Randy Pettapiece says he is ready to take on the challenge of upsetting a cabinet minister in the provincial election set for Oct. 6.
There was plenty of politics in the air at the Mount Forest Royal Canadian Legion Branch Saturday afternoon.
The town hall style meeting was supposed to be about the provincial election, but with the writ dropping for a federal election on May 2, there was more than just one race to consider.
Incumbent Perth-Wellington Conservative MP Gary Schellenberger cracked up a hall full of people when he said getting out to vote is going to be important, so “Vote early and vote often.”
He ignored several pundits who felt the provincial Liberals and federal Conservatives will be at least neutral, and offered his full support to provincial Perth-Wellington Progressive Conservative candidate Pettapiece.
Schellenberger also used a tale of parliament hill to slam the opposition parties’ possibilities of forming a coalition government after the May 2 election.
He said the only time the national anthem is played in parliament is at 2pm on Wednesdays, and Bloc Quebecois members never enter until it is over or, if they are there when it starts, they literally run for the exits.
He asked the audience to imagine forming a government with a party that will not stay in the same room where the national anthem is playing.
Wellington-Halton Hills MPP Ted Arnott was one of the featured speakers for the afternoon. He said in an interview, “Randy Pettapiece will be an outstanding MPP for Perth-Wellington. I’m encouraging and supporting him. He’s working very hard.”
There were other politicians on hand, too. Bert Johnson once held the Mount Forest part of the riding and the retired MPP dropped by to offer his support. Candidate Michael Harris is running in a Kitchener riding and was also in attendance.
Pettapiece said in an interview he has been busy since being nominated a few months ago. He said he has already been involved in three town meetings since his nomination, and he hopes the weather improves so he can do more of that work.
When asked about wind turbines, Pettapiece said he is not opposed to green energy, but the way the Liberal government has set about allowing wind turbines is not the way to go.
“If I was getting paid 10 to 12 times the cost of operation, why wouldn’t I do it?” he asked rhetorically, adding the way the Liberal government has promised to pay made huge wind farm proposals inevitable.
Pettapiece said he, Arnott and Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak spent part of a Thursday visit to Listowel on March 24 at a seniors’ home in that community.
He said what they heard is hydro costs are too high; the seniors are on fixed incomes and they don’t like the idea of paying the HST on those hydro bills on top of the increases.
As for the hydro debt retirement charge, Pettapiece sees that as simply another Liberal tax grab. The debt has been on people’s hydro bills since 2003 in order to pay off previous debts by Ontario Hydro.
Under that schedule, the debt should be paid off by 2012, but the Liberals have since announced it will continue until 2018. The PC Party has attempted to obtain an audit, and a forensic (more thorough) audit of the books to determine why such charges are being continued, but the governing Liberals have refused all their requests.
Further, said Pettapiece, the province is introducing “smart meters,” which will force people to use hydro at unusual times, or to pay a premium.
“It just goes on and on,” he said of government perfidy.
