Ontario 2025 candidate: Lucille Collard
With the provincial election just around the corner, the Manor Park Chronicle reached out to candidates, asking for answers to three key questions. The following are the responses from Liberal candidate Lucille Collard.
How do you view the call for an early election?
This early election call is costing taxpayers almost $200 million, which could be better spent supporting Ontarians.
The Legislature in Ontario has a set election date, the next one planned for June of 2026. The Ford government has had a majority government, allowing them to govern during these turbulent times. Further, we, the Ontario Liberals, were ready to come together and work hand in hand with the government to pass a stimulus package to support Ontario businesses, but instead, we are being forced to spend this unprecedented period in an election campaign.
We are concerned about the low turnout of a winter election, and we know of voter fatigue in Ottawa-Vanier. Every vote counts, as we can see south of us, democracy is fragile.
What do you view as the key issues/priorities in this election, both from a local and provincial perspective?
During my time serving Ottawa-Vanier as MPP, advocating for the healthcare needs of our community has been my top priority. I have successfully pushed the government to fund a nurse-practitioner-led clinic here, but there is still a dire shortage of primary care providers in our community.
There are solutions within reach to modernize primary care and address the fact that 22,000 people in Ottawa-Vanier do not have a family doctor. I have been advocating for more licensing of internationally educated doctors and for a plan to train more students to become doctors in Ontario. We, the Ontario Liberals, will expand the team-based medicine model to connect more people with family doctors. We will also modernize healthcare by eliminating the use of faxes and making appointments available in the evenings and on weekends.
Ottawa urgently needs investments in supportive housing to help end homelessness and connect residents with wrap-around mental health and addiction support. Providing people with their own units costs less than the expenses of maintaining the outdated shelter models, which do not offer an opportunity for individuals to regain stability in their lives.
Housing prices are unaffordable, and we, the Ontario Liberals, have a plan to build more homes. For home buyers, we will remove development charges, which are taxes on the construction of new housing that can add up to $170,000 to the cost of a new home. We will also eliminate the Provincial Land Transfer Tax for first-time homebuyers, seniors downsizing, and non-profit home builders — saving families and seniors an average of $13,500 on the cost of a new home. Removing these taxes will allow more housing to be built, thereby reducing the cost of new homes.
To support the city in building social housing, we are committed to backing Ottawa Community Housing in their ambitious plan to build 10,000 new units, which will significantly reduce the city’s affordable housing waitlist.
The Ford government’s approach to funding the City of Ottawa’s needs has been blatantly unfair. Over three years, they provided the City of Toronto $1.2 billion, which is about $396.61 for every resident there. Meanwhile, the deal for Ottawa will see $197 million in operating investments over three years, which is about $181.81 per Ottawa resident. This demonstrates inequity in the approach from the Ford government.
Doug Ford, former City of Toronto Councillor, doesn’t see investments in the City of Ottawa as a priority. His government has caused our transit system to be underfunded and exacerbated the growing homelessness population.
How would you address these issues during your term as MPP?
As MPP, I am committed to working with all parties and all levels of government to collaborate in search of solutions for the pressing issues facing Ottawa-Vanier, Ottawa, and Ontario. I am committed to seeing investments to ensure all residents have a family doctor, to ensuring housing is affordable, new social housing is built, and to solving homelessness.
