TIMMINS - No matter when Ontario's next election is announced, the official opposition is ready for it, says the NDP leader.
Marit Stiles was in Timmins today (Jan. 16) to talk priorities for the north ahead of the next Ontario election, which could be called as soon as next week. Later today, she’s at the nomination meeting for the Timmins NDP riding association.
She said her party is ready to challenge the current government.
“We’re fighting like hell for the people of Ontario every single day, and we’re going to run to form government,” she said. “In this election, whether it’s next week, a month from now, or a year and a half from now, we will be running to win.”
The party has at least 70 candidates ready to be nominated and more in the process of being selected across the province.
The message from the official opposition leader is that life is harder now than it was seven years ago, and the NDP wants to step up for Ontario workers.
“We know we need to keep investing in these jobs,” she said. “Timmins deserves leadership that stands up for them.”
She pointed to the shortage of doctors, especially in northern communities, addiction and homelessness, and a shortage of affordable housing as issues she wants addressed.
“Government after government saw this coming and has not responded,” she said. “It’s not getting better. It’s getting worse under Mr. Ford’s watch, and what really frustrates me is that we have a city here that has plans, a community that has plans to move forward to build housing and to build the kind of supportive, permanently affordable housing that we need, but they don’t have the provincial help.”
While Stiles disagrees with calling an early election due to the added instability it would create for Ontarians, she says her party is ready should Ford make that call.
“We have a plan to support northern families right here in Timmins and all across the north,” she said. “We’re going to build homes, we’re going to hire doctors, we’re going to fix our schools, and we’re going to build safe roads and make life more affordable for people living here.”
When asked about the region's lack of doctors, Stiles said that support for education and helping communities find doctors without competing with each other are key components.
“Everybody is fighting each other to attract the physicians, the specialists, and that’s not new,” she said. “We need to be far more ambitious than we’re being right now.”
The current situation is putting people at risk, she said.
“It’s outrageous,” she said. “It’s putting people’s lives at risk. We’re forcing expectant mothers to leave their communities and their families to get the care they need. That is unacceptable in a province as rich as this one.”
Kapuskasing's Sensenbrenner Hospital is the only obstetrics program in an 800 kilometre stretch between Timmins and Thunder Bay, and it has been struggling with a lack of funding.
Stiles also stated that she is willing to work with whatever plan the government considers to address the proposed tariff threats from the United States.
“New Democrats see this as an opportunity to pull together as a province and a country,” she said. “I heard Mr. Ford say the other day that 500,000 jobs are at risk with Mr. Trump’s threats of tariffs, but with Doug Ford calling a snap election by the looks of it, it’s clear that he’s only looking out for one job and that’s his own.”
