“Better life is on the way…”

A conversation with

 the Hon. Howard Hampton, MPP

Leader of the New Democratic Party of Ontario.

By  Thomas S. Saras

Editor-In-Chief

“Under the Global economy, some people are becoming very wealthy and the ordinary citizens are struggling for survival…” - Howard Hampton, MPP

Portrait of the politician

The Hon. Howard Hampton, MPP, is the leader of the New Democratic Party of Ontario (NDP), aposition he has held since June 22, 1996.

Mr. Hampton acquired his taste for politics early as the son of a mill worker in a community where strong trade union principles prevailed. The Member of Provincial Parliament for Rainy River was first elected in 1987. He has served as the Minister of Natural Resources from 1993 to 1995 and as Attorney General of Ontario from 1990 to 1993, in Ontario’s first NDP government.

Prior to serving as an elected member and Party Leader, Howard Hampton worked as a labour lawyer for the Canadian Labour Congress and in private practice in Fort Frances. He has also worked for the Blakeney  government in Saskatchewan, and as a teacher in southern and northern Ontario.

            In law, Mr. Hampton focused on defending the rights of working people and getting management to play fair.

            He earned his law degree from the University of Ottawa, his Bachelor of Education degree from the University of Toronto and his Bachelor of Arts degree from Darmouth College in New Hampshire.

            A gifted hockey player and a keen sportsman, Mr. Hampton is passionate about the importance of providing community activities for youth and equality public services for all.

            Born in 1952, Howard is married to Sudbury East MPP Shelley Martel. They have two young children, a daughter, Sarah, and a son, Jonathan.

The interview

Tom Saras:       I would like to thank you for your time Mr. Hampton. How have things developed in the Provincial Legislature and what exactly has your party achieved over the period of the year ended?

Howard Hampton:         I think that the most significant event over the past year has been the whole situation in Walkerton where over 2000 people became very ill and seven people died. And probably hundreds of people face long-term consequences for their health. And even as the commission of inquiry is proceeding, I think that the evidence grows every day as to the major reason, as to why this happened. And this is because the Harris government cut so much money from the budget of the Ministry of Environment and laid off so many of the inspectors, the scientists and the enforcement officers. So, I think the cost of the Conservative government’s tax-cuts are starting to come home to people. People are starting to see the long-term cost and what it can mean for people’s health and for people’s safety and for the communities we all depend on.  As the year has unfolded, we have started to see other costs as well. We have chaos in our schools now. Even the government’s own commission has come forward and stated our children are not receiving the quality of education they deserve and they need due to under-funding of at least one billion dollars a year. The healthcare situation, by all the evidence I see, continues to grow worse. And now it is a routine thing that hospitals re-direct ambulances. So, throughout the month of October, November and now December, on almost any given day, most of the hospitals in the city you cannot get into the emergency room. This is because the emergency room is simply overflowing.

TS:       With so much turmoil and anger over the educational reforms and the refusal of the government to negotiate, why does Mr. Cook, the chairman of the reforms committee and a member of your Party, continue to cooperate and refuse to resign?

HH:      I think these are decisions that were made on an individual level. You have to decide if you think you can accomplish more by resigning or you think you can accomplish more by continuing to be there, and continuing to come forward with suggestions and recommendations, and the kind of criticism that holds the government accountable. Those are the kinds of individual decisions people make.

TS:       In the old days, if a minister was in disagreement with the government, he resigned. Nowadays, all these principles have changed things. I am wondering why a party such as yours, that stands for principles, does not stand more consistent with its policies?

HH:      In Mr. Cook’s case, he indicated some years ago he wanted out of partisan politics and, while he still had an interest in education as a public issue, he no longer wanted to deal with education or other issues on a partisan basis. And again, that is an individual choice that he makes. I think he is entitled to make that choice after serving in the legislature for over twenty years. He is entitled to say I have done my work; everyone knows my positions, my values and my beliefs. I am going to work on those things, but I will do it now in a non-political way. Everyone is entitled to make that choice at a certain point in his or her live.

TS:       Just recently, we had elections at the federal level. The federal NDP came out with very little support. In times of restrictions, of public disappointment with the status quo, I would imagine the parties on the left would come out stronger. That was the traditional way of expressing the views of the public in the past. How do you explain the fact that under the circumstances the Federal NDP came out with little support?

HH:      I think the major reason is that people may have particular issues that they are concerned about overall, and in the general sense people are willing to forgive governments because good economic times forgive many sins. Just ask Bill Clinton. He will tell you, and I have actually heard him say this, that people give him credit for the boom in the American economy and people are willing to forgive him for his indiscretions. But I think the same thing is true for the Chretien government. A lot of people are concerned of what may be happening to healthcare and feel to a large extent that the federal liberal government is responsible for that. People may also be concerned about the rising levels of inequality, the homelessness, the poverty, especially the increase in child poverty. But what you often find is that many of the incumbent government’s sins are forgiven if the economy of the day is functioning relatively well. XXXXXXSo the Harris government provincially, the Chretien government federally and the Clinton government in the United States and many governments in Western Europe have been re-elected and re-elected again because at a time when the economy is doing relatively well, people for whatever reason seem reluctant to turf out an incumbent government.

TS: You know the plans for two party political systems all over the world. The New World order doesn’t like your party.  Are there any real concerns within the party to challenge policies, to find new ideas, strategies, to attract people back?

HH:      I think there is a lot of work that we have done and we continue to do on what I think are the issues that matter most to people. Six years ago homelessness was not an issue that was on everyone’s mind. But now in large cities like Toronto, in Ottawa, Hamilton even small cities like Sudbury, homelessness is becoming a major issue on people’s minds. I think new democrats deserve a lot of the credit for raising the public consciousness on that and also a lot of credit for proposing what I think are the most realistic solutions. I think the kinds of solutions we proposed and are probably very soon going to be implemented. We may not be implementing them but we have led the fight to get us there. Similarly a lot of the concern of what is happening with the global economy. The global economy that we see now seems to be one where some people are becoming very wealthy and a whole lot of ordinary people are struggling. I think new democrats and social democrats around the world have fought to make sure that the issues get on the front page and that the issues start to register with the general public. New democrats in Ontario and in Canada are aware of the unfairness we see happening in terms of labour legislation. The Harris government is now proposing a sixty-hour workweek in Ontario. We have led the way out there in terms of raising awareness and getting people to recognize what is happening. How devastating that will be for families. How devastating that will be for people’s working life as well as their family life. We are the only people who have put forward an alternative to that. Who said in a so-called knowledge economy, knowledge society, you are wrong if you think the way ahead is to force people to work longer and harder for less. The way ahead is actually to equip people with the tools so that they can work smarter. On a number of fronts New Democrats are actually at the front of the debate and are actually putting forward the alternatives that people need to hear. Now given the sort of corporate power that is out there, especially what I call the new corporate media powers of Conrad Black, dominates the newspaper world. You have to work very hard to get the alternative across. You have to work very hard to see that there is a different way of looking at the world, which is more beneficial and positive for ordinary people not just for those who are at the top of the income ladder. But I think we are succeeding on that and many of the positions that we set out we are going to see implemented into program and policy in the next year or so.

TS:       For a number of years the minimum wage has been frozen. The people who are affected directly are mostly the new immigrants. They lack the language skills etc… They come to this country, they work many hours for very few dollars. The fact is that I have never heard anyone bring this matter into the House of Commons.

HH:      We have been in workplaces, in fast food restaurants, in retail stores, in shopping malls where in fact a number of the people you will find are working for minimum wage and they are aware that their wages have been frozen for six years. So part of this is a campaign that you take to the streets and part of it is also a private member’s bill that I put forward calling for an increase for minimum wage. Over the last few weeks as we have dealt with the conservative proposal to increase the work-week to sixty-hours to take away people’s entitlement to two weeks vacation to happen all at once. We have also been raising the issue of minimum wage. A truly family friendly workplace would include an increase in the minimum wage to at least $7.50/hour. We should not be moving to a sixty-hour work-week we should be moving to a forty-hour week and anything after forty hours should be overtime and anything above forty hours workers should have a right to refuse so that they can spend more time with their families. So we have actually been spelling out what workers need in this so-called knowledge society knowledge economy.

TS:       A month ago we had an interview with the Premier and I stated that Europe is proposing a 35 hour workweek and you are proposing a 60-hour workweek. The Premier’s reply was that I was looking at with the wrong approach. The fact is that if someone wants to work 60 hours one week and work 20 hours the following week they have the choice to do so.  Is this a fact? Will an employee have a choice to work these hours?

HH:      No, in fact the employers out there already are putting pressure on workers to work longer and harder without overtime pay and I think the rule, the general trend that is going to come out of the conservatives new employment standards act is that you will see more people work longer hours without overtime pay. This means working longer hours for less which I think will be destructive for individuals in the long run and certainly destructive for families.

TS:       With regards to the environment, I was told we are second only to Texas, George Bush’s legacy. We face now the tragedy of Walkerton and who knows what else we will have to face. Are there any specific policies that your party will proceed toward the direction to protect us from tragedies like Walkerton?

HH:      We said in the last election that part of our strategy would be to re-invest in protecting the environment to make sure that we have inspectors and the scientists and the enforcement officers doing the work that will protect our air and water that would ensure that corporate polluters were caught and convicted and punished. We are still committed to that. We have a concrete plan that shows people how we would pay for that and how we would implement that. I think what we have outlined and what we have found over the last couple of years is now being looked at and thought about and supported by more and more people. We are going to spend the next year or so driving that home again. Pointing out the cost of not protecting our environment, not protecting the water that we drink, not protecting the air that we breath and not protecting the community environment. The cost of not doing that will be much more expensive than investing a moderate amount of money and doing a good job of it.

TS:       In the past this party had a legacy where members of the caucus were sitting in the House day and night to protest against the policies of the government. I have seen in the last few years that the present government is imposing highly unpopular policies and I know that you disagree 100%, but I have not seen any kind of protests like the ones in the past. Why is that? Are the members tired? In democracy you have only certain way to register your disagreements or concerns as a minority party. Why don’t you exercise those rights?

HH:      In fact what the Harris government has done over the last four years is that they have dramatically changed the rules of the legislature so that it is very difficult now and in fact, in many cases, it is impossible to hold up their legislation. It is very difficult now to delay unpopular legislative measures. And it is very difficult to force them to send legislation to committee or force them to send legislation out for public hearings. So they have substantially reduced democracy in Ontario.

TS:       So in fact you are telling me that we have a reduced parliamentary democracy.

HH:      I think that is quite evident. This is a government that has taken democracy away from school boards and education. It has taken democracy away from municipalities, cities and towns and it has very much turned democracy in Ontario to who has the most money. Not one person one vote anymore, but who has the most money, who can buy the most advertising who can buy the most propaganda and who can run the most television commercials. That is very much their direction.

TS:       Can you give me your vision of what you think the new century will be?

HH:      We now live in a knowledge society in a knowledge economy and the most important element in a knowledge society is the knowledge, the training, the ability of our people and if we are to succeed, if we are to do well in that knowledge society, then our first priority must be to invest in our people, invest in their education, invest in the healthcare system we all need, invest in affordable housing so that we can have a roof over our heads so that we can organize our life for work and organize our life to be productive.  Also to invest in our community so that we help provide people with the tools that they need to be socially and economically productive. As  new democrats that is what we are committed to doing, that is the message that we are committed to taking to people and that is the program that we are committed to implement. And that is completely completely different from what you see being implemented now; where we have a government that is not investing in our people, that is not investing in the education of our people, that is not investing in the health of our people, that is not investing in the support of our people.

TS:       How do you see the relations of your party when traditionally they were in alliance with organized labour in Ontario?

HH:      I think that our relationship with the labour movement is quite strong with the exception of perhaps one or two individuals. I think our relationship with the labour movements is strong and needs to be strong when the government is going to introduce a 60-hour work-week. People are going to need in many cases, a union to speak for them otherwise they will be working such long work weeks that it will be dangerous for their health, their safety and certainly harmful to their families. So I think our relationship is quite strong. We recognize that we have to do a better job of speaking to workers, speaking to people who do not have the benefit of a union. People who often are working for minimum wage who are working for low wage. So that means changing our focus somewhat and I think the labour movement broadly described is prepared to work with us so that we do a better job of that.

TS:       In closing, would like for you to give our readers your message for the New Year.

HH:      I hope that people will be optimistic. I believe that despite some of the things that are happening now we can make the changes. That we can implement the strategies that will benefit people more in our society. That we can turn around the sixty-hour workweek. That we can in fact provide our people with the tools that they need to work smarter not work harder and longer. So my message is one of optimism. Despite some of the set backs that we have had, that we have seen in our communities, that a better life is on the way.

TS:       Thank you very much all the best to you and your family and your party.

HH : Thank you Tom, all the best to you and to your family.