Elections

Raymond Dartsch, Candidate for Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale in Ontario Provincial Election 2014

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Candidate Details (top)

NameRaymond Dartsch
ElectionOntario Provincial Election 2014
AreaAncaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale
PartyGreen Party of Ontario
Votes0
Email raymonddartsch@gpo.ca
Website http://www.gpo.ca/riding/3/candidate-0
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BioRaymond Dartsch RN is a full-time Community Nurse living in the village of Eden Mills, near Guelph, with his wife and five children. Committed to principles of ecological wisdom, social justice and fiscal responsibility, he is delighted to be the Green Party of Ontario candidate for Ancaster Dundas Flamborough Westdale.

Raymond is a native of east Hamilton and a graduate of both Mohawk College and McMaster University. As a Registered Nurse he provided care to patients at all acute care hospitals in Hamilton as well as the former Hamilton Psychiatric Hospital. Raymond's hospital career was followed by a focus on home care as a Visiting Nurse caring for clients in Hamilton, Niagara, and Wellington County. On a daily basis, Raymond sees first-hand the value of a preventive approach to health care, and the value of home-based and community-based care, to take the pressure off of hospitals and the provincial health budget.

Raymond devoted many years as a dedicated political and environmental activist concerned for the future of Hamilton and the formerly independent municipalities of Ancaster, Dundas, Flamborough, Glanbrook and Stoney Creek. Committed to local democracy and decentralization of political power, Raymond was an active campaign volunteer for anti-amalgamation candidates across all of the former Hamilton-Wentworth region in 1999 and 2000. His arguments against the "Supercity" appeared in the Hamilton Spectator, and the Flamborough Review. Raymond believes it's never too late to listen to, and act upon, the genuine democratic preferences of a community, in regard to its own governance.

Raymond was a very active member of Friends of Red Hill Valley and continues to regret the loss of that treasured natural corridor for Hamilton. He wonders what the local and provincial dollars spent on that mega project could have otherwise accomplished for all the citizens of the "New" City of Hamilton. Raymond believes that transportation solutions for Hamilton's future involve LRT, cleaner buses, electric GO Trains running more frequently and making more stops. Also let's not forget about making it easier for people to get around on a bike or on foot.

Raymond and his family live in a moderately-sized, well-insulated home, complete with composting toilet and air-to-air heat pump, overlooking the pond in Eden Mills. They have found that living sustainably also means living comfortably, affordably and beautifully. For the future of his children and yours, Raymond Dartsch as a Green MPP would like to promote these values province-wide.

- See more at: http://www.gpo.ca/riding/3/candidate-0#sthash.bBv1D8Tl.dpuf

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Responses to Questions (top)

QuestionBrief ResponseFull Response
Do you support maintaining or expanding the protection of farmland and rural natural land from urban boundary expansions? Yes Yes, the Greenbelt is just a good start.
Do you support regional GO transit expansion, including all-day two-way GO train service to Hamilton? Yes I wish we could fund the construction of a time machine to go back 40 years and get all-day two-way GO service started in the early 1970's. Failing that, it needs to implemented ASAP, with as much express service as possible.
Do you accept the evidence of human-caused global warming? If so, what policy measures do you support to reduce greenhouse gas emissions? If not, why not? Yes Yes. Since most oil pumped is used for transportation, see my responses to LRT, GO transit, walking/cycling and land use, above. We also need a massive retrofitting of built structures in Ontario to make every building in the province a "Green" building, instead of building any more hydro infrastructure.
The Ontario School Funding Formula currently incentivizes local school boards to neglect and close neighbourhood schools. Do you support keeping neighbourhood schools open? If so, how? Yes Keep the neighbourhood schools open by eliminating the separate school board. This would save administrative dollars and would allow a huge logistical rationalization in matching kids up with their nearest school. Kids of all faiths should be walking to their local school together.
Do you support Hamilton's plan to build an east-west light rail transit line with full provincial capital funding? If so, how will you ensure the project is funded? Yes Yes I support it, I would see it built in stages, downtown-to-McMaster as a priority, this would spread the funding requirements over a longer period. And once Hamiltonians get a sample of what a great technology LRT is, the opposition to the rest of the project should evaporate, as happened in many US cities where LRT was introduced as a demonstration project. When LRT is up and running in Kitchener/Waterloo, Mississauga/Brampton and Ottawa, Hamiltonians will feel left out, no doubt.
Should the province play a role in encouraging safer streets that promote more active transportation like walking and cycling? Yes It should! And play less of a role promoting freeways and automobiles like it has for the past 100 years.
Do you support the proposal to build a new mid-Peninsula highway? No Absolutely not, Hamilton has lost enough green space and agricultural land. The only way to ease "congestion" is by a massive buildout of public transit and changes in land use.
Do you support allowing Ontario residents to appeal to the Ontario Ombudsman with respect to municipalities, universities, school boards, hospitals, nursing homes and long-term care facilities, police and children's aid societies (the MUSH sector)? Yes That's also overdue.