Kingston and the Islands candidates for the provincial election focused on health-care issues facing Ontario as they gathered at the Health City conference for an 80-minute roundtable.

The event, which took place at the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts on Tuesday night, covered issues ranging from growing wait times in emergency rooms, challenges in accessing specialists, Local Health Integration Networks and universal dental and pharmacare.

While incumbent Liberal MPP Sophie Kiwala defended the work of the Liberals over the past 15 years, the other four candidates in the June 7 election took the opportunity to point out what they see as flaws in the health-care system and presented their plans to address those problems.

What stood out the most from the night was the underlying competition between the New Democratic Party and the Progressive Conservative party. NDP candidate Ian Arthur made many mentions of PC leader Doug Ford’s commitment to privatization, while PC candidate Gary Bennett made efforts to distance himself from his party leader.

As Bennett presented his plans for health care, Arthur expressed his surprise, asking Bennett, “Are you sure you’re running for the right leader?”

Despite this, Bennett was adamant in his support for his party, but less so in his support for his leader. While expressing his support for not cutting the health-care budget, he said, “our party is a team, not just one person.”

Bennett pointed out that Ford has been vocal in his criticism of the Wynne government privatizing Hydro One.

“I’ll be reminding Doug Ford every day at Queen’s Park: ‘Look what happened with Hydro. Don’t let that happen with our health care,’” Bennett said, pushing back against Arthur’s criticism.

While the competition between the NDP and the Conservatives was evident, the evening was civil and pleasant overall.

For the most part, all of the candidates agreed on the salient issues. They agreed that wait times are too long, that pharmacare should be expanded, that cuts to health care are a bad idea, and that our health-care system should not be privatized.

It was their approaches to these problems that differed. Throughout the roundtable, the various candidates presented the central points of the health-care aspects of their platforms.

Arthur emphasized the NDP’s commitment to universal pharmacare. He pointed out how dental visits to the hospital emergency rooms needlessly clog up the system and extend wait times. With universal dental care, those visits would be eliminated. According to Arthur, the NDP is also committed to investing in 40,000 new long-term care beds, lifting the hiring freeze on nurses, and increasing funding in community health centres by five per cent.

Trillium party candidate Andre Imbeault emphasized the importance of increasing the efficiency of spending in health care. He said his party is committed to focusing on community-based home care for seniors, increasing educational opportunities for immigrants with medical qualifications, and increasing the ratio of caregivers to patients. He said his party would pay for this by dismantling the Local Health Integration Networks, which he claims are inefficient and “of no value.”

Green party candidate and deputy party leader Robert Kiley agreed with his fellow candidates that increasing home care for seniors should be a priority. He also emphasized the importance of preventive health care by addressing what he referred to as the “Social Determinants of Health” — factors in life that impact health outcomes such as income, food stability, employment and stable housing. The Green party plans to address this by implementing a basic income guarantee. Kiley also highlighted the party’s commitment to mental health by removing HST on private mental health practitioners, subsidizing pharmacare, and introducing educational curriculum that makes physical education mandatory from kindergarten to 12.

Like his colleagues, Bennett emphasized the importance of community-based health care, reducing wait times and early education intervention for healthy living strategies. Unlike the other candidates, Bennett emphasized that growth in health care cannot come at the expense of the deficit. He stated that in the future, “we won’t be sitting here talking about how to change health care, but how to save it.”

Kiwala, unlike the others, was on the defensive on Tuesday night — defending the track record of the Liberal government. According to Kiwala, since the Liberals took power in 2003, they have hired 28,000 new nurses, 11,000 of whom were RNs. The Liberals have also invested millions of dollars into Kingston Health Sciences Centre, as well as the Street Health Centre downtown. She claims that since elected, “health care is the most important portfolio that I have.”