By Mark Squibb
Jim Lester of Lester’s Farms is looking to reclaim the district of Mount Pearl North for the Progressive Conservatives.
“As a businessperson, and a generational business family, we know what it takes to adapt to a changing environment and enabling our business to survive and thrive, and I want to apply those characteristics to government,” said Lester.
Lester first ran provincially in 2015, in the neighbouring district of Mount Pearl – Southlands, but lost to then Liberal candidate, now Independent, Paul Lane. He made it into the House two years later though in Mount Pearl North by besting Liberal Jim Burton in a by-election to replace PC Steve Kent, who had resigned. Lester was re-elected in the general election of 2018, but fell two years later in the next general election to popular Mount Pearl councillor Lucy Stoyles of the Liberals. That race was so close – decided by a mere 109 votes – that Lester contested the result in court but was unsuccessful. All of which sets the stage for round two on October 14.
“One of the big focuses of our platform is healthcare,” said Lester. “And any investment that creates a positive impact on healthcare is a long-term savings in the government budget.”
The party has promised, amongst other things, to double MUN’s nurse practitioner program and hire locals rather than rely on travel nurses.
“Generally, it’s no reflection of individuals or facilities within healthcare but it’s more a reflection of management of healthcare,” said Lester of the state of healthcare.
As for the provincial deficit, the exact amount of which has become a subject of some debate, Lester said that it “appears to be approaching a billion dollars.”
Lester said the Liberal government’s decision to include decades worth of future revenue from a pending lawsuit against tobacco companies in this year’s budget was a dirty trick.
“In accounting matters, it was legit to do that, but it was not fair to present that to the public as part of the general revenue,” said Lester.
As for the Churchill Falls deal, Lester likened the memorandum of understanding to a sales brochure.
“It’s all about the sale of electricity, the sale of a resource, that we should be using to attract businesses here to Newfoudnland and Labrador,” said Lester. “So, in my opinion, the MOU is not about money, it’s about control. We are looking to provide Quebec with control over our economy through this deal by the control of our hydro development.”
Asked about immigration, Lester said the Province needs to “totally reevaluate” immigration policies.
“We’ve overloaded our infrastructure with an influx of people,” said Lester. “Our infrastructure was already pretty much to the max when it comes to housing and healthcare, even simple things like transportation… We need to realize that the lifestyle and our standard of living that we have is going to be eroded if we don’t maintain a firm hold of how our infrastructure is used and how our culture is preserved. I’m not against immigration, because most of us are immigrants, or are descendants of immigrants – I am – but we have to look at people coming to this country and to this province who bring economic value.”
Community safety, said Lester, is also top of mind for himself and for residents.
“I’ve lived here just about all my live, with the exception of a brief stay in PEI as a child, and I have never, ever seen the degradation of society as we know it now, with the amount of homelessness and presence of drugs in our streets and our parks and schools and public washrooms,” said Lester.
More investment needs to be made into rehabilitation programs, he argued.
“We need to do better as a society to help people get through rough patches in their life and return to being contributing members of society,” said Lester.
Jim Lester