{"id":483,"date":"2008-09-26T07:30:37","date_gmt":"2008-09-26T12:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/election08.cusjc.ca\/?p=483"},"modified":"2008-09-26T07:48:32","modified_gmt":"2008-09-26T12:48:32","slug":"green-shift-doubts-in-ottawa-south","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/?p=483","title":{"rendered":"Green shift doubts in Ottawa South"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kristen Cucan<\/strong><\/p>\n

With only 20 days to go until Canadians head to the polls, the four candidates running in Ottawa South squared off yesterday morning in the riding\u2019s first all-candidates debate on issues that included health care, immigration, the environment and youth crime.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Dozens of people showed up at the Jim Durrell Complex on Walkley Road for the lively, yet civil meeting, where many residents were eager to pose their questions to the candidates.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Before the debate Elie Salibi, the Conservative candidate, and Liberal incumbent David McGuinty shook hands, but it was clear the two candidates had little in common.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere really are two fundamental choices here,\u201d said McGuinty in an interview after the event. \u201cThe Liberal and Conservative approach is profoundly different and I think people are now beginning to pay much more close attention.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Liberals have won the Ottawa South riding in every election since 1988 and McGuinty has held the seat since 2004. In the 2006 election, he beat the Conservative runner-up by more than 4,000 votes, or by about six percentage points.<\/span><\/p>\n

Salibi, who works at a high-tech firm, said a six per cent lead is \u201calmost nothing\u201d when also considering the \u201cname recognition\u201d factor that McGuinty has as the brother of Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a strong record that we\u2019re running on,\u201d Salibi said. \u201cThis is something our residents will see and then they will choose which party will govern.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

NDP candidate Hijal De Sarkar and Green Party candidate Qais Ghanem also sought to highlight their party\u2019s policies on issues residents raised, ranging from jobs for immigrants to the Afghanistan mission to electoral reform.<\/span><\/p>\n

Garth McElree, an Ottawa South resident and a retired public servant, has already decided who will get his vote, but he said he wanted to attend the debate to see how the candidates would perform. He said he was particularly impressed by the \u201centhusiasm and commitment\u201d of the 24-year-old NDP candidate, who is also a third-year political science student at Carleton University.<\/span><\/p>\n

McElree said one question he didn\u2019t get to ask was about the Liberal\u2019s Green Shift carbon tax program, which wasn\u2019t directly raised in the debate. He has worries about how much the plan would raise energy prices before Canadians actually start reducing their consumption of fossil fuels, he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s that going to do to our economy, especially now?\u201d McElree said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Liberal Party, including David McGuinty, who was the environment critic in the last session of Parliament, has also done a poor job of explaining the plan to voters, he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve had all summer to get the message out and the party just didn\u2019t do it.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

McGuinty said he has received \u201cvery strong\u201d voter support for the Green Shift. Constituents really want to know why Prime Minister Stephen Harper is only focusing on attacking the policy, he said, instead of talking to Canadians about his plan for the environment.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSo what we\u2019re really seeing is not that Canadians cannot understand the Green Shift, what we\u2019re seeing is Mr. Harper is running away and trying to censor the debate as he always has done in so many areas,\u201d McGuinty said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Salibi said, however, that his government is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent by 2020. The Conservatives also plan to cut air pollution by 50 per cent by 2015.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThose are measurable goals that we have set up and which we\u2019re working towards,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kristen Cucan is a fourth year student in the Bachelor of Journalism program at the School of Journalism and Communication at Carleton University.<\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kristen Cucan With only 20 days to go until Canadians head to the polls, the four candidates running in Ottawa South squared off yesterday morning in the riding\u2019s first all-candidates debate on issues that included health care, immigration, the environment and youth crime.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-election2008","category-election-2008-student-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=483"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":503,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483\/revisions\/503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}