CBC debate: Sudbury candidates face off for first time
There was no chair to spare at St. Andrew's Place in downtown Sudbury as the candidates for the four main parties sparred over everything from first nations to Syrian refugees.
But as has been the case on the national stage, the focus early on was on infrastructure and the economy.
Conservative Fred Slade trumpeted his party's record and, like his leader Stephen Harper, warned against the "experimental" approaches of the other parties.
"Talk is cheap, track records are impressive," said Slade.
"Nine years of nothing, nine years of nothing in Sudbury," Liberal Paul Lefebvre fired back.
"Conservatives are telling us stay the course, stay the course, stay the course. " "If you're going down Lorne Street or Maley Drive, you will not be staying on the road, you'll be taking the ditch pretty fast."
Lefebvre said the Liberal plan to stimulate the economy with infrastructure spending would be a double win for Sudbury, but Slade said the city's crumbling infrastructure is not on the federal government, arguing that Greater Sudbury has "gotten lots of infrastructure money when they ask for it."
Lefebvre and New Democrat Paul Loewenberg also argued about economic policy.
"I have no clue on how you're going to be able to achieve all your promises and balance the budget," said Lefebvre.
Loewenberg explained that a corporate tax hike is one way to pay for promises like a national childcare program, sparking a sharp back-and-forth exchange with Lefebvre.
Lefebvre: "That 2 per cent on corporate tax will fund everything?"
Loewenberg: "One of many things..."
Lefebvre: "You're going to raise other taxes then?"
On the NDP's proposed $15 per hour national minimum wage, Loewenberg described it as a "good place to start" but Slade said if voters want jobs to be created, his party is the only one with a record of actually doing it.
"If you want people to make $15 per hour, you should vote Conservative," said Slade.
Loewenberg fired back, saying if the NDP forms government, it will have to start its mandate by un-doing many of the Conservatives decisions, specifically mentioning cuts to the food inspection system and railway safety.
"We have to keep picking away at all of the little problems that the Harper Conservatives have let slip through the cracks," he said.
Green Party candidate David Robinson warned voters against supporting one of the "20th Century parties" and said while all of his opponents are "friends of mine, they don't know as much about policy as I do."
Robinson, a economics professor, took frequent shots at the fiscal management of the Conservative government, which Slade seemed to take offence to.
"If you think we've done such a bad job running the economy, I'd like to ask you what country you'd like to live in," he said.
Also on the ballot in the Sudbury riding are Communist Party candidate Elizabeth Rowley and independents David Popescu and Jean-Raymond Audet.