SUMMERSIDE, P.E.I. — Green Leader Peter Bevan-Baker led off most of the heated exchanges during Tuesday night’s televised leaders debate on CBC, chastising the MacLauchlan government’s record on issues such as housing, climate change and health care.
With less than one week remaining in the P.E.I. election campaign, all four party leaders – Peter Bevan-Baker of the Green party, Joe Byrne of the NDP, Dennis King of the Tories and Wade MacLauchlan of the Liberal party – went into the debate having largely avoided major controversies or gaffes during the campaign.
The leaders fielded questions on issues ranging from doctor shortages, rural health care, housing and water conservation. The exchanges stayed largely polite, with King, in particular, highlighting positive policies and initiatives pursued by other party leaders.
However, the evening saw a few pointed exchanges between Bevan-Baker and both MacLauchlan and King.
The first question of the debate, submitted by CBC viewers, asked the leaders what could be done to address the shortage of doctors in P.E.I. There are currently more than 13,000 Islanders who do not have a family doctor.
MacLauchlan stated that the Liberals would put additional resources toward the recruitment of doctors. He said the Liberal plan also includes establishing a collaborative practice in Queens County, which could serve up to 8,000 Islanders.
In response, Bevan-Baker stated that rural hospitals should be converted to “rural hubs,” offering primary care and expanded services that would be specific to their surrounding community.
Bevan-Baker also questioned MacLauchlan’s claim that his party had an effective plan for health care.
"Over the last four years, the number of patients waiting for doctors here on Prince Edward Island has ballooned,” Bevan-Baker said.
“I'm not quite sure why they were keeping that real plan in their pocket for the last four years."
"If you compare the plans that have been put forward, the Liberal plan has the most resources, it has the clearest measures," MacLauchlan said in response.
Later in the debate, the leaders were asked if they would maintain a tax on carbon emissions. In January, MacLauchlan’s government dropped excise gasoline tax by three cents per litre, in order to offset a federal carbon levy of 4.5 cents per litre. The tax revenue collected was used to remove fees on the renewal of driver’s licenses in P.E.I.
King said he believed carbon emissions needed to be reduced, but a levy on gasoline was overly punitive for Islanders who rely on their vehicles to travel for work. King praised the MacLauchlan government for minimizing the levy paid by Island consumers, but said, if elected, he would negotiate a “made in P.E.I.” solution that would avoid a carbon tax.
“We have to understand that doing nothing is massively expensive,” Bevan-Baker said in response.
"Nobody's advocating doing nothing,” King shot back.
Bevan-Baker responded that King had just congratulated MacLauchlan on its carbon pricing policy, which he believed would not discourage the consumption of fossil fuel.
“Their plan doesn't reduce carbon,” Bevan-Baker said.
“As an economist in Prince Edward Island described it, it is gratuitously stupid.”
The reference was to a tweet made by UPEI professor Jim Sentance last October.
MacLauchlan took issue with Bevan-Baker’s “gratuitously stupid” remark.
"The same comment was made toward Prince Edward Islanders who might enjoy a free drivers license as a way to get back the funding that we are insisting will be revenue neutral for that one cent at the pumps," MacLauchlan said.
A question asking the leaders what they planned to do to address the shortage of affordable housing also drew a spirited response from the leaders.
NDP leader Joe Byrne stated that the roots of the current housing shortage had its origin in cutbacks to federal housing program under Liberal governments in the 1990s. He said the province needed to begin reinvesting in government-funded social housing, such as housing co-ops or non-profit housing, rather than attempting to entice developers to build more rental units.
“We have to put those projects back in place, it's the only way we can develop the (rental) stock," Byrne said.