And the chances are that it’s going to continue – at least until the federal election is over in a couple of weeks.
The debate began with the Liberal candidate, Lui Temelkovski, of the Oak Ridges-Markham riding, who proposed the creation of an “urban national park” located in the GTA. The park is proposed to be called the Rouge Valley National Park, and, spanning from Lake Ontario to the Oak Ridges Moraine, would be massive. By the end of the project, it’s said that the park would extend over 10,000 acres, which is already about 20 times the size of the Toronto Islands. And in addition to that, the Liberals would also like to use 5,000 acres of federal land in Pickering, land that was taken away from farmers in the 1970s to build the Pickering Airport, a project that didn’t see any success. This land however, would remain an agricultural preserve.
Temelkovski says this is just the kind of thing that people in the GTA need, those same people who can’t afford to travel across the country looking for some of Canada’s greatest national parks. The Rouge Valley would give Torontonians a place they could escape to on weekends – or just after dinner. Giving the park national status would also allow the space to remain a natural park forever. Temelkovski thinks that the plan sounds like a dream to some 7 million people living in the GTA, as the park would even be accessible by public transit. But the Conservative candidate in the Oak Ridges-Markham riding doesn’t agree.
Conservative MP, Paul Calandra, says that he’s all in favour of a national park in the GTA, but it simply doesn’t make sense to take away precious farmland to do it. Calandra says that the idea of a national park in the GTA is a good one, and that should he be elected, he’ll fight for a wilderness area that Torontonians and their neighbours can call their own. But, he says, it doesn’t have to be 15,000 acres in order to do it; and making sure that no farmland is lost might just be a way to give residents the best of both worlds.
Temelkovski quickly criticized Calandra for being against the Rouge Valley project, saying that the Tory MP was now “backpedalling” and “changing his tune,” although he gives little in the way of an explanation as to how Calandra has done this. Calandra responded by holding a press conference next to a corn field on Tuesday evening. Here he addressed Temelkovski’s concerns, and reassured the public that he is in no way “changing his tune” or trying to get out of a previous agreement.
Instead, Calandra explained, he has created a proposal that would attempt to make everyone happy. Not only did the proposal include the national park proposal, but also an idea for farmers in Pickering to get their land back. While they have been leasing it back from the government ever since the demise of the Pickering Airport, Calandra explains that farmers will now be given the option of buying that land back and owning it once again, under the guarantee that they will keep it and use it as agricultural land.
Politics = Girl Power in GTA
While politics may have once been an old boys club, that’s no longer the case in certain parts of the GTA. Here there are at least two areas where most major parties are represented by women; those areas are Halton and Etobicoke North. And what does that mean for politics in these areas? Well, it’s seemed to actually place the focus back on – politics! And it’s the Halton riding that’s getting most of the attention, as here every single name on that ballot will be that of a woman.
In a debate that took place on February 8, the Green Party representative in Halton, Judi Remigio, didn’t understand part of the question that was asked of her. Instead of jumping on the chance to point out her political inexperience and inability to answer simple questions, the Liberal representative, Connie Bowie-Laurie, leaned over so she could whisper an explanation to her. Afterwards, Remigio herself commented that this is only one example of how women working together, instead of men, can sometimes lead to more cooperation and less mudslinging, especially when the touchy subject of politics is at hand.
The co-organizer of the debate, Marlene Bristol, also touched on how different a debate panel made up of entirely women seems to be completely different than one made up entirely of men. She called the women’s debate “civilized,” and even “pleasant”! She compared it to the Oakville riding debate she had attended just a few evenings earlier, and one in which only men were debating. She said that debate was more about personal attacks that it was any real political issues, and that while it was a good show, no one really came away with any real information.
But it’s not all about talking about touchy-feely stuff and getting together for a big group hug at the end of debates and meetings, either. In Halton you’ll still find all the arguing and sometimes under-handed moves of stealing signs. These women still strongly believe in their parties, and they want to fight to be heard and to prove that their way is the best way. But for the most part, it’s a much more civilized game.
Liberal representative Connie Bowie-Laurin feels that it’s only natural that women are involved in politics as they are often an integral part of the community, and deeply invested in community issues. It only makes sense that they would want to be heard regarding those issues. Bowie-Laurin also hopes that more women will look towards politics in the future, and that we’ll see more and more ridings made up of entirely women representatives.