OTTAWA - The former lead minister in the national capital is taking aim at the new kid on the block.
Pierre Poilievre says Environment Minister and MP for Ottawa Centre, Catherine McKenna, is playing politics with the proposed new location for the Ottawa Hospital civic campus.
A 60 acre site on the Central Experimental Farm across Carling Avenue from the current hospital location was selected by the previous Conservative Government after years of discussion, but that was put on ice after the majority win by the Federal Liberals.
"After she (McKenna) was elected - out of spite - decided that she was going to try to make the previous government look bad by slamming the brakes on the location that the hospital had selected," Poilievre, MP for Carleton, told Bell Media National Affairs Specialist Evan Solomon on News Talk Radio 580 CFRA Tuesday. "Then she punted the matter to the NCC which has no experience or expertise in health care and doesn't actually own the land in question, and the NCC has been delaying for roughly four months - this process is a solution in search of a problem, a problem that Catherine McKenna created and for which she will ultimately be responsible."
Poilievre, the former Minister responsible for the National Capital Commission in former Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government, says the latest consultation process recommending 12 different sites, including four Experimental Farm sites, is all partisan political smoke.
"Every day we delay with this circus is a day that Ottawa moves farther and farther down the list of priorities for capital funding for a new hospital, that means that effectively this federal Liberal circus is endangering the ability of our city to have a new hospital," Poilievre told Solomon.
The new central campus for the Ottawa Hospital is expected to cost $2 Billion and take years to complete.
The National Capital Commission, NCC, will brief elected officials and representatives from First Nations groups about the 12 different sites on September 22nd, at the Canadian War Museum, followed by a public question and answer session.