Renfrew Nipissing Pembroke NDP
Media Release for January 14.
NDP candidate Sue McSheffrey says Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke residents should vote for the New Democratic Party if they want to protect and strengthen public services as well as condemn corruption among elected officials. With the Liberals having let Canadians down so badly and the Conservatives threatening the nation's most important national programs, voting NDP, she said, is the only choice that will preserve Canadian values.
The Renfrew physiotherapist and mother of two says she understands the threat voters are telling her they feel from the Conservatives. “While they want to punish the Liberals for their scandalous behaviour, they don’t want the cuts the Conservatives are planning to make to essential programs. The Conservative platform may make sense for Alberta oilmen and Bay Street executives and lawyers. But it would abandon the people of Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke, a region well below the provincial average income, and badly equipped to support the cuts to services the Conservatives intend.”
“Make no mistake,” McSheffrey said. “If the Conservatives take power, Medicare is in grave danger from American-style privatization that can ruin family finances with massive insurance and medical bills, and programs that help working families with child care are doomed,” McSheffrey said. “Just remember the horrible damage that resulted from the cutbacks and downloading of the Mike Harris Conservatives in Ontario.”
According to McSheffrey, NDP priorities are clear. “We believe in a national child care program. We believe in government assistance to provide more home care and long-term care for our senior citizens. We believe that the government should help students get the education they need to build solid careers. The Conservatives believe in none of this. The Conservative platform amounts to a series of tax cuts that benefit the wealthy big-city elites more than anyone else.”
McSheffrey says child care policy shows the difference in values clearly. “The NDP believes in setting up more child care facilities. The Conservatives simply want to give families four dollars a day and tell them to fend for themselves. Imagine the care your kids will get for four dollars!”
McSheffrey is also concerned about national unity. “The Conservatives hope to form an alliance with Quebec separatists, just as Brian Mulroney did in the last Conservative government in Ottawa. That’s why they have agreed to give away massive amounts of Canadian taxes and powers to provinces, without any safeguards to preserve national programs like Medicare. Conservative policy will seriously weaken the federal government and reduce its ability to fight Quebec separatism.”
Another core NDP value McSheffrey has emphasized is accountability - the responsibility of government and of politicians to explain their actions and to accept responsibility for any abuse of power or misuse of public funds.
“This is especially important in Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke. We now have an ‘Invisible MP’ - one who won't debate, and who won’t respond to charges that she invaded citizens privacy, used confidential information for her own political purposes, and misused taxpayer funds to fund partisan propaganda to her own followers." McSheffrey says the NDP program - the Broadbent plan - is the only realistic answer to preventing more Liberal and Conservative corruption. The NDP plan will reduce patronage opportunities, restrict the power of lobbyists and make their insider activities more visible, and introduce proportional representation to Parliament to ensure that everyone’s voice is heard in our democracy.”
McSheffrey pointed to NDP accomplishments in the last Parliament - increased spending on education and affordable housing, greater protection for workers’ wages - as proof that voting NDP brings results for ordinary people. “All the Conservatives tried to do was to encourage the Liberals to bring in more tax cuts for large companies,” McSheffrey said. “The NDP MP’s, on the other hand, worked constantly to protect our seniors, our students, our workers and their families; to protect medicare and child care, to protect national unity; and to protect our government against corruption and abuses of power. These are the NDP's values and they are Canadian values. We have seen that these are not the key values of the Liberals, and they are certainly not the values of Conservatives, whose last administration was as scandal-ridden as this one. The Conservative plans are about making the rich even richer. So when voters decide on January 23rd, they should think about the full range of their values. If they do, they’ll definitely vote NDP.”
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