An NDP candidate in Mississauga has been accused by the Progressive Conservatives of being opposed to rural and northern Ontario living because of an interview she took part in over three years ago.
It's a claim she and her party take issue with.
In a media release, the PCs claim NDP Mississauga-Lakeshore candidate Julia Kole “attacked rural and northern Ontario living and suggested that the world would be a better place if everyone lived in downtown cities,” in a 2019 podcast.
The PCs also allege that if Kole got her way, “Ontario’s vibrant towns, villages, and hamlets wouldn’t exist and nobody would drive a car.”
In an interview with ElliotLakeToday, Kole was subbed for by Ontario NDP Rep Pamela Beattie who said, "Julia was speaking with another environmentalist. They were talking about the notion that many environmentalists have said to go live off the land is more sustainable than living in the city.
"She wasn't talking about rural communities. She wasn't talking about northern communities at all...She was making the point that you can have growth, sustainable growth in urban environments," Beattie added.
In the podcast, Kole said, “Urban living is much more sustainable and is what humanity certainly needs to be doing if we are to continue on the road that we are.”
Beattie concluded, "She's (Kole's) running to represent Mississauga-Lakeshore ... but she's certainly not saying anything about any other part of the province."
Incumbent Algoma-Manitoulin New Democrat Mike Mantha provided a response to the allegations.
“It’s laughable from the PCs to suggest this. New Democrats deeply value northern, rural and urban life in this province – and place such a value on the beautiful natural space we all cherish," he said. "Our Mississauga candidate supports limiting sprawl from our most urban areas so that our biggest cities are more liveable. That’s precisely what makes life in the north so wonderful. Nature is our backyard, our source of so many bountiful resources and recreation opportunities."
"The PCs have no problem paving over wetlands and farmlands that are essential to a sustainable future for our whole province," Mantha added. "If you look at the voting record of myself and my northern NDP colleagues, you will see that we have prioritized northern services and communities at every opportunity."
"The NDP caucus led the way on legislation to improve winter road maintenance on northern highways, reduce the cost of broadband in the north, as well as fixing the Northern Health Travel Grant, all of which the PCs did not support passing," he said. "Our Northern platform shows that we are the only party committed to fixing what matters most to northerners by investing in more doctors in our communities, better long-term care homes and good jobs that pay the bills across our region."
The following is an excerpt from the transcript of the 2019 podcast.
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Julia Kole – NDP Candidate: Urban living is actually much more sustainable-
Interviewer: Really?
Julia Kole: … and what humanity certainly needs to be doing if we are to continue on the road that we are.
Interviewer: Enlighten me. That’s pretty shocking.
Julia Kole: Yes, I know. And it does, it does sound totally contrary to what people would think because when you think of that beautiful in tune with nature lifestyle, you think of that little stone cottage on your piece of property where you have a cow, a duck, some sheep.
You’re self-sufficient, and you think that your environmental impact is very low. And if we were looking maybe centuries ago, before the industrial revolution, in a different way of life, where we value different things, yes, of course, that’s a sustainable way. And it still is in many cases.
However, if you take a few minutes just to really think about your lifestyle and your needs and wants, and what you quote-unquote kind of need to function day today, it isn’t sustainable.
We live in a world where we expect to have food from all over the world flown in to us and have easy access to it. We are reliant on technology in many ways. We’re reliant on electricity in many ways. We want to go out and be entertained in a variety of ways. We want to engage different people in a variety of ways. We want to go explore different areas in different capacities. If we all lived in a rural area, how would we get from point A to point B? You have to drive a car. In an urban area, if it’s tightly compact and it’s quite densely populated, and when it’s planned right, you can walk everywhere. So (it) eliminates your need for a car. If you’re living in a rural area and you’re growing your own produce, or you’re making your own food, you can’t make everything depending on where your climate is.
So you’re going to need to go to the store to get those things. To transport those things out into those rural areas, it’s going to be costing a lot more than shipping them in into central locations that are easily accessible by various modes of transportation. In compact dense living … How much space does a human really need, right? If everyone lived in a condo or a townhouse or had condenser, more compact dwellings, you need less space per person in order for them to live. That gives more space for ecosystems, more space for agriculture-
Interviewer: Interesting.
Julia Kole: … more space for the other things that humans need to survive, but also that the natural world needs to survive.
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