Windsor-Tecumseh candidates all in favour of improving regional transit

Federal election candidates in Windsor and Essex debated on Sept. 30. This is the third of three debate recaps CBC Windsor is posting along with Essex and Windsor West. In each segment, previously undiscussed issues came up. Below, one question from the Windsor-Tecumseh debate is presented along with the lightly-edited and condensed responses from each candidate, presented in the order in which the candidates responded.

Issue

Regional transit

Question

"Do you support a regional transit system and if so, what would it be?"

Response

Frank Schiller, Liberal candidate

"Absolutely, the Liberals are maintaining the single-biggest infrastructure investment in Canadian history, $125 billion over 10 years and public transit is a critical component to that. As a member of Parliament, I'm going to fight to ensure we get our share of that infrastructure investment so that our local transit systems can be ... enhanced and service the needs of our people here locally."

Jo-Anne Gignac, Conservative candidate

"You've watched me for 12 years, you know what I feel about transit systems and the importance in terms of moving people to jobs and moving the goods that they create at those jobs through our official transit. Definitely in terms of representing you in Ottawa, you will have a real champion in terms of making sure the investments that are needed to have regional transit are going to be there.

Cheryl Hardcastle, New Democratic candidate

"The NDP has already committed to infrastructure and to the role and responsibility of the municipalities to be able to make that decision on how the money is invested and spent to the best for their communities. We've said we're going to give municipalities one more cent of the gas tax — that's about $1.5 billion per year — we're very committed to infrastructure as a stable and predictable investment for each community that doesn't have political investment and isn't inconsistent."