PARRY SOUND, ONT.—Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford says the province should be “taking care of our own first” before bringing more immigrants to sparsely populated northern Ontario.

In the second leaders’ debate of the June 7 election campaign, Ford said Friday he had concerns about replicating a federal pilot project under way in Atlantic Canada to attract newcomers to remote parts of Ontario.

“I’d be more than happy to sit down and talk to the folks and look at a pilot project. But number one — I’m a pretty generous guy — I’m taking care of our own first,” he told delegates to the Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities conference here.

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“Once we take care of our own and we exhaust, we exhaust, every single avenue and we don’t have anyone that can fulfill the job then I’d be open to that,” he said.

Both Liberal Leader Kathleen Wynne and NDP Leader Andrea Horwath expressed astonishment afterward.

“I have to say I took a pretty sharp intake of breath at that point, I have to admit,” said Wynne.

“That was a pretty shocking comment to hear from the leader of a major provincial party. We live in one Ontario,” she said, adding she was prepared to discuss with Ottawa such a program to bring people to the north.

“To have Doug Ford say that there’s one province that’s for one kind of Ontarian and there’s another province for another kind of Ontarian — that just is the opposite of how I see this strong, vibrant, diverse society that we have built here.”

Horwath, who also backs such an initiative, told reporters it seemed that Ford “missed the point of the question.”

“The point of the question was that these northern municipalities need more population,” said the NDP leader.

“They’re opening their communities to immigration and they want the provincial government to step up to the plate and negotiate these kinds of agreements with the federal government to get those kinds of skills and newcomers to come north.”

Ford, who had held a press conference earlier in the day, skipped the post-debate scrums done by the other leaders.

The debate marked a tactical change from the Tory, who leads in every public-opinion poll, but has focused his attacks on the Liberals, ignoring the New Democrats.

On Friday, he dismissed Horwath and Wynne as “the same,” then escalated the populist rhetoric.

In Muskoka, Ford took aim at “downtown Toronto elites” and “extremists, the environmentalists” that support his two rivals.

The scion of a wealthy family — and a former Toronto councillor whose late brother was the city’s mayor — said he alone will fight for “the little guy.”

“Both of them think they are smarter than everyone else and the people in downtown Toronto dictate to the rest of the province,” the Tory leader said.

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“I’ll tell you one thing — I’m not going to have a bunch of extremists in downtown Toronto deciding what people in the north are going to do,” he said, referring to those who oppose mining projects, including Kingston-area NDP candidate Ramsey Hart, who has protested mines.

Wynne countered that it’s important to strike “a balance” to promote mining that is good for the economy while working with Indigenous communities and those concerned about environmental impacts.

Horwath said it was clear Ford is “a little out of touch with the mining industry these days.”

She also bristled at his suggestion that Hart was a radical.

“Well first and foremost, the candidate he’s referring to actually is the executive director of a food bank and I hardly find that a radical activity,” said Horwath.

When pressed on Hart, she stressed the party vets candidates, not her.

“There’s no doubt that people get passionate about issues like mining and the impact on the environment,” she said. “And it’s because of those folks, frankly, that we now have a mining sector that’s much more aware of the impact it has on our environment ... they operate in a much more sustainable fashion.”

Horwath, daughter of an autoworker, scoffed at the notion she was an “elite.”

“I’m a Hamilton elite, come on, everybody knows that.”

At the end of the debate there was a moment Horwath dubbed as “awkward.”

Ford said to Wynne as he was shaking her hand that “I still like that smile,” reprising his comment about her from Monday’s CityNews debate.

“I just turned away because I’m not sure what my smile has to got do with making good policy for the north or anywhere else in the province,” she said later.

The third — and final — leaders' debate is May 27 at the CBC Broadcasting Centre.

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