Will PC candidates be able to speak during the election campaign? The Prime Minister won’t say

During the 2022 provincial election, most of Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Party candidates skipped the debates and avoided all media interviews until after the polls closed.

Instead, party spokesmen submitted written statements that often received no response.

During a funding announcement at the Naughton Municipal Water Treatment Plant in Sudbury on Monday afternoon, Premier Doug Ford himself did not answer a question about his party’s approach to the next election.

Sudbury.com’s verbatim question was: “We haven’t heard much from local Progressive Conservative candidates in the last election. They avoided all media interviews, and after the elections we learned that it was a top-down order not to give such interviews. Do you have a way to address transparency in the next provincial election, whenever it may be called?”

“Well, you know something, our focus right now is on moving the province forward,” Ford said. – To be honest with you, that’s the last thing on my mind.

The rest of his answer did not address the question. Instead, he talked about infrastructure, the gas tax, affordability, economic development and how other governments are raising taxes.

Nickel Belt NDP MPP France Gélinas, who attended the press conference, told Sudbury.com that she thought the prime minister’s response was telling.

“Transparency and accountability are almost impossible in this government,” she said, adding that she had waited two and a half years for documents through the freedom of information process that should have been made public from the beginning.

“They have their message, they repeat it over and over again and they don’t let anyone else have a say,” Gélinas said.

Gélinas said she expects more of the same from the Progressive Conservatives in the next provincial election.

“Their candidates won’t be able to talk, their candidates won’t be able to share anything with the media. Everything will come from the headquarters so that they control the message at all times. … They do the same thing at Queen’s Park. Even parliamentarians are not allowed to speak.”

In response to a question at Monday’s media event, Ford said “there will be no early elections this year.”

Because whenever there is an election, Ford ended his remarks by urging people to vote “PC Blue” to get more benefits.