HAMPTON PROUD OF NDP’S STRONG PERFORMANCE
Voters want NDP to fight for working families - NDP delivers
QUEEN’S PARK - NDP Leader Howard Hampton says he’s proud of the NDP’s good work fighting for working families during this past legislative session.
“The NDP is the party that puts working families first. That’s why voters sent us here - to fight for working families - and this session that’s exactly what we did,” Hampton said.
“From the first day this session opened, we rolled up our sleeves, and got down to being an effective opposition to Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals and their record of weak leadership, broken promises, and failure to deliver on the issues that matter most,” he said.
The NDP has been a strong effective opposition at Queen’s Park - whether it’s on hydro rates, gas prices, property taxes, tuition hikes, the jobs crisis in manufacturing and forestry, Caledonia, the farm income crisis, the lack of action for New Canadians or the lack of help for vulnerable citizens - like autistic kids, clawbacks kids, the disabled, and seniors in substandard long-term care.
For Hampton, the session’s biggest disappointment is the secrecy and deception surrounding Dalton McGuinty’s $40-billion nuclear megascheme - and specifically - the premier secretly exempting the plan from a tough, effective provincial environmental assessment.
“This session, Dalton McGuinty secretly exempted his nuclear megascheme from a tough effective provincial environmental assessment -- undermining the heart and soul of Ontario’s environmental protections and rendering our green laws virtually meaningless. That’s something that should concern every Ontarian,” Hampton said.
“Dalton McGuinty attacked unregulated homemade pies with missionary zeal but he refuses to put his $40-billion nuclear megascheme to a provincial environmental assessment. That double standard shows Dalton McGuinty has the wrong priorities - that he’s willing to skirt any rule if it’s in his political best interest - and that he’s clearly not on the side of working families,” Hampton said.
The NDP Leader thanked NDP MPPs for proposing positive, practical alternatives this session - like the NDP’s Job Protection Act - a plan that would go a long way to help stem the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs we’ve seen under Dalton McGuinty.
“A good opposition not only opposes, it also proposes, and we’ve done both,” he said.
This summer, Hampton will visit communities across the province to meet working families where they live, to listen to their concerns, their ideas and their stories, so that when MPPs return to Queen’s Park, the NDP will be that more effective doing our job.
