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Ross Sutherland: focus on rural healthcare
Ross Sutherland is first and foremost a political activist He is a nurse in the emergency department of Hotel Dieu Hospital and a professor of nursing at Queens, and as a long time healthcare worker, he has developed a forceful position on Canadas health care system, a position he has been promoting throughout the election campaign.
Sutherland sees healthcare as a priority in the Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox & Addington riding. People want improved access to healthcare, particularly better access to primary care practitioners. We need more money in the health care system and we need to stop the for profit system. Sutherland said.
Although health care is provincially run, Ross Sutherland sees the federal government as responsible for dealing with the broader systemic problems. A federal representative could work with our communities to push for a community health centre, on the model of Tweed and Lanark Village. It would be quite legitimate for federal representative to work with these local communities on putting a proposal together.
Another big issue that Sutherland sees is that of trust, integrity and accountability o the riding. The federal MP should have two or three constituency offices, he argues, and must be able to meet with people regularly to discuss issues.
Sutherland notes that Scott Reid of the Conservatives talks about holding referenda within the riding on contentious issues and then voting as instructed, and he issues a challenge to Reid to commit to a referendum on for profit delivery of health care. This challenge, delivered through press releases and directly in a demonstration held at Reids campaign office, demonstrates both Sutherlands commitment to his position on health care reform and his combative political style.
He also finds the Conservative platform hard to pin down when it comes to rural economic development. We havent heard from the Conservatives what kind of programs they are going to cut. What we need are infrastructure programs so the people in communities like Lanark and Sydenham arent stuck paying thousands for clean water.
Environmental laws that have been passed all have good intentions, but the federal and provincial governments cant expect small communities and small farms to pay all the expenses of compliance on their own. There needs to be federal support, and I havent seen it from the Liberals and I dont see it coming from the Conservatives. The Conservatives would only shut taxes and eliminate HRDC and other rural economic grants.
Another issue that divides Ross Sutherland and Conservative Party candidate Scott Reid is the proposal by Reid to enhance property rights and move towards entrenching them in the Constitution. That is a very dangerous idea. If property rights were enshrined, municipal Official Plans would be null and void, as would comprehensive zoning bylaws. For instance you could build an amusement park on a lake or next to a farm.
Travelling through the new riding, Sutherland says he has been impressed by the tremendous diversity, and real vibrancy that I have seen. People are working hard making their communities better places to live.
