Duane Hicks
While she won’t predict when the next provincial election will be, Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath said her party is gearing up to fight a campaign.
The NDP are listening to what Ontarians have to say, are acting on that information, and will continue to do so, Horwath pledged during a fundraiser dinner here Thursday night hosted by the Kenora-Rainy River NDP Riding Association.
Horwath said the party is working very hard and doing things a little bit differently than it has in the past, which is helping it to grow.
Since 2009, party membership has doubled and the NDP has doubled its caucus to 20 members, with the latest additions being Peggy Sattler (London West), Percy Hatfield (Windsor-Tecumseh), and Catherine Fife (Kitchener-Waterloo).
“Those [byelection] victories have helped us continue our momentum since the 2011 [general] election,” noted Horwath.
“We are going to make some great gains in the upcoming election,” she vowed.
“I don’t know when that election is going to be, but we do know that it’s coming,” Horwath added.
“And we are going to make sure that the New Democrats are there in force to be the alternative for the people of Ontario who are walking away from the Liberals,” she pledged.
“What we’ve been able to do over the past couple of years . . . in this minority Parliament is show Ontarians what an NDP government would look like,” Horwath told supporters.
“We would be doing things a lot different that what the Liberals do and what the Conservatives do.
“What we have done is make the Ontario legislature work for the people of Ontario,” she remarked.
“Not necessarily work for us as MPPs, but work for the people.”
For example, in the first budget with former premier Dalton McGuinty and then-Finance minister Dwight Duncan in 2012, the NDP were able to get a two percent increase in taxes for the top earners in Ontario to help the province deal with its financial struggles.
In that same budget, the NDP also were able to wrestle hundreds of thousands of dollars more in child care for families, as well as make sure that small, rural, and northern hospitals were given an extra $20 million to deal with some of the pressures on the health-care system.
“It was such a good idea that it was put in the last budget, as well. We didn’t even have to push for it,” noted Horwath.
She added $20 million has been put on a trajectory so it will stay in place for the future to secure services in rural and Northern Ontario hospitals.
Then in this year’s budget, the NDP helped get auto insurance rate reductions and a youth jobs plan.
“We’ve done a lot of work and we’ve done it with one real goal in mind: to be responsive to Ontarians, to listen to what Ontarians have to say, and then act on that information,” said Horwath.
“I think that’s what changing what we are in terms of our capacity to be the alternative for the people of this province when the next election comes.”
As well, Horwath noted the NDP consistently is doing very well in the polls. But while things are going well, they always can go better—and that’s where the supporters come in.
She said local MPP Sarah Campbell, who also was at last Thursday’s supper at the Fort Frances Volunteer Bureau, is doing ”a fantastic job,” she’s hearing good things abut Campbell wherever she goes, and she thanked everyone for supporting Campbell.
“Without you, we wouldn’t have Sarah fighting the fight on the tourism information centres, fighting the fight on the experimental lakes cuts, fighting the fight on electricity rates that are causing all kinds of problems,” Horwath remarked.
“Sarah’s voice is strong and it’s reflective of the kinds of things she sees in the vast number of communities that represents over the vast number of kilometres that she does her work.”
Earlier in the day, Horwath and Campbell met with several district groups, including the Assisted Living Action Group (A.L.A.G.) and the Rainy River Federation of Agriculture.
