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Small business support and economic recovery the focus of Wellington-Halton Hills debate

Centre Wellington and Halton Hills chambers of commerce hosted the latest debate for Wellington County federal candidates
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This election's debates have adopted a virtual format to accommodate pandemic restrictions.

Economic recovery was the main topic of choice at the latest Wellington-Halton Hills federal candidates’ debate. 

Just 12 hours after a Wednesday evening debate focused on the environment, the local candidates were up bright and early to share their parties’ ideals at Thursday mornings debate co-hosted by Centre Wellington and Halton Hills chambers of commerce. 

All candidates in the riding were represented but NDP’s Noor Jahangir was unable to attend due to a personal matter that conflicted with the timing of the event. 

In her place was Thomas Redman, the issue and policy advisor for the local NDP campaign. 

Although many topics were touched on, this forum largely centred on COVID’s impact on small business and how the federal government will be supporting them and the labour market moving forward through economic recovery. 

Liberal Melanie Lang highlighted what she called successful programs created through the pandemic such as the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy, small business loans up to $60,000 with partially forgivable loan interest and the Canada Recovery Hiring Program. 

She said they helped more than 150,000 businesses, charities, nonprofits and other groups afford rent, mortgages and other expenses. 

Further support is needed however, and she brought up $10 per day child care as something that will have a huge impact moving forward if the Liberal party is elected. 

“This is going to allow the re-entry of those individuals, of those parents — mostly women — who were affected by needing to step away from the workforce, and allowing them to re-enter,” Lang said. “It's a significant investment that we know we're making because that is what's best for Canadians and our workforce.”

Green Party’s Ran Zhu, who works for Guelph MPP Mike Schreiner, said he saw countless small businesses go through “bureaucratic nightmares” when applying for federal recovery funding.

He said Liberal programs aren’t benefiting small businesses to the extent they should be and this isn’t limited to just the pandemic programs. 

“In our platform for 2021, we are establishing a federally funded green venture capital fund of $1 billion to support viable, small, local green business start-ups,” Zhu said, adding they wish to streamline approvals for small and medium enterprises as well. 

Incumbent Michael Chong of the Conservative Party highlighted a few parts of their recovery plan. 

To support the restaurant industry, Chong said they will introduce a plan to provide a 50 per cent rebate for food and non-alcoholic drinks from Monday to Wednesday for one month when it’s safe to do so. He said they believe this will bring nearly $1 billion to that sector. 

Other programs he noted would pay 50 per cent of net new hires salaries six months following the end of emergency benefits and expanded loan and tax credit programs for small businesses over the next two years. 

“This election is really about, you know, who do you trust to recover Canada from the economic fallout of the pandemic, who do you trust to recover our economy from the devastating recession of last year?” Chong asked. 

The NDP representative largely attacked Trudeau and Liberal policies saying they have done the bare minimum to help workers while the wealthy have benefitted. 

“They’re making big money while people are struggling to get by,” Redman said. 

“Building off our communities with investments in affordable and energy efficient housing, transportation and energy infrastructure is one part of our plan to create over 1 million additional good, new jobs.”

People’s Party candidate Syl Carle was also very critical of what he called failed pandemic policies. He said the government needs to get out of the way of businesses who should be creating jobs rather than the government.  

He reiterated his opposition to mandatory vaccines and passports and advocated to reopen the economy while learning to live with COVID. 

“Our plan includes reopening the economy, while protecting the vulnerable, returning to normal. We are not accepting this new normal,” Carle said. 

“We want our old Canada back and we will enact policies in parliament to push Canada in that direction.”

The candidates meet again Thursday night for a debate around agriculture issues hosted by the Wellington Federation of Agriculture. 


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Keegan Kozolanka

About the Author: Keegan Kozolanka

Keegan Kozolanka is a general assignment reporter for EloraFergusToday, covering Wellington County. Keegan has been working with Village Media for more than two years and helped launch EloraFergusToday in 2021.
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