Premier Kathleen Wynne went to the Rolling Stones’ rehearsal space to get an earful from some Ontarians who “can’t get no satisfaction” from her government.
Wynne held her first town hall at the Concert Hall on Toronto’s Yonge Street on Monday night, facing 200 people — a few friendly, but many adversarial — and taking their questions for almost 90 minutes.
“I’m very upset about the way the health-care system has been gutted,” said a man named Harold, who uses a motorized scooter after having “a chunk of my foot amputated.”
“That shouldn’t have happened,” Wynne told him.
Another man who has watched two massive wind turbines erected near his Priceville farm in Grey County complained the green-energy projects have “poisoned” the water table.
The premier asked him to leave his research paperwork with her staff.
Others in the audience bemoaned the Tarion home warranty program, the lack of $10-a-day child care, anti-Black racism, HIV policies, the sale of the majority of Hydro One, and Ontario’s decision to have the government control the recreational cannabis market.
Ironically, one of the easiest questions for Wynne to answer came from an activist with Ontario Proud, an anti-Liberal Facebook group that backs the Progressive Conservatives.
Brandishing a protest sign about excessive electricity bills, the young man asked Wynne why the CEO of Hydro One, which is still 49 per cent owned by the province, earns $4.5 million, 10 times the salary of his counterpart at Hydro-Quebec.
Because the young man’s query echoed Tory talking points, that allowed the premier to fall back onto the well-worn responses she gives during question period in the Legislature about how the government is reducing hydro bills by 25 per cent.
Wynne faced far more difficult and emotional questions from college students furious that her government allowed the strike by their teachers to last five weeks.
“I’m so sorry,” the premier told a weeping student.
Moderated by former Globe and Mail reporter Jane Taber, it was a well-organized event, but hardly as choreographed or scripted as a campaign swing would be.
The town hall is considered a government event, which means the costs were covered by taxpayers and not the Ontario Liberal Party.
There were no Liberal signs and the audience was not vetted as it would be at a partisan rally.
Wynne never once mentioned her party’s name or the June 7, 2018, election — or indeed the names of Tory Leader Patrick Brown or NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, her main rivals in the upcoming campaign.
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Officials say similar town halls will be held across the province.
