Ontario Liberal leader Steven Del Duca announced Friday his policy proposals for Ottawa, a city he said Premier Doug Ford "abandoned" when he chose to go snowmobiling during the Freedom Convoy protests.."Our nation's capital was under siege from an illegal occupation taking place on Parliament Hill and right here in the downtown core," Del Duca said. "Doug Ford was nowhere to be seen. He chose to go snowmobiling instead of being here for the people and the businesses of this community.".Surrounded by nine Ottawa-area Liberal candidates, Del Duca said his cabinet would deliver results for the city, "not on the fourth year of a mandate, not by way of press releases and empty words, but by actually showing up starting on day one.".The Ontario Liberal's Ottawa-specific healthcare policies include building the Ottawa Hospital Civic Campus by 2028, as well as continuing funding for the 198,000 square foot, 1door4care facility at CHEO..Del Duca highlighted his commitment to two years of “a buck a ride” public transit fares. He also promised he would provide 50% of funding from the province to support the City of Ottawa's regional transit plan, including the Stage 3 LRT construction. .Not long after the June 2 election, a provincial inquiry into the troubled construction and repeated breakdowns of the Confederation Line will begin. Del Duca promised to apply "the lessons learned from the first two stages of building transit in this incredible city.".Del Duca said an Ontario Liberal government will also support 26,000 Ottawa seniors by allowing them to access homecare, "so they can have the safety, good health and the dignity at home for life.".And to address the rising cost of housing, Del Duca promised the Liberals would build "at least" 10,000 new affordable housing units over the next 10 years..Del Duca added that in addition to Ford "disappearing" during the Freedom Convoy protests back in February, his "local MPs" didn't "step up" to attempt to remedy the situation.."This community, this city, was abandoned. That's not what Ottawa needs. That's not what Ottawa deserves," Del Duca said..Del Duca highlighted the fact that his plan is fully-costed, while attacking Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath for "going back to the drawing board" to make revisions to her "un-costed or poorly-costed platform."."We are the only team that has that forward-looking fair and fully-costed plan that has remained stable and constant from the very beginning," Del Duca said. "It's a plan that we will act upon starting on day one of taking office."
