Our latest election interview covers lots of ground, from issues being heard on the doorstep in Southdale to another candidate picking an issue with our guest!
Robert-Falcon Ouellette has always been an articulate and engaging guest with TGCTS and our City Circus Shaw TV series. His career includes two Top-4 finishes in Winnipeg Mayoral elections, sandwiching a busy term as an inner-city Liberal MP.
Now he’s trying to come up the middle in a swing suburban riding between Health Minister Audrey Gordon and an NDP staffer running with an alleged chip on her shoulder that you’ll want to hear about.
Liberal seats in the last House were held by Lamont, Dr. Jon Gerrard and Cindy Lamoureux, and Ouellette thinks if they succeed and are joined by another member like him to attain Party status, it could make a big difference in the Legislature.
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8:04 – RFO talks about health care, and has logical insights into voters being incredulous towards NDP leader Wab Kinew’s promise to get 3 ER’s up and running without having staffing and training solutions; at the same time, he says, there’s a lot of dissatisfaction with the PC government, and with the incumbent MLA’s work as Health Minister.
13.40 – Hear about the ripple effects of addictions, crime and homelessness on Windsor Park – with an unbelievable number of houses on one street hit by break-ins! He casts a critical eye at EndHomelessness Winnipeg missing its target. One of the results: “It’s not normal to live in a Canadian city where you refuse to go downtown because you’re afraid.”
He calls for better medical and mental health services including providing structured day-to-day activities for the patients-and mentions a favorite subject of rail relocation!
19.00 – RFO brings up NDP candidates living far outside their ridings and our report What’s In A Name? Ask Nahanni Fontaine.
“I think it’s great to go to these protests but sometimes it’s about doing those (helping residents) things really well, ” calling it “the basic work” of an elected public servant.
20.50- Hear RFO’s opinion about Wab Kinew’s avoidance of restorative justice for his past altercations. Ouellette goes against the progressive radical image of FN politicians.
“Institutions are actually what keeps society together! … you ignore them to your detriment” citing Winnipeg religious institutions “doing the hard work” of feeding and sheltering the indigent, but not getting support from Christian-bashers like Fontaine. “Anger doesn’t get you very far.”
22.20 – RFO describes how Renee Cable interrupted her NDP canvassing to confront him:
“Why are you running here? You’re going to be splitting the vote.”
“She said I should have called her to talk to her before I ran as if I need to request her permission to put forward different ideas.”
He told Cable, “It seems like my very existence is disturbing to you” – and shaking with anger, she started to make it personal about RFO’s kids.
He says that in the NDP, some people believe they are owed something. He addresses the bigger issues about intimidation and partisan politics in Manitoba- “are we allowed to say anything we want?”
In RFO’s view, “The big parties aren’t very creative with their policies, they don’t work very hard and they’ve repeated a lot of the same mistakes” and “people voting in fear” need Liberal MLAs to provide balance. He cites a lot of factors that are driving down voter turnout and hurt the health of our democracy.
33:07- Marty Gold previews upcoming episodes, including a tip about a bureaucratic cause of ER overcrowding, and a series on inner-city housing, the homeless, and political failures.
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Listen to: Debate Night Rumble – Lamont vs Kinew – by Marty Gold