In an inspired choice, Libertarian candidate Mike Riehl was seated directly next to Communist Party candidate Juanita Burnett for Tuesday's candidate's debate held at College Heights.
The Ontario Libertarian Party believes in breaking up publicly-funded services and opening them up to competition from the private sector, while the Communist Party of Canada (Ontario) seeks to increase the amount of fully-funded, publicly-owned and operated services.
From the opening remarks to the candidates' closings, the diametrically-opposed views of the two candidates were readily apparent.
Candidates faced a number of other questions from the students, including how to tackle inequality in funding of education on First Nation reserves, as well as how each party plans to deal with health care and education funding for youth.
A constant theme in his arguments for his first provincial debate appearance, Riehl said the key to providing better education and health care for youth lies in opening them up to greater competition.
"We want to open up a lot of non-government options to compete on a fair, non-biased basis with government options so we can choose as individuals where our dollars go, as opposed to a centralized government. The key is bringing more choice into it," said Riehl.
Immediately after his answer, Burnett said the Communist Party would increase funding for education and health care.
“We want to make sure that everybody in Ontario is covered by all of the public services,” said Burnett.
“So — not a Libertarian," she quipped.
In her closing remarks, Burnett laid out many of the Communist Party ideals, including raising the minimum wage to at least $20 an hour.
She was followed directly by Riehl, who deadpanned, "why not a $50 minimum wage — that might be a good place to set it.”
Tuesday's debate was organized by College Heights guidance counsellor Greg Smith and included all of the school's Civics classes and a number of senior classes, as well as Civics and senior World Issues classes from neighbouring Centennial high school
In her opening remarks, NDP candidate Aggie Mlynarz pandered to the crowd of students from the two schools.
"I have to say, I feel right at home. I went to Centennial right next door, but of course I had a lot of friends from Heights as well,” said Mlynarz.
After answering a question from the audience about climate change, Mlynarz was followed up by Mike Schreiner, Green Party leader and candidate for Guelph, who said the three ‘status quo’ parties hardly ever talk about climate change.
Mlynarz instantly held up a bright pink card, used in the debate to signify when a candidate wants to challenge what another has said.
In her challenge, Mlynarz rebutted, "I want to be clear that the Green Party doesn't hold a monopoly on the environment, that the NDP has a very strong environmental policy and always has.”
Liberal Party of Ontario candidate Sly Castaldi answered the question by saying everyone shares responsibility for climate change and suggested people don’t recycle enough.
“That’s on us,” she said.
Castaldi also highlighted local projects that have benefited from funding from the province’s cap and trade program, including a new boiler at the university and energy-efficient windows for some social housing in the city.
"All money that comes from cap and trade, by law, has to go in to projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions," said Castaldi.
Paul Taylor, local candidate for the None of the Above Party, said the province’s current cap and trade policy just allows big business to pay to pollute.
“What we have to do is stop everyone from using polluting devices, such as gas cars. We have electric cars now, but they are just slowly rolling out of the line," said Taylor.
Ontario PC candidate Ray Ferraro and Thomas Mooney of the Ontario Party were not present at Tuesday's debate.
In tackling inequality in the delivery of education options to students on First Nations reserves, Castaldi said there is no excuse why kids in those communities are not getting the same access to resources as those off-reserve, but laid at least some of the blame at the communities themselves.
"If you are talking about schools that are on reserves, the funds go through the band council and the band council makes the decisions,” said Castaldi.
Schreiner said the history of racism and cultural genocide that is taking place in this country toward Indigenous people must be confronted and the inequality of funding is unacceptable on a number of fronts, including housing, education and access to clean water.
"We, on a per capita basis, fund Indigenous communities at a lower level than the rest of our society. That has to stop, it has to change," said Schreiner.
A Green Party government would raise resource royalty rates on natural resources and increase how much of it is shared with Indigenous communities, said Schreiner.
Mlynarz said the inequality in funding is a systemic failure that needs to be addressed immediately and said we need to begin consulting with Indigenous people and listening to the recommendations they are putting forward.
In possibly the most impassioned moment of Tuesday’s debate, Mlynarz said if the federal government won’t enact the 94 calls to action laid out by the Truth and Reconciliation Report, then an NDP government will do it.
“We are adamant to bringing clean drinking water and safe housing to our northern Indigenous communities, and if we have to foot the bill to Justin Trudeau, we will do that because this needs to be done and it should have been done when he was elected," said Mlynarz.
Smith acknowledged that most of the students at Tuesday’s debate are not of voting age.
“The intention is to engage students in the political process and to get them excited and interested in politics, said Smith. “Hopefully they can go home and talk about what they heard and get their parents interested or other people and create a ripple.”
