Progressive Conservative candidate Dionne Duncan said the NDP’s hydro rate plan will eventually hurt more people than help.

“Twenty-two years to buy back hydro makes no sense,” she said. “People will die.”

The candidates also clashed over how to implement a poverty strategy to assist struggling Hamilton Centre residents.

Pike said Horwath voted against a 2014 Liberal budget that would have provided improved pension reform and establish a poverty strategy that would have helped low-income people. However, in 2018, the NDP included in its election platform anti-poverty programs that the Liberals have already implemented.

“We trust this switch is genuine?” said Pike, who had been an NDP supporter before running for the Liberals.

Horwath reminded Pike that the Liberals have been in power since 2003 and have done very little to assist low-income people.

“The Liberals have talked a good game in 15 years about poverty reduction,” said Horwath. “I think it is pretty rich after 15 years to suggest the NDP who wasn’t in government is responsible for the dismal record that the Liberals have had on the poverty file.”

Horwath also took a few swipes at Progressive Conservative leader Doug Ford and Duncan for campaigning to cut corporate taxes and eliminate services, but failing to provide a platform those voters can view.

Duncan said the Tories’ goal is to “get rid of programs that are simply stressing our province.” Pressed by Horwath what those programs would be, Duncan named any financial support to large corporations and education programs that do not address skills development.

“We have a lot of programs that focus on education,” she said. “What we need to do is focus on education and trades.

Duncan said vital social service programs will not be cut.

“(Ford) will be upfront and honest with all of his plans,” said Duncan. “We do have a platform. When it comes to social accountability, when it comes to fiscal accountability, your party doesn’t have it. You have a nice smile, but you don’t have it.”

But Horwath, who had a bemused look on her face during most of the debate, remained confident that under a Ford government he will ignore such social programs as daycare, pharmacare and poverty reduction.

Duncan said statistically it would have been more productive for the Liberals to introduce a pharmacare program for people age 55 and above rather than from age 0 to 25. She said those younger people already have benefits to fall back on.

Horwath responded that “every single person should get the prescription drugs that they are prescribed by their doctors. But Duncan interjected: “And where is that money coming from?”

Horwath also reiterated her support for providing Hamilton with the $1 billion in capital funding for the light rail transit system, which the Liberals initially committed. While Duncan didn’t address the funding, she wanted to protect the small businesses that will be disrupted when construction is scheduled to begin in 2019.

She also criticized the NDP’s plan to harmonize the business education tax rate at a time when businesses in Hamilton Centre are “shutting down, doors are closed.”

Municipalities have had different education taxes before the province took control over the rates in 1998 and they have remained unequal since. In 2007 the province vowed it would reduce and harmonize the rates, but delayed it in 2012. Business officials acknowledge businesses in municipalities such as York and Peel regions, Halton, Durham, Ottawa, rural and northern Ontario would pay more.

Horwath said chambers of commerce have requested the harmonized business education tax be imposed to promote fairness among businesses.

She said the chambers “asked the Liberals (and) the Liberals haven’t done it. We will tackle it.”

Responded Pike, who said the Liberals have reduced the small business tax from 4.5 per cent to 3.5 per cent: “It’s the Mike Harris tax.”

Also running in Hamilton Centre are Independent candidate Maria Anastasiou, None of the Above’s Tony Lemma, the Libertarian’s Robert Young and the Communist Party’s Mary Allen Campbell.