Windsor West voters say health care, addictions are their top election issues. Here's what candidates said
CBC
Since 2014, the area has been represented by Lisa Gretzky of the New Democratic Party. She is facing off against high-profile challengers including lawyer Linda McCurdy and John Leontowicz, the former police chief in LaSalle.
The following candidates have announced they will run in Windsor West (in alphabetical order by last name):
CBC Windsor asked voters to weigh in on issues facing their ridings and in Windsor West the focus was on healthcare. CBC Windsor reached out to the candidates for their talk on the issues.
Leontowicz did not respond to numerous requests by phone, email and social media to provide responses for this story.
Julia Paddon lives in Sandwich Towne and would like to see more resources put into attracting and retaining medical professionals in the city, in particular nurses.
"Without retaining the existing nursing staff that we do have, then we have nobody with the experience, knowledge to train any new entrants to the profession," Paddon said. "New nurses aren't going to stay when the pay isn't going to compensate for increasingly high patient loads. Such nurse to patient ratios that they can't do the basics."
WATCH | See Julia Paddon discuss what matters most to her this Ontario election:
Gretzky, McCurdy and Glovasky-Ridsdale all agreed they would repeal the PC's bill 124, which caps the salary raises of public workers -- including nurses.
"[Bill 124] limits workers to a one per cent increase when we're seeing inflation at at least five per cent now, which for our area now, that means that our front line workers are going across the border to work in the United States," Gretzky said. "What we need to do is immediately repeal that bill."
'"[Nurses] need to be making enough money to make the profession... something people want to go into," McCurdy said.
"I think that COVID taught us something particularly about the health profession that it's underpaid, understaffed, under appreciated and to make sure that people in the health profession and people in health care are paid appropriately, they have proper benefits, proper sick leave. That's going to attract more nurses to our area to be working in our hospitals."
Glovasky-Ridsdale said she wants to raise the overall healthcare budget.
"Our plan and our goal is to hire more nurses," Glovasky-Ridsdale said. "We have beds and there are nurses that are willing to work but if there's no budgets to pay for them then they just don't get hired and they just don't get staffed."
Griffin said his party would review the one per cent pay raise cap that has been put on nurses pay.
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