While Horwath is silent, labour and progressive speak: The Ontario Budget deserves support

While Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath was silent on Ontario's Budget today, continuing her approach that saw her take no position on the minimum wage and pensions, labour and other progressive are speaking loud and clear that Ontario's 2014 Budget deserves support for the people of Ontario.

JERRY DIAS, NATIONAL PRESIDENT, UNIFOR

“Things like pensions, things like infrastructure spending, taking care of child care, seniors, those are all things that have been, you know, the backbone of the NDP’s policies for years. I would expect that [the NDP] would support [the budget].

"Today's budget will make a positive difference in the lives of working families in Ontario - and should be supported by the NDP…We hope the NDP will work with the Liberals to pass the budget."

SUSAN ENG, VP – ADVOCACY, CARP CANADA

“The time is long past for debating whether we need a supplementary pension plan…CARP members have been calling for just such a plan…The proposed pension plan will benefit their children and grandchildren, not themselves directly, but it is a ballot question for them.”

LINDA HALSEM STROUD, ONTARIO NURSES ASSOCIATION

“With the improvements in the personal support workers, and supporting health care workers in the community…and with a real focus on ensuring that Ontarians feel like they are better living here in Ontario, we should stay the party line.”

ANDREA CALVER, COORDINATOR, ONTARIO COALITION FOR BETTER CHILDCARE

“There are a tremendous number of things in this budget that can do a lot of good for people for child care staff for personal support workers and for those with developmental disabilities.  I remain hopeful that the budget will pass and that we'll be able to make the gains for child care workers and personal support workers.”

FRED HAHN, PRESIDENT, CUPE

"There are important investments in the Budget...There's lots of good measures here, paying PSWs…that's incredibly important."

GAIL NYBERG, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, DAILY BREAD FOOD BANK
"Keeping poverty reduction on the table is always the right thing to do…Daily Bread has always been a strong proponent of the Ontario Child Benefit. Indexing it will allow low-income families with children to keep up with the rising costs of living such as food."

ONTARIO HEALTH COALITION
"The good news: An Ontario pension plan that will provide an enhanced public pension for those with no private pensions."

Where does Hudak Niagara Falls candidate Bart Maves stand on right to work?

We know Hudak has no tolerance for his own candidates standing up for local jobs in the face of his reckless right-to-work-for-less scheming and Bart Maves himself used to be opposed to the policy?

So what does Bart Maves stand for now?

It's a question worth asking. In a debate this evening, Maves repeatedly talked about the need for "worker choice", but hesitated to actually endorse Hudak's position, which Hudak has insisted he stands by and expects his candidates to support.

With the Hudak and Bart Maves standing behind a reckless right to work for less scheme, and the NDP murky on important issues like the minimum wage, only Ontario Liberals are clearly supporting Ontario workers.

"Students putting students first" - Ontario Student Trustees' Association calls Putting Students First Act "a fair deal", but will the NDP and Catherine Fife listen?

The NDP and Catherine Fife have already come out against the Putting Students First Act, but will they listen to the students of Ontario themselves or their big union money interests?

Here's what the Ontario Student Trustees' Association says about the Liberal government moving to make sure students are in class from day one of the school year in Kitchener-Waterloo and across Ontario

Hirad Zafari, OSTA-AECO President and Toronto DSB Student Trustee, called upon "provincial leaders and teachers' unions, specifically those who have not agreed to the OECTA framework, to ensure full-service education for all students this coming year."

Provincial leaders are calling on teachers' unions to take a two-year wage freeze as part of province-wide austerity in the face of a large deficit and growing Ontario public debt - "a fair deal, given the nine years of labour peace and the progress made in our schools" said Kevin Michael, Catholic Board Council President and Student Trustee at Dufferin-Peel Catholic DSB.



Tim Hudak showed he can't be trusted to protect stability in schools when he flip-floped and "condemned" full-day kindergarten, and Tracey Weiler showed she is no Elizabeth Witmer when it comes to standing up for Kitchener-Waterloo families by weakly saying she "supported [Hudak's] position". If Catherine Fife and the NDP put big union money (Fife hasn't issued any news releases about education, but she has about getting a public sector union endorsement) before what students want, what does that say about Fife's and the NDP's real priorities on education?