Stacey Surkova knows she’s in a little tougher as an out-of-towner running for a relatively unknown party in this summer’s provincial election.
“I run in this riding because I live in Ontario,” said the Toronto resident, who is the Trillium Party candidate in Barrie-Innisfil. “Ontario is my home and I’m ready to accept and represent people from any area to be heard equally.”
Surkova, a real-estate agent and mother to two young children, says she sees a lot of issues facing Ontarians.
“I travel a lot due to my work duties, talk to people and always ask about their problems,” she told BarrieToday. “Their problems are our problems. Ontario is one big family by the end of the day.”
Surkova said she joined the Trillium Party because it best reflected her political values. She was also a supporter of party leader Bob Yacuik and embraced his “practical solutions” to issues facing the province.
“The Trillium Party of Ontario is a social conservative one, very distinct from PC and the rest,” Surkova said. “Trillium stands on the review and complete restructure of a few government acts, such as green energy and carbon tax.
“Both were a government experiment and both are an abuse for the small business and household,” she added.
Local issues on the top of Surkova’s list include hydro rates, taxes and health care.
“The promised RVH extension (a secondary campus in Innisfil) will be a solution when it’s ready, but meanwhile the riding needs better diagnostics and lab facilities,” she said.
The state of education must also be addresses, she said.
Surkova says the Trillium Party has a “structured view of a proper curriculum which will help to connect all of the links of the social chain: government, school and parents.
“Things like sex ed, complexity of math and science, and social studies shall be reviewed with the input from families,” she said. “Parents need to get involved for the best of their kids.
“People are treated like material for social experiments,” Surkova said, “such as early age, extensive sex ed or $15 pay rate which kicked the small businesses out of the market, or carbon tax for emissions which the province and the country does not even produce.
“We are left to survive on our own,” she added.
Surkova says the mounting deficit has brought “the province to its knees,” noting what she views as inefficient use of existing resources, mismanagement of funds and “biased taxes simply drive frustration and disappointment.”
Surkova says her party believes in building a connection with the electorate.
“The government of Ontario represents the party’s interest, not the constituency, and this is a problem, number one,” she said. “Right or left, blue or red they all disregard the overall impact their decisions have on the well-being of the families,” Surkova said. “Whipped votes prove that leadership is above all.”
At the provincial level, Surkova says she would like to see changes to how the real-estate market operates in an effort to reduce market prices and make home ownership more affordable for Ontarians.
“As a realtor, I know that, at the moment, the number of people looking for a residential lease is half of those searching the market,” Surkova said. “The Canadian dream of owning the house is unattainable for too many families.”
The election will be held June 7.
