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HomeNewsHaliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock Provincial Candidates Coverage-Tom Regina, Green Party

Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock Provincial Candidates Coverage-Tom Regina, Green Party

KAWARTHA LAKES-The provincial election is coming up on June 2,2022. We asked all of the provincial local candidates the same questions and are printing their answers in full in the order received.

This is Tom Regina, Green Party.

Bio From Candidate

Tom Regina is among the founding members of the Green Party Constituency Association for Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock. He is concerned about the increasingly divisive partisanship in our political culture that stands in the way of governance for the general good of all citizens. Working towards electoral reform, social equity and ecological wisdom are among the Green values of “doing politics differently” that most motivate Tom to run as a Green candidate.

Tom has been residing in Haliburton for over 30 years, within easy walking distance of Haliburton Highlands Secondary School where he taught music and was the Head of Arts. His career as a teacher in a rural community has given him deep insight to the challenges faced by many families regarding equitable access to housing and transportation as well as employment and recreational opportunities.

As a strong advocate for Arts Education and community building through arts participation, Tom has been a founding member of two community choirs, a local music festival for students of all ages and the Highlands Summer Festival which provides theatre experience for community members in a semi-professional setting.

Tom can be seen as an occasional performer in summer theatre productions and as a member of the Highlands Chamber Orchestra.

What are the three top local issues in your opinion? And what is your stance on those issues and your proposed solutions?

Affordability is becoming a central issue at the heart of most of the issues currently competing for our attention.

Housing is the main issue I hear people talking about. They are gravely concerned about rising cost of rent, renoviction, inability to ever save enough to even get a toehold in the housing market, or the ability to stay in their homes as tax increases while their property increases in value, that they can’t afford. Yet, many houses and condos are coming on to the market daily. The housing market is currently a field day for investors with luck and resources as they accumulate properties and receive huge return on investment without bearing the tax responsibility that comes with other investment vehicles.

We urgently need to build more well-designed, affordable, purpose built rental housing and to maintain and repair the supply that we have. We need to adopt a Housing First Strategy and work to end homelessness. We need to clamp down on speculation and provide funds that can be reinvested back into affordable housing, and we need to create more pathways to home ownership.

A brief summary of some of the Green Party action proposed:

-Build 182,00 new permanently affordable community rental homes over the next decade, including 60,000 permanent supportive homes

-Mandate inclusionary zoning and require a minimum of 20% affordable units in all housing projects above a certain size.

-Partner with non-profits, co-ops and community land trusts to use public land for permanently affordable rental housing and obtainable home ownership options through low cost, long term leases.

-Implement a multiple property speculation tax on people and corporations who own more than two houses or condominium units and work with municipalities to implement a province wide vacant homes tax.

Health Care means helping people to access healthy food and a place to call home. It’s also about early detection and treatment of illnesses in community clinics rather than the hallway of a hospital. Most importantly we must respect nurses, PSWs and other healthcare workers to retain these professionals rather than burning them out.

A brief summary of some of the Green Party action proposed:

-Partner with the federal government to implement universal dental care and pharmacare programs

-Support a publicly funded, publicly delivered health care system, and oppose further privatization of care.

-invest in healthcare workers by immediately repealing Bill 124.

-Increase nursing program enrollments by 10% every year for 7 years.

-Work with the federal government to provide surge funding to reduce the backlog in surgeries, imaging and other services.

-Invest in increasing the number of indigenous led health clinics.

-Expand the number of and fully fund women’s health clinics and abortion clinics in Ontario

Protection For Our Natural Ecosystems in keeping our air and water clean and protection the good soil we depend on to grow our province. When it comes to Climate Change, our natural ecosystems provide our best low cost solutions to maintaining a clean water supply and providing flood protection.

A brief summary of the Green Party action proposed:

-Work with indigenous communities to establish Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas where indigenous governments have the primary role in protecting and conserving ecosystems through their laws, governance and knowledge systems.

-Strengthen the Greenbelt Act and make new highways through the greenbelt illegal.

-Double the size of the greenbelt to include a bluebelt of protected moraines, river systems and watersheds

-Stop industrial water extraction and ban bulk removal of water from a watershed.

-Set required minimum use of recycled aggregates in infrastructure projects as well as providing research and education funding to ensure that all reclaimed concrete material can be re-engineered and re-used as effectively as possible

-Restore the office of the Environmental Commissioner.

-Cancel the species At Risk Conservation Fund that allows businesses to simply offset their harm to biodiversity by paying into the fund.

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Pamela Vanmeer
Pamela Vanmeerhttps://www.kawartha411.ca/
Pamela VanMeer is a two time winner of the prestigious Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA) Award. Her investigative reports on abuse in Long Term Care Homes garnered international attention for the issue and won the Ron Laidlaw Award. She is a former reporter and anchor at CHEX News, now Global Peterborough and helped launch the New CHEX Daily, a daily half hour talk show. While at CHCH News in Hamilton she covered some of the biggest news stories of the day.

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