Peggy Revell
Health care and the economy will be the focus for local MPP Howard Hampton heading into 2011.
“There’s real pressures in the health-care system, especially in long-term care, and those are probably going to get worse,” Hampton warned, noting many constituents have contacted him over concern for their parents and grandparents and the care that they’re receiving, or increasingly the “care that they’re not receiving.”
Institutions like Rainycrest are not receiving the funding they need, Hampton charged.
“And that situation is probably going to get worse,” he said.
“Our homes for the aged increasingly are not homes for the age—they are becoming very much underfunded nursing homes and the quality of care is suffering as a result of that.”
This is through no fault of the staff at places like Rainycrest, Hampton stressed, but because they aren’t getting enough budget-wise to allow them to do the work they want and need to do for patients.
Meanwhile, on the economic front, Hampton said his focus especially will be on the mining sector in 2011.
“I think that we need to do all that we can to ensure that the mining opportunities that are out there for our part of the province achieve some success,” he remarked.
“We have far too many people who are out of a job or who are facing job insecurity, and [the] mining sector is probably the best bet to ensure that people actually can obtain jobs that will sustain families and sustain communities.”
With the demand for gold growing, especially in the face of the U.S. deficit and more and more countries wanting to hold gold as a sort of currency protection, Hampton predicted there will be a “significant” mining announcement for the west end of Rainy River District sometime this year, which also could mean a number of jobs.
“For Northern Ontario as a whole, I think you’re going to see more and more focus and concentration on mining as an opportunity for people to attain good jobs and as the basis for the economy for a lot of communities,” he said.
And while the tourism industry has been hit hard over the past few years, Hampton is optimistic this year will see “a bit of a rebound” as Americans who are the area’s mainstay may not be “a lot better off, but they aren’t worse off.”
But carrying over from 2010, Hampton sees the HST and rising hydro rates as something that will continue to affect people in northern communities.
“I think most people would say the HST has had a real impact on their life,” he noted.
“I think most ordinary folks, if they’re lucky, their income has remained steady over the last three or four years, but for many their income has actually declined,” he added, pointing to workers at the local mill who have taken a pay cut and others who have had their pay frozen.
“And yet the HST represents a very substantial increase in taxes at the same time that people are either taking a pay cut or pay freeze,” Hampton said.
“I think that hurt a lot of people.”
Hand in hand with the HST, Hampton cited “skyrocketing” hydro bills seen this past year.
“I think people are going to get another electricity shock,” he warned. “The hydro bills are going to continue to skyrocket.
“You know I make no bones about that.
“I think the current government has made a number of bad decisions when it comes to Ontario’s hydro electricity and now the chickens are coming home to roost as the cost of those bad decisions are hitting people on their hydro bills, and that will happen again some more this year.”
Yet despite the economic downturn across the globe, Hampton said Fort Frances through to Rainy River has been “probably lucky compared to most other people in Northern Ontario” over this past year.
“If anything, if you looked across Northern Ontario, the Rainy River Valley was probably the bright spot in all of Northern Ontario in the sense that you didn’t see the shutdown of a major employer and the loss of hundreds of jobs all at once,” he remarked, comparing the area to communities like Timmins, Sault Ste. Marie, Nipigon, Red Rock, and Marathon where hundreds of people have lost their jobs.
“It’s especially a positive if you compare us with what’s been going on south of the border, where you literally have tens of millions of Americans out of work,” Hampton added.
“So relatively speaking, we did well in the Rainy River Valley compared to elsewhere in Canada, the United States.”
