Renfrew Nipissing Pembroke NDP
Sue McSheffrey, NDP candidate in this month’s federal election, today stated that political parties who spent time discussing opinion polls were sending a signal that they didn’t want to discuss policies. “People who talk about polls as an election point don’t respect the voters,” McSheffrey said. “They seem to believe that people can be stampeded into voting against their own interests. The NDP believes that issues are what count, not opinion polls or horoscopes or tea leaf readings. And on the issues, people favour the policies of the NDP.”
McSheffrey said that on health and social issues, a majority of Canadians have consistently declared themselves in support of the NDP position. “People want our public medicare system protected against American-style privatization. They want their parents to have access to decent long-term care facilities. They want their children to be able to afford post-secondary education. Only the NDP is straight and clear in its full support of these public desires. The key is voting for the party that fights for the values that a voter believes in. A vote for the NDP sends a message: we want our real concerns addressed, and our values defended.”
Sue McSheffrey, NDP candidate in this month’s federal election, today slammed the Conservative platform on families, claiming it discriminates against ordinary working people. “Working parents need day care places for their children, and there’s no way you can get one with the $25 a week which is the limit of Conservative support,” McSheffrey said. “Working parents need day care so they can hold down a job - a job contributing a lot more than $25 to the family.” If people want day care, McSheffrey said, they have to vote NDP.
“So why do the Conservatives want to deny day-care to our working families?”, McSheffrey asked. “It’s just another example of a disguised Conservative subsidy to the rich. Unlike ordinary people, the rich don’t need day-care, so they prefer the government to present them with another gift - presumably to lower what they have to pay their expensive nannies. Or maybe it’s to help cut the expense of private school - another Conservative love.” This is just another Conservative tax give-away which favours the wealthy ahead of regular families, McSheffrey said, reaffirming NDP support for a national day-care program. “The Conservatives oppose day-care, and the Liberals have done nothing in 12 years to achieve it. Only the NDP is fighting for the real needs of working mothers and fathers,” McSheffrey stated.
Sue McSheffrey, NDP candidate in this month’s federal election, today stated that anyone needing protection against large bills for prescription drugs had to support the NDP. “Only the NDP has pledged to establish a National Prescription Drug Insurance Plan,” McSheffrey said. The plan, outlined this week by NDP leader Jack Layton, would pay half of all prescription drug costs over $1500 a year. The overall cost would be a billion dollars annually. “This would represent a helpful use of the huge surpluses the Liberals have been piling up, and a much better use of the money than the tax give-aways to the wealthy proposed by the Conservatives,” McSheffrey said.
Many senior citizens face ever larger pharmaceutical bills as they age - beyond the capacity of most of their pensions, according to McSheffrey. She said that the size of these bills often throws a financial burden on their children as well. “The NDP plan puts a further safety net under our public health care system; it’s a necessary companion to Medicare,” McSheffrey said. “At a time when the Conservatives hope to introduce financially ruinous American-style private health care, our families need all the protection they can get to keep health care affordable.“
Improving Canada’s health care system will take investment - putting more money into health care, not taking it out as the Conservatives want, said NDP candidate Sue McSheffrey today. “Unfortunately, the Conservative chant of ‘tax cuts, tax cuts’ - most of which favour the wealthy - will work to undermine health services. Moreover, Stephen Harper wants to give more federal tax dollars to Quebec to please the separatist Bloc Quebecois, on whom he intends to rely to take power. That’s a betrayal of Canadian values.”
McSheffrey said that the NDP. On the other hand, wants to invest in getting more health care providers. “We believe we need more nurses, not fewer. We believe that we need to produce more health care professionals if waiting times are to be reduced, not increased. We believe that our senior citizens with health problems need more long-term care facilities, not less. That’s why we want to put money from tax surpluses back into the system, not give it away to the rich and the separatists, as the Conservatives prefer. In this election, people who want health services protected and improved have no choice but to vote NDP,” McSheffrey said.
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