Ontario NDP’s Andrea Horwath chats about Mississauga’s future, Brampton hospitals, Milton GO line

From new hospitals, cutting auto insurance rates and expanding transit lines, the Ontario NDP have made no shortage of promises during the first two weeks of the provincial election campaign.

In an interview with insauga.com publisher Khaled Iwamura last week, Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath sat down to discuss some of the pledges her party had made on the campaign trail.

With Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie calling a split from Peel her “number one ask” of the next provincial government, Horwath said that if elected she wouldn’t be a premier who “dictates what happens at the local level.”

“I think it’s important to have that discussion with all of the players at the regional level of government,” Horwath said of Mississauga potentially breaking away from the Region of Peel.

“I believe in having those conversations with all impacted and affected, and trying to come up with a solution that works for everyone,” she said.

The decision to allow Mississauga to become a single-tier municipality would rest in the hands of the next provincial government – a move which the PC government denied as recently as 2019 when it decided to keep the current system in place.

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Horwath also said she would be open okaying the Mississauga City Centre transit loop “ if that’s something that’s going to work for Mississauga.”

The loop was pulled off the table two years ago by the Ontario PC government in a cost-cutting move, and was initially included in Hurontario LRT plans to service residents and passengers who live in the highrises around Square One.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford said back in January that he could get behind the transit plan, but other stakeholders would have to contribute their share as well.

As for transit and transportation promises outside Mississauga, Horwath said she would advocate for all-day two-way GO routes to Milton, as well as expanded routes to Kitchener Waterloo and the Niagara Region.

With Brampton having one of the highest auto insurance rates in the province, the NDP have pledged to reduce auto insurance rates by 40 per cent for all drivers in Ontario.

But Horwath said her party would tackle those costs by banning auto insurance increases for the next 18 months province-wide, end “postal code discrimination” and form a commission tasked with keeping costs down.

“It’s a commitment that we’re making because we know how expensive it is, and how expensive everything else is getting, too,” she said. “People need a break.”

Calling Brampton the “epicentre of hallway medicine” in Ontario, Horwath also pledged that an NDP government would expand local health care services by upgrading the Peel Memorial Centre and get to work on a third hospital in Brampton.

“A third full hospital for Brampton is necessary based on population – not only population now, but continued growth,” Horwath said.

Last month, a motion for a new $365-million cancer treatment centre by Brampton-Centre NDP MPP Sara Singh passed with bipartisan support, while the Peel Memorial Urgent Care Centre expansion has already received a $1-billion tender from the Conservative government.

As far as how the NDP plans to fund their proposed projects and promises, the party said Sunday it would run larger deficits than the Conservatives and Liberals if elected and would likely not balance the budget for six years.

Horwath said the Ontario NDP would “freeze taxes for middle and lower income families,” while increasing taxes on “big corporations that raked in extra profits…during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

“We’re going to ask them to contribute a little bit more and there’s many, many multimillionaires in our province we’re going to ask them to help us fix the things that have been broken for too long,” she said.

Among the NDP’s costing plan is a proposed raise of the capital gains inclusion rate from 50 to 100 per cent on corporations except for small businesses, and people with a net worth of over $3 million.