Media Release for June 22, 2007

NDP nominates Felicite Stairs: “It's about fairness”

PEMBROKE, June 21: “This campaign is about ‘Fairness’,” said Felicite Stairs of Burnstown, as she accepted the NDP nomination for this October’s provincial election in Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke. Stairs, an anti-child poverty activist and lawyer with the Renfrew County Legal Clinic, was unopposed. In 2003 she ran  and tripled the NDP vote in the riding.

Stairs focused on the contradiction between the problems in health, education and the economy, and Premier Dalton McGuinty’s priority of raising his own pay by 31% in record time.  “I haven’t met one person who put a $40,000 pay raise for McGuinty at the top of their priority list,” said Stairs, who is active with the Renfrew Food Bank and Trinity St. Andrew’s United Church.  “People are concerned with protecting their jobs and wages — yet we’ve lost nearly two hundred thousand jobs in manufacturing and the resource industries like logging over the last four years.  We’re looking at hundreds of jobs disappearing right here when Trimag closes in September, and more if logging is further restricted — yet the Liberals do nothing.”

Stairs, a founder of the Renfrew County Child Poverty Action Network and the Renfrew County Coalition Against Poverty, attacked the Liberals for continuing to claw back child benefits from the area’s poorest families and continuing the Conservative practice of starving county schools of proper funding. This especially hurts children with special needs. 

“When children have to sell chocolate bars and hold skip-a-thons to pay for essential school supplies, that’s just not fair to the kids or their families,” said Stairs. “When parents of special needs children have to drain their savings to pay for treatment, that’s not fair either.” 

She pointed to the fight between the McGuinty Liberals and the Harper Conservatives as each tried to avoid providing assistance to military families in Petawawa, especially their children.  “Children, not politics and saving money, need to come first,” Stairs said.  

Stairs stressed the NDP commitment to an immediate raise in the minimum wage to $10 an hour.  “Too many working people in this county are far too close to the poverty line,” said Stairs.  “They need a party that will fight for better job protection and better wages — and that’s certainly not the McGuinty Liberals or the Conservatives. Both just stand up for big corporations.”  

Stairs attacked the McGuinty Liberals for weakening health care in Ontario.  “People are paying more for health care through the Liberals’ special tax, but they’re getting less than ever.  We need to unclog our emergency rooms.  We need to invest in better home care and long term care for seniors.  And we need to keep our hospitals public.  If we have $10 to spend, then that $10 should go directly to health care.  We don’t want $3 siphoned off to profits for rich private health care investors.”

She stressed that the NDP has been committed to the environment since its founding and often suffered setbacks for doing so. As Stairs reminded the gathering, “A clean environment is a fairness issue”.

“When children need puffers to breathe the air, and seniors can’t go outside on smoggy summer days, that’s not right. And we need someone who will shut down the Nanticoke coal plant and take real action against global warming — to make sure Ontario meets its Kyoto targets by 2012 — to make sure we take action now so the future for our children and grandchildren is green and bright.”

Stairs concluded, “Our commitment to the environment is long standing — not just something we discover at election time.”

Stairs expects to have the official kick-off to her campaign around Labour Day — “which is fitting,” she said, “because New Democrats believe Ontario’s number one priority must be high-quality public services for working people and their families.”  Meanwhile, she plans to spread the word as much as possible on doorsteps and at events over the summer.

Contact: Felicite Stairs (613) 432-5583

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