Carr’s Second Go-round
By John Swartz
SUNonline/Orillia profiles candidates from each party in the forthcoming provincial election. Each candidate was asked the same set of questions. All candidates were invited to participate, however Jill Dunlop of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario did not make arrangements to meet with SUNonline/Orillia.
Chris Carr has run as a provincial candidate before. He previously stood in the Kitchener- Centre riding.
“I actually ran before in 2018 in the None Of The Above Party. It’s actually a party. There weren’t too many things going on with the party. They wanted electoral reform, they want to kick members of parliament out with enough signatures (recall),” and to have referendum questions on ballots Carr said.
But his allegiance is to the Green Party.
“I volunteered with the Green Party before I ran there in Kitchener, and here with the Krystal Brooks campaign.”
He moved to North Simcoe 4 years ago and got involved soon after.
“I reached out to the Green Party saying I’m looking to volunteer, I’ve run before so if you need someone to run, count me in. They had someone already, so I helped. They called me up shortly before this election was announced and asked, “Are You still interested in running?””
‘We lived in Kitchener for ten years. Before that I lived in Victoria, B.C. That’s where I grew up.”
Carr lives in Penetanguishene with his wife and four children. He came here to be closer to his wife’s family.
“I lost a well paying job, so it’s a struggle right now,” he said. He was a software developer for Well.ca. He hasn’t found similar employment.
“I’m still looking,” he said. “I do a number of different things. I was on EI for 9 months, looking for jobs. I got a few contracts, but they didn’t pan out. They signed contracts and then no work came.”
“I (now) work two part-time jobs, bus driving and some entrepreneurship stuff, doing inventory with BANAC ((Barrie Area Native Advisory Circle where his wife works as an Early Childhood Educator).”
Each candidate was asked if there was something they would like their party to do for improvement. Carr thought the party could do more to connect members to each other.
“I need more exposure to the rest of the party,” he said. “I think part of it is going to be on me. They did have some video sessions, but different campaigns are going to run with different amounts of funding.” Carr did travel to see how campaigns were being run in two other ridings.
Another important aspect of being a politician is saying, “I don’t know.” Too often a politician will get in front of a microphone and feel they have to answer a question or make a statement, while people listening who have expertise can tell they don’t have a clue. SUNonline/Orillia wants to know how candidates educate themselves when confronted with subjects they know little about.
“Usually I’ll start with videos., They are a nice way to go. Internet search. Sometimes you’ll find people you can reach out to, experts, or people who have written reports and you can look at the official government documentation,”
Watching videos can be a trap, if you are not careful about the source and their sources. “You’re going to watch more than one from more than one source,”
“I like challenges. I think we should be relying on data, facts.”
Healthcare
SUNonline/Orillia wanted to know what candidates views were about the privatization of healthcare and how much the public can take before the system breaks down.
“It looks like the big part of privatizing is elder care, long-term care, things like that. I don’t know much about that, but I do know doctors are not getting paid enough and they’re going to go somewhere else – and other healthcare staff as well,” Carr said.
“I think public nurses should get paid more and there should be enough hired to cover and move around like you have with a substitute teacher. Sometimes you are going to need more nurses in one place or another.”
Carr also agreed municipalities are having to spend money attracting doctors when the province should be taking more of a financial role.
“I know there’s incentives in place now, but it doesn’t seem like too much.”
The province is paying private companies for nursing staff, surgeries and etc. at substantially higher cost than putting the money into hospital budgets for the same.
“Why does it make sense to pay more? Someone else is getting the money,” Carr said.
Climate Change
Days after Doug Ford took office in 2018 he cancelled 758 solar, wind and in Orillia’s case, hydro generation projects at a cost of $231 million. Recently we have witnessed the gutting of environmental and natural habitat agencies in the U.S. Industry rebels against any kind of environmental regulation and all around the world conservative politicians are not taking climate change seriously. SUNonline/Orillia wants to know if candidates think this is a good idea, or a bad idea.
“I don’t think we are,” Carr said of how seriously climate change is being taken. “By the nature of businesses and politicians, (they) have that short term view of what’s going on the next quarter? What’s going on next year? They don’t have that long-term vision. I don’t see it. They are looking at short-term gains,”
While there are many issues and solutions, Carr understands the concerns of many in Simcoe North.
“I love technology and solutions for different things. I think around here we seem to be focused on clean water. We have beaches shut down from algae blooms from phosphorous in the water and I know that comes from various sources. That’s a local issue (to work on).”
Housing
SUNonline/Orillia contends a major cause of the rising cost of housing are two things, Real Estate Investment Trusts, of which some are buying up whole neighbourhoods to turn family homes into rental units, and Airbnb, which incentivizes smaller landlords to take rentals out of the market to turn into quasi hotels. It seems the mainstream media and politicians think speaking about their role is Kryptonite. What, if anything can the provincial government do to halt, or roll back the high cost of housing?
“Some cities are saying that and they passed local laws, Toronto, Vancouver, focused on Airbnb, focused on foreign ownership. Those are worth looking to see how well they are doing and apply that elsewhere. On one side we’re saying housing is a right and everyone should have affordable housing, and on the other side you have people come from other countries and buy houses cash with no questions asked, and then hold on to it, (or) rent it.”
Carr has the perfect example of what has happened. The home he loved in had 4 different owners during the time he rented in Kitchener.
“Our townhouse, when we moved in, (was) $700 something like that a month. It eventually went up to $900 over ten years. When we moved out and we were looking at what they are charging now; they didn’t fix much, just remodelled the inside a little bit; (its) three times the price (now) – for a two bedroom townhouse.”
“I think rent control is a good idea, but right now when you leave a place, or they renovate it, kick you out, they can up that rent by whatever they want.”
“I think being able to have a smaller, duplex, fourplex, whatever, there’s some hoops you have to jump through just to build those. Maybe some help to turn your house into a legal suite, a granny suite. Maybe some support for funding there,”
Carr also mentioned more municipalities need to address zoning to allow multi-family housing units in residential areas, a more compact array of housing types.
“You have to look at what happened after World War 2, build lots of cheap homes. But where to build them? Our party stands on – not on farms, or forests or greenbelt lands, build them in cities.”
Carr then spoke of an issue that is more mid to long-term in nature, people fleeing parts of the world which are growing inhospitable to living. Little is being said about planning, and we certainly have experienced what happens when the immigration turnstiles are opened. Carr thinks we have room.
“Talking about a long look into the future, there’s going to be more refugees from all over the world. I think Canada is a pretty safe place in regards to what climate change is going to do.”
Immigration
This is mostly a federal issue, experienced at the local level. There are many ramifications of too many immigrants coming in too short a time. It seems those who prey on and take advantage of the influx of new residents can do what they want. From immigration lawyers, to employers and landlords, immigrants are being taken advantage of. Does the province have a role in immigration?
“The whole reason we are paying taxes is to help each other out. That’s it. Some people can’t help themselves, some people can, we have to help everyone.”
Municipalities are being left to contend with the issues. It’s not their job, but it’s being made their job. Of course property taxes pay for any help given to immigrants, while a more capable entity, the province, does little.
“I volunteered with the YMCA in Kitchener and there’s someone new, they got paired up, we met, chat, went through things like looking for jobs, government services. I think that’s helpful.”
Carr thinks there is a government role to fund community groups helping immigrants
“When I see non-profits, and they do so many great things, I see that as the government failing to support people when I see all these non-profits filling in the gaps. Are we dropping the ball? I think we are.”
Often overlooked is the role of early arrivals helping the newcomers.
“And also hook up with people from their culture who are here already. They’ll provide lots of resources. There’s going to be a huge social network.”
What They Say And Do
There is a growing concern among the electorate about the Americanization of Canadian politics. It’s an attitude, a say anything, blame anyone (or you more figuratively and specifically) and creating issues where none exists, or are so small it hardly warrants National headlines. There is a normalization of false talking points based on air.
Do we not have enough of our own problems without importing them? How much responsibility does media bear for this?
“I think it’s there. Media should keep the politicians in check. I haven’t looked into to it in too much detail. I think facts are important. Right now what you get is a focus on clickbait and fear and focus on tricking the brain to pay attention to this or that, but we all need to be looking a the same data and then talking about the different solutions, working together to solve problems,” Carr said.
“When you look at debates and question period, it doesn’t seem like they are answering questions.”
The Last Word
Each candidate was invited to speak about an issue important to them that may not have been covered already. For Carr it’s education.
“I think we should put more money into education. Public and post secondary education is underfunded. Teachers are leaving the field. It’s about paying them a fair wage. You shouldn’t have to be doing fundraisers to buy basic school supplies. They shouldn’t be leaving the field to do something else. It’s going to leave us with no teachers. Underfund it and privatize it, I think it’s going in that direction.”
The province does not fund private schools, beyond the Catholic system, but it does regulate them. In recent years there has been growth in niche philosophy and ideology oriented schools. Is this good?
“I think there should be a standard curriculum and that’s what you should stick to. And we should look at how we do school and why we do school and how other countries do school and what the outcomes are.”
Carr thinks some newer concepts in education should be evaluated for completeness and practicality.
“We have a Kindergarten program that’s all day, five days a week for junior Kindergarten and that’s a lot of time for little bodies and minds to be away from home in a stressful situation.”
And he does see some deficiencies in curriculum, chiefly the role Native culture shaped this country is sometimes missing, or not complete. Carr’s wife and children are Metis.
“We don’t get insight into all the material that gets taught, except through COVID, we got to sit there while they were learning. Some teaches were, “OK, I’ll look at this,” and do it again, and some were, “well I taught it already. My wife went to the school board, I don’t know what became of it,”
Many education policies are driven by special interest groups demanding politicians bow to them (e.g. sex education), in disregard of research and practice. Carr agrees politicians should get out of the way and let professionals decide what is taught.
(Photos by Swartz – SUNonline/Orillia) Main: Chris Carr is the Green Party candidate for the Simcoe North Riding.
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