Editor's Note: OrilliaMatters will profile the Simcoe North candidates seeking your vote in the June 2 provincial election. Today, we wrap up the profiles with PC candidate Jill Dunlop, who is seeking re-election.
Incumbent MPP and current Minister of Colleges and Universities Jill Dunlop is seeking her second term in office, and the Ontario Progressive Conservative candidate is looking to bring educational opportunities, well-paying jobs, and investments in infrastructure to the province’s economy as it moves out of the pandemic.
Dunlop, who has held two cabinet positions through her first term in office, says the experience she has gained is invaluable in her bid for re-election.
“We have a four-year record of getting it done, and we’ll continue to work hard,” Dunlop told OrilliaMatters. “With our hospitals or municipalities, having those working relationships is really important … to understanding what the key issues are, and being able to take them back to the party. Having the opportunity to have been a cabinet minister, I’m at the decision-making table, and I think that has been very important.”
Raised in a political family, which includes a well-known father who served as Simcoe North’s MPP for 16 years, and a mother who currently serves as the deputy mayor of Severn, Dunlop’s foray into politics came with her election to Queen’s Park in 2018.
She cites her mother’s decision to step into politics at the municipal level as particularly inspiring for her.
“A lot of people know my dad and the work that he has done as MPP, but I think, for me, as a woman, it would have been more the influence of my mom stepping up into politics,” Dunlop said. “I would say she has been the biggest influence in my political decisions.”
Prior to politics, the Western University-educated Dunlop worked as a college instructor and administrator at Georgian College campuses in Grey County and Simcoe County, and she points to education as key to solving some of Ontario’s issues.
“I have been talking to people and ... I would say the No. 1 issue that I’m hearing is the labour shortage, and that is everywhere from restaurant owners, some of our retail tourism, some of the manufacturing industries, and it’s a huge concern,” Dunlop said.
“Education is obviously very important. I look at our platform, and I see it as a comprehensive plan. When we look at what we’ve been through during COVID, the additional investments that were crucial for health care … now we’re looking at rebuilding the economy, getting things moving with crucial infrastructure, the roads, highways, bridges, the investments in new hospitals and schools, and you can’t build those things if you don’t have the people to do it as well.”
Dunlop pointed to increasing educational opportunities across the province as a key to helping the economy recover, and cited three-year degree programs colleges are now able to offer, as well as expanded nursing programs in the province.
“We’re looking at around 300,000 jobs that are sitting empty in this province, and those are good-paying jobs that we need to see filled,” she said. “Under my government and my leadership as minister of colleges and universities, the three-year degrees that we’ve allowed colleges to offer is going to be a game changer. You think of Georgian College now being able to offer a three-year degree right here at home, so students in this area can choose to pick a school close to home. When you learn in a certain area, you’re more likely to stay and build your career in that area, too.”
Through her former role as associate minister of Children and women’s issues, Dunlop said she looked to break barriers for women in her efforts to fill good job opportunities.
“I (put forward) a motion to call on the government to look at the skilled trade shortage that was happening to break down the stigma, and we’ve done a lot of incredible work in that area,” she said. “I’ve always said you can’t expect a 17-year-old girl to want to be an electrician if she hasn’t been exposed to it early on … and introducing skilled trades early on in the curriculum is going to be crucial to to help fill that shortage down the road and encouraging women into skilled trades. These are great-paying jobs.”
Dunlop said her former role saw her working with women who had been victims of domestic violence. She worked to help ensure “these women were able to get their feet on the ground and have training available to them to enter into good-paying jobs.”
Actions Dunlop is proud of through her first term in office also include a number of investments made at the local level in hospitals and schools.
In terms of growing affordability issues in the province, she pointed to measures she says will save people money.
“During COVID ... there was a time where municipalities were looking at having to increase taxes, and government stepped up and responded with the funding that was going to be necessary to to help them get through that time,” she said.
“Right away on July 1, you’ll see a decrease in the gas tax at the pumps,” Dunlop said. “Starting with that will be helpful, (as well as) rebates on licence plate stickers ... That money is going back into the economy. When people have access to things like that and a good-paying jobs, that’s what’s rebuilding the economy.”
Although Dunlop’s absence from numerous debates along the campaign trail has been met with criticism, she said her focus this election season has been hitting the streets and visiting as many constituents as she can.
Over the past several weeks, she said she and her team have managed to visit 600 to 1,000 homes per day, tallying more than 15,000 to date.
“If you look at the last two-and-a-half years through COVID, people haven’t necessarily had that face-to-face contact, so I felt that my time was best spent talking to people at their homes and listening to their concerns and being able to directly address those,” Dunlop said.
She feels her experience over the the past term has helped her find solutions for constituents, who she can best help, she argues, by speaking with them directly.
“I was actually talking to a woman the other night, and she was telling me how her son is a (personal support worker) and really wants to be a registered nurse. (I said), ‘Right here at Georgian College, he can do this bridging program, and you should be looking at it.’ She (then asked), ‘By the way, why didn’t you attend the debate?’ and I said, ‘I think you just answered that question for me.’”
