By Cecilia Nasmith/Today’s Northumberland
While Premier Doug Ford firmly believes that each local community should deal with its own encampment, he expressed equal firmness against encampments, period.
Ford insisted, the best way to get out of the encampments is to, “get an application and drop it off at one of these companies and start working.”
Stating the bottom line is, “you need to start working if you’re healthy.”
“If you’re unhealthy, I’ll take care of you for the rest of my life, your life. But if you’re healthy, get off you’re a-s-s and start working like everyone else is – very simple.”
As for the Brookside property, Piccini referred to the Waterloo ruling that affects the ability to move people off Crown lands. He described the process for disposal of these lands as intricate and lengthy, but added that one result is a good return for the taxpayer.
Ford say the Provincial Government is going to challenge the decision.
“Because you can’t have people setting up encampments in beautiful neighbourhoods – you just can’t do it. It destroys the neighbourhood.”
As for the sale of the former youth correctional facility, Mayor Lucas Cleveland added, all he can say is that it’s in “final negotiations.”
With large, beautiful new houses just over the hill from the event, a local media member asked about “more than 100,000 people on the wait list for affordable housing,” but Ford said the best way to afford housing is to start working.
“If money was the answer alone, we would have solved the problem, but it’s not,” Piccini added, referring to the wrap-around supports that are also necessary. But, he said, “better jobs with bigger paycheques” do make a difference.
Piccini added that it’s not about supplying people with drugs and weakening the Criminal Code which is what the Federal Government is doing.
“The police here pick up the same people, over and over again. How many stores get broken into? What about that shopkeeper who has to replace that pane of glass for the second or third time? What about their rights?
“The weakening of the Criminal Code is one of the most damaging things this Federal Government has done.”
