running for the partys nomination, and is the only declared candidate for the nomination at this point.
He told the News he is running for the nomination because he is really interested in health care issues. The Liberals have not taken a position that makes me feel comfortable with their overall direction on health care, and they have not as of yet come out against private hospitals, he said.
Sutherland is also concerned about the privatisation of home care services and its impact on rural areas.
The non-profits and the VONs are the only ones who will go to rural areas because the for profit companies see no profit in it; and the non-profits are under huge stress because of the new system. The home care system must be changed. When the NDP was in power in the early 90s a multi-service agency was being set up to run the home care system, and that would have worked. What they have now doesnt work at all.
The NDP nomination meeting is set for Sunday March 23 at 2 p.m. at the Tamworth Public Library.
The Progressive Conservative Party has two candidates running for the nomination in HFL&A . They are Barry Gordon and Kevin Wagar.
Barry Gordon may be familiar to News readers as a well-known auctioneer in the Kingston and Frontenac regions. He was a member of the Pittsburgh township council for 15 years, six of them as Reeve. He was last on municipal council in 1993. Mr. Gordon said he decided to run because weve got a good Tory riding that isnt currently held by a Tory, so I see an opportunity, and I feel I could do a good job here.
Gordon supports the direction of the current government, saying theyve done a good job of saving money and creating jobs. He also said he had been successful in signing up new members of the party in support of his nomination.
Kevin Wagar, a councilor in Stone Mills Township in Lennox & Addington is a young candidate for provincial office at age 26, but he has been active in the Conservative party for ten years. As a municipal councilor, Wagar says he has had no trouble dealing with the provincial government, but I have had difficulties with Leona Dombrowsky, the MPP.
Wagar says Dombrowsky is completely out of touch with her constituents. She has voted to make this riding bilingual, and has requested that Members of Parliament get an increase in pay. Our riding does not support her policies. It is a conservative riding.
Wagar feels quite strongly about the issue of Nutirient Management, again saying that Dombrowsky is out of touch with the riding by supporting a blanket policy which would make small farms like the ones we have in this riding have to deal with a policy that is designed for large factory farms.
While Wagar names Dombrowsky as his main opponent over Nutrient Managament, he concedes that the Nutrient Management Act, as it has been proposed by his own Conservative government, will bring about hardships for small farmers. He vows to fight it tooth and nail, because our representative in our riding will have to stand for the provincial farm.
As for his chances against Barry Gordon, Wagar says he has not signed up that many new members, preferring to focus on old-time conservatives.
Mr.Wagar works as a personal banker at the CIBC branch in the Kingston Centre.
The nomination meeting for the Progressive Conservative Association of HFL&A will be held in Madoc at Centre Hastings Secondary School. Registration starts at 11:00 a.m., and candidates speeches will begin at 1:00 p.m.
