{"id":19472,"date":"2018-01-03T16:15:58","date_gmt":"2018-01-03T21:15:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=19472"},"modified":"2018-01-10T16:31:44","modified_gmt":"2018-01-10T21:31:44","slug":"ahead-of-marathon-new-year-pc-leader-pays-tribute-to-local-initiative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/ahead-of-marathon-new-year-pc-leader-pays-tribute-to-local-initiative\/","title":{"rendered":"Ahead of marathon New Year, PC leader pays tribute to local initiative"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Just days before the start of the most important year in his political life, Progressive Conservative leader Patrick Brown was at the Aurora Legion with his two local candidates.
\nTogether with PC candidates Charity McGrath (Newmarket-Aurora) and Michael Parsa (Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill), Mr. Brown met with Ken White, President of the Aurora Branch of the Royal Canadian Legion, to offer his congratulations on a local campaign which collected nearly 5,000 Christmas cards for Canadian men and women serving overseas.
\n\u201cI just want to say what Ken is doing here, and this project to send Christmas cards overseas is beautiful,\u201d said Mr. Brown. \u201cIt has to be lonely serving overseas and to know you\u2019ve got a community back home that is thankful and appreciative of what you\u2019re doing\u2026is a great initiative out of Aurora.\u201d
\nSpeaking with Mr. White, Mr. Brown shared his own experiences with the Legion \u2013 and found a common connection with the latter\u2019s uncle, who headed the Barrie branch for a decade.
\n\u201cI just think Legions are so important,\u201d said Mr. Brown. \u201cIt gives a place for those who served to come, and it is an opportunity for the community to pay their respects for those who devote themselves to protecting our family.\u201d
\nMr. Brown\u2019s stop in Aurora took place Wednesday, December 20, just over a week until the start of 2018.
\nLooking ahead to this, the New Year, Mr. Brown told The Auroran that he was looking forward to \u201cgetting out around the Province\u201d to tout what he and the Progressive Conservative party are calling \u201cThe People\u2019s Guarantee\u201d to get Ontario back on track.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a big province and I intend to get to every little inch of the Province to talk about our plan to cut taxes for the middle class, to lower hydro bills, to provide relief on child care, to invest in mental health and bring in the first ever Trust, Integrity and Accountability Act,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is all part of the People\u2019s Guarantee and I am so committed to ensuring we get it done for the people of Ontario. I have said if we don\u2019t achieve our promises in the first mandate of an Ontario PC government, I would resign and I wouldn\u2019t seek a second. We\u2019re all in to get Ontario back on track.\u201d
\nAsked whether he has encountered any misconceptions on the campaign trail since \u201cThe People\u2019s Guarantee\u201d was announced last fall, Mr. Brown took aim at the Premier casting doubt on the Progressive Conservative\u2019s pledge to find two pennies of savings for every dollar currently spent by the government.
\n\u201cI think she is dead wrong [in saying no waste can be found in government],\u201d he said. \u201cI think there is waste in government, whether it is $8 billion in E-Health with nothing to show for it, $2 billion for gas plants, allowing power execs to expense things like raccoon traps and scuba gear, from the 403 being repaved every two years instead of every 15 years, from hundreds of thousands of dollars [spent] on a giant rubber duck, this has been a government that has engaged in a culture of waste and I am going to clean it up.
\n\u201cI can\u2019t believe Kathleen Wynne says with a straight face there is no waste in her government.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just days before the start of the most important year in his political life, Progressive Conservative leader Patrick Brown was at the Aurora Legion with his two local candidates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19463,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/2018-01-04-05.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-544","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-10 22:00:58","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}