Nipissing candidates vie to unseat Vic Fedeli

In the riding of Nipissing five people are hoping to unseat longtime MPP and cabinet minister Vic Fedeli.

With a population of 76,000, the riding of Nipissing stretches from North Bay east to Mattawa and south to Powassan. A total of six candidates are looking to secure votes.

CTV News is providing extensive riding profiles with the four major party candidates seeking election. We posed each candidate with the same five questions on affordable housing, health care, U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff threat, affordability, and mental health and addictions.

For 14 years, Vic Fedeli has held the riding for the Progressive Conservatives. Fedeli is a two-time mayor of North Bay and four-time MPP.

He was Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade when the Feb. 27 election was called.

Fedeli has been travelling to Washington, D.C., during the campaign to speak with American lawmakers, describing looming tariffs as a major threat, going as far as to call it an “economic war.”

He said 80 per cent of all nickel used in the U.S. aerospace industry and 56 per cent used in the U.S. defence sector comes from Ontario.

“That’s why it’s so important,” Fedeli said.

“We need to always show President Trump when he says, ‘We don’t need anything from Canada.’ Yeah, you do. We need to be ready and supply the federal government our list of what we think should be on the list of retaliation items.”

Swing states

“We’ve picked swing states. We are the largest customer for 17 states. The second largest customer for 11 more. We will make sure that there’s a world of hurt for them,” he added.

Fedeli touts the province’s spending to bolster health care saying when the previous Liberal government was in power, spending reached $60 billion.

“Today, it’s $85 billion,” he said.

“When you hear about changes in health care, they’re all positive in terms of the dollars that we continue to invest. We’ve hired 100,000 nurses, 12,500 doctors -- actually, it’s closer to 15,000 doctors today. We have our program to open three new schools of medicine and bring 700 new graduate and post-graduate positions on.”

On mental health, addictions and homelessness, Fedeli said Ontario is the only province to have a ministry for mental health and addictions, but noted more work needs to be done to continue to help people struggling on the streets.

“That’s how seriously we take this,” he said.

“Here in North Bay, we have 100 new units. We’ve spent $7 million in building 40 of those 100 new units and countless other millions on the other 60. We continue to support the operation of those facilities, as well. They’re all for homeless facilities. Canadore College has a brand-new student centre downtown on Commercial Street. We’ve funded our social services board with hundreds of thousands of dollars to be able to accommodate more people in that facility. So, again, as I’ve said, other times, there’s always more to do.”

Fedeli said investments in projects to help homelessness are also tied to affordable, rent-geared-to-income housing projects.

“Here in North Bay, for instance, we presented a check to the City of North Bay for $400,000 as a bonus because they have not only met, but they’ve exceeded their quota of housing,” he said.

“This is pretty consistent generally around our riding. We’ve just given them $1.9 million, just the day before the writ dropped, to open up 13 acres on Metcalf Street.”

Fedeli also championed the $200 rebate cheque Ontarians are receiving as a way of making life more affordable for residents.

“The first and largest, of course, is the child care. It’s $12,000 payments that we’re making on average to most families with childcare. We’re lowering the gas tax by more than $0.10 a litre,” he said.

“This is going to be extended permanently when we’re re-elected. That’s an important addition. We have doubled the guaranteed annual income for low-income seniors. That’s another $1,000 in their pocket. That’s important because of the carbon tax, groceries and other things are more expensive.”

Hospital worker

Nipissing has never voted NDP. Loren Mick, a twice-elected Mattawa town councillor and chef at the town’s hospital, has eyes on the seat. Working in the hospital, he knows about health care concerns.

Mick wanted to do his interview in front of the North Bay Regional Health Centre to express his concerns with the current state of health care in Ontario.

He wants to see 350 more doctors hired in the north, 200 of them being family physicians.

“It’s crazy that one in five Ontarians do not have a family doctor and it gets worse the further north we get,” he said.

“We feel it from the kitchen up to the doctors and the patients. If our current framework was working, I wouldn’t be serving trays to patients in the tub room or in the solarium.”

On standing up to Trump and his tariff threat, Mick championed NDP Leader Marit Stiles as the person to stand up to billionaires for the working-class population.

“I think at the end of the day, working-class people have more in common with each other on both sides of the border than we do with Trump,” he said.

“These billionaires are calling the shots. We need leaders that kind of represent these working-class folks on both sides.”

On affordability, Mick called on the PCs for “common sense” spending to better help average taxpayers.

“It’s time we get serious about where we’re spending our provincial tax dollars,” he said.

“We can’t be spending a couple billion on a mega spa down in Toronto or putting a highway through farmland and the Greenbelt or putting beer in gas stations.”

“Do we need an election in the middle of February?” he asked.

“I think gone are the times of the idea of fiscal responsibility coming from the Conservative Party.”

Mick also said he supports a grassroots approach to mental health, addictions and homelessness, bringing help directly to the people who need it most.

“On our commute to work or to school, we’re seeing it. Things are getting worse and not better,” he said.

“This is an example of the patchwork framework that we’re taking to health care at the end of the day, this is a health care issue as well, right?”

On that note, he reiterated that housing is tied directly to homeless issues. The NDP’s platform pledges to introduce rent control to stop landlords from “jacking up” rent between tenants, crack down on renovictions, limit short-term rentals and build or acquire at least 300,000 permanently affordable rental homes in non-profit and co-op housing, as part of the NDP’s costed Homes Ontario plan, which sets a goal of 1.5 million new homes in 10 years.

“If politicians aren’t addressing the problems upstream, then they’re coming downstream,” he said.

“They’re ending up in the emergency departments or they’re ending up the in the ambulances with the police.”

Nursing student

In his fourth year of school at the University of Ottawa, nursing student and Green Party candidate Colton Chaput is from the North Bay area. Chaput plans to work as a registered nurse when he graduates.

From affordability to homelessness, he has big ideas to change the wage disparity between the rich and poor.

“We plan on immediately raising the minimum wage to $20 an hour,” he said.

“We plan on doubling the ODSP rates and to move towards universal basic income project so we can end legislated poverty … But also, we plan on working with the federal government to create stricter guidelines on these grocery corporations that are just completely gouging the consumers.”

The Green’s housing plan includes wraparound services, getting people with mental health and addictions the help they need.

“We’ve got 250,000 affordable housing units that we’re promising and 60,000 of those units would also include wraparound services so that people with complex needs can also access the services they need,” Chaput said.

“These would be affordable housing units that we would partner with the nonprofit sector to build across the province.”

Further help with mental health and addictions would follow, but he said a housing approach will help.

“There are overdose deaths happening all the time. The Green Party has a plan to address that. To end homelessness and to end the addictions crisis, the first priority is giving people the housing that they need and the services that they need.”

Chaput says the Green Party would create a task force with the sole focus of dealing with the economic threats that are coming from the United States.

He called the rhetoric of annexing Canada to be the 51st state as “completely unacceptable.”

“We have a plan to protect the Ontario economy,” Chaput said.

“We would make bigger investments in the sectors that are most impacted by these dangerous tariffs, such as the forestry industry … But we’d also create a tax credit to spark investment for small businesses and just the businesses in Ontario so that we can focus on Ontario, as well as a procurement strategy so that the Ontario government is focusing on Ontario and Canadian businesses.”

As a nursing student, Chaput knows all too well about ongoing issues in hospitals and long-term care homes, describing it as something he wants to change.

“We’re going to recruit 3,500 doctors through medical school spots and residency opportunities so that in three to four years, everyone in Ontario will have a primary care provider,” he pledged.

“For northern Ontario and for rural Ontario, we’re going to increase the base funding of their hospitals. We’re going to make sure that the health-care workers are paid a fair wage so that they stay in our health-care system and continue to do the awesome work that they’re already doing to make sure that we have a healthier Ontario.”

Not much is known about Nipissing’s Liberal candidate, Liam McGarry. Despite numerous attempts to arrange an interview with him. CTV News did not receive a response from the party by deadline.

Also seeking election are Michelle Lashbrook for the Libertarians and Scott Mooney for the Ontario Party.