Skip to content

Ministers stroll down memory lane

Community and Social Services Minister Sandra Pupatello talks addresses local Liberals at the Davedi Club Thursday night.

Community and Social Services Minister Sandra Pupatello talks addresses local Liberals at the Davedi Club Thursday night. Photo by Phil Novak
____________________________________________________________

Ontario Finance Minister Greg Sorbara didn’t talk about Ulysses or Icarus or Zeus during his visit to North Bay Thursday, but he did have a few words about a different sort of myth.

Sorbara, in town Thursday with Community and Social Services Minister Sandra Pupatello, was asked about the completion date for Hwy 11 four-laning and speculation resources were being moved over to Hwy 69 work instead.

“I think that’s a Northern mythology, I just don’t think that’s the case,” Sorbara said during a media scrum at the Davedi Club.

“The highway to Sudbury and the highway to North Bay have a kind of an equal importance; these are the pathways that open up the North to economic activity.”

Sorbara said Hwy 11 four-laning would be completed, “but the question is what the time frame is, and I don’t know.”

“It’s not going to be done in one construction season, but again, to hear from the chamber and from the mayors and the business community that this is vital to our future makes a pretty powerful impression,” Sorbara said.

Pupatello and Sorbara were guest speakers at the Davedi Club, where local Liberals were holding a $125 a plate fundraising dinner.

Both ministers talked about their Italian heritages and both took a little trip down memory lane.

Pupatello said she was in the Demarco Confectionary Store, on Algonquin Street, when she saw a man who bore a striking similarity to a man who lived in her home town of Windsor and had the same last name

“This man in North Bay reminded me of Mr. Demarco over on Ellesmere Street in Windsor, and then I found out it was his first cousin, for God’s sake,” Pupatello said, pointing out Tony Demarco among the Davedi Club guests.

Sorbara, who met with city and regional officials and politicians Thursday, talked about significant landmarks in North Bay that had ties to the former Liberal government under David Peterson.

“I saw the new court hours that (former Attorney General) Ian Scott approved, and I saw the Correctional Services building,” Sorbara said.

“And it reminded me of David Peterson sitting at the cabinet table insisting time and again that we had to move Correctional Services to North Bay because Northern Ontario deserved to participate in the public activity of this province.”

The Liberal government, he added, has to make sure “the northern part of this province has the capacity to grow along with the rest of the province and it not being left behind again.”

Both Sorbara and Pupatello praised the job Nipissing MPP Monique Smith was doing for the riding.

Smith, Premier Dalton McGuinty’s former chief of staff, brought her insider experience with her to Queen’s Park, Pupatello said, and made an immediate impact.

“It stood her in very good stead and she hit the ground with both feet,” Pupatello said.

“She already knew the ins and outs of Queen’s Park and was able to make contact immediately.”

Smith had been appointed parliamentary assistant to Health Minister George Smitherman and assigned to prepare a report about long-term care in Ontario.

“The report is just tremendous, and something most first-termers wouldn’t be able to do it and Monique was able to do it with aplomb,” Pupatello said, adding the report’s recommendations are being used to shape provincial reform for long-term care.

“So this is the case of North Bay sending a great representative who’s having an impact on all of Ontario and not just North Bay.”