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ON DEVELOPMENT

The closing Christie’s site opens up new development possibilities in southern Etobicoke, and Mr. Holyday blasted the government for failing to designate the area as provincially significant employment lands, adding: “With an election on, they do strange things. It could be with enough pressure they’ll change their minds.” Mr. Milczyn, who noted that city council already rejected converting the lands to residential, said the site was “going through a process” at the provincial level and “the city has to be the final arbiter of planning.”

ON CHILD CARE

With child-care spaces in high demand, candidates were asked what they would do about the increasing expense and lack of access. Mr. Milczyn responded by touting the Liberal government’s rollout of full-day kindergarten, adding the province has created 90,000 new daycare spots. “Does more need to be done? Yes… We will continue to address this,” he said. Mr. Holyday said while he was “fully supportive” of full-day kindergarten, the $1.2-billion cost is unaffordable for a province carrying a debt load of hundreds of billions of dollars. “It’s going to be these very children [who] are going to pay that debt off,” he said, adding residents “are going to wake up one day and find that we’ve lost a lot.”

ON EDUCATION

Mr. Milczyn blasted the conservatives for cutting education funding and firing teachers in years past, noting “we’ve turned the corner on that…. Classroom sizes are down, there are more teachers in our schools, there are more resources in our schools.” Mr. Holyday shot back, saying the Liberal government has put its “union friends” ahead of children’s education, noting teachers’ union boss Ken Coran is now running for the Liberals, just months after a bitter contract battle. “It makes you wonder what the heck was going on,” Mr. Holyday said. “Do we have the union sitting at both ends of the table?”

National Post

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