Sandra Pupatello
HEATHER BOA Bullet News GODERICH – Jobs and the economy are top priorities for Liberal leadership candidate Sandra Pupatello.
“All other things will follow,” she told members of the Huron-Bruce Provincial Liberal Riding Association is a morning stop in Goderich on Saturday. The former MPP for Windsor West, who did not seek re-election in 2011, is among seven candidates vying for leadership of the Ontario Liberal Party, after Premier Dalton McGuinty announced his resignation this past October.
Pupatello, who held various economic development, trade and international trade portfolios from 2006 to 2011, has developed a six-step plan for economic development that includes capturing emerging global markets, and encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship.
She has watched the minority government from the outside since 2011, working in the private sector as a director of PricewaterhouseCoopers, and notes it’s been a “very difficult year.”
“What I know is that if I’m the leader, I’m going to be big enough to go to the public and say ‘I get it. You conked us on the head and we’re going to listen’,” she said, in calling for a change to how things have been done.
“I want to be that change for people,” she said.
Among proposed changes are the restoration of collective bargaining with teachers, development of economic policy to match economic regions, and start of local discussion over wind energy development.
While Pupatello pledged to bring change to the Ontario Liberal Party, she also paid tribute to McGuinty.
“I respect him a tremendous amount. This fellow was very good to me. I’d walk on hot coals for that guy even today. He made very tough decisions in very difficult times and I really respect that,” she said.
Pupatello’s portfolios in a McGuinty caucus included community and social services, education, economic development and trade, and international trade and investment.
She also paid tribute to former Huron-Bruce MPP Carol Mitchell, who was defeated by PC newcomer Lisa Thompson in a blue sweep across rural Ontario in the 2011 provincial election.
“She came into Queen’s Park like a force of nature, if I might say. No nonsense. Plain talking. Get the job done,” she said. “I feel like we were a house on fire together. She’s just my kind of people.”
Mitchell was on holidays and unable to attend the meeting Saturday.
Each constituency association elects 16 delegates to the leadership convention, including for women over the age of 25, four men over the age of 25 and four aged 25 or less, with at least one man and one woman. The Huron-Bruce Provincial Liberal Riding Association will vote for delegates Sunday, Jan. 11 at the Belmore Community Centre, Wroxeter. The 2013 leadership convention takes place Jan. 25 to Jan. 27 at Ryerson University’s Mattamy Athletic Centre at Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto.
See related question and answer interview with Pupatello.
