SPEAKING NOTES FOR HOWARD HAMPTON

ADDRESS TO ONTARIO NDP CONVENTION

SATURDAY, JANUARY 27, 2007

TORONTO, ONTARIO

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What’s your favourite colour?

I didn’t hear you. What’s your favourite colour?

A day without orange is like a day without sunshine.

Get Orange!

Thank you. Thank you for your hard work. Thank you for yourcommitment. Thank you for being here – our first step in what will be an interesting 8 ½ months before election day.

Let’s all understand. This is the beginning of a journey to paint Ontario orange. From Ottawa to Windsor, from Attawapiskat to the Toronto Islands. October 4th is election day, but our job to paint the province orange starts today.
And our message to Ontarians is clear. If you’re seeing red because Dalton McGuinty hasn’t delivered the change he promised, if the thought of Conservatives catering once again to the well-connected has you feeling blue, don’t get mad, GET ORANGE. Get involved with the NDP, GET ORANGE. Help build a better Ontario – an Ontario that puts working families first. GET ORANGE.

Why is our work here so important? For the first time in 20 years in Ontario there is an opportunity to put forward a campaign based on ideas – who has the best ideas – that will make a difference for you and your family.
And that has the McGuinty Liberals worried. Liberals want another election based on fear – that’s the Liberal bread and butter – but it’s not working for them. John Tory may be a very Tory guy, but he’s not a scary Tory guy.
Yet the Liberals continue to try. Their line is “We know you are disappointed with us – but it could be worse. Give us another chance.”
But the response from the people has been: “Ontario can do better. We can do better on minimum wage. We cdan do better on the Environment. We can do better on affordable housing. We can do a lot better.”
So this convention is the first step to a very important election in October. This is where we start to connect with ordinary folks across Ontario about the kinds of fresh ideas and new energy New Democrats have.

BY-ELECTIONS
For the last several weeks I’ve been doing what I like most – canvassing - meeting ordinary people. I can tell you there is a different feeling out there. I noticed it in Parkdale-High Park. I can feel it now on the streets of York South-Weston.
On snow-covered lawns in Burlington, Markham and York South-Weston, signs of spring have been sprouting, signs of fluorescent Orange.
What it signifies is that people – voters - for the first time in a long time, want to hear our ideas and what we as New Democrats stand for.

As you have seen we have three excellent by-election candidates – Janice Hagan in Markham , Cory Judson in Burlington , and Paul Ferreira in York South-Weston . I have spent more than a few days knocking on doors in the by-elections and I look forward to doing more with Janice, Cory and Paul in the next two weeks.
What is important is what people are saying.
People are worried about the environment – pollution in their backyard – and the global climate change crisis. They are worried about their local hospital that too often has long waiting times in the emergency room. Community schools are still on the chopping block because Dalton McGuinty hasn’t kept his promise to fix the Conservatives’ flawed school funding formula. There is frustration and despair over the lack of programs for youth – in light of dozens of young people who have been gunned down across the GTA. There is worry over jobs, worker rights and fair wages. There are many issues.
They are all issues we think about a lot. They are the issues of working people.
However, there’s one issue that you hear at door after door that continues to make people really angry. Most people work very hard to make ends meet. Some work at two or three jobs to pay the bills. And they want to know - how can Dalton McGuinty justify giving himself a 31% pay hike? Let’s put Dalton McGuinty’s pay hike in perspective. The average working woman in Ontario earns $25,600 a year. Do you know how much McGuinty’s pay hike works out to? It’s a $40,000 increase in one year. People in York South-Weston know what that means. It means the McGuinty government is completely out of touch with the economic reality facing the majority of working families. It means the McGuinty government is so preoccupied with feathering its own nest that it doesn’t understand the struggles and sacrifices of ordinary folks..

In York South-Weston , Burlington and Markham, New Democrats say it’s time to give working families a break. And we’re giving voters a chance to send the premier a strong message: “Mr. McGuinty, if you’ve got time to give yourself a 31% pay hike, then you can bloody well raise the minimum wage to $10 an hour! And while you’re at it Mr. McGuinty – what happened to your promises to improve health care and education, address climate change, fix our unfair property tax system, do something about all the good jobs Ontario is losing – and stop the clawback of the National Child Benefit Supplement from Ontario’s lowest income children.

York South-Weston, Markham and Burlington will have a chance to send their messages to McGuinty a little early this year. The by-elections won’t change the government, but they will give the McGuinty Government a little shock when the votes are counted. A little ORANGE shock.
This is not only about misplaced priorities and a premier who just doesn’t get it. It’s also about who you can count on, who you can believe. I said in December that I am not keeping the pay raise. I said then I’d donate my pay increase to charity and account for every penny, I meant it then and I mean it now. In fact, I want to repeat that pledge here this morning.

My friend Darrell Dexter spoke today about the importance of standing up for working families. Tomorrow our Leader Jack Layton will talk more about being disciplined and focused on what we’re all about - fairness for working families.
FRESH IDEAS – MINIMUM WAGE
Let there be no mistake, the election campaign is on. It started last September. That’s when Dalton McGuinty and his band of bloggers and hatchetmen thought they could knock down a strong, principled church minister named Cheri DiNovo with a slanderous personal attack. Were they wrong!
Five months ago Cheri Di Novo was a secret known mainly to people lucky enough to be in her congregation in Parkdale or people working with her on various campaigns. Five months ago, only a dedicated group of activists and front-line workers were raising the issue of a $10 minimum wage. Well, how things change…
Today in Ontario more than 200,000 workers try to make ends meet on the minimum wage. A full 1.2 million workers are paid less than the $10 an hour you need to make ends meet, particularly if you live in a larger urban centre.
Those aren’t just numbers. They’re real people – like a Toronto woman who told me: “At this point I have enough to pay my rent next month, but I can’t afford new glasses, I can’t afford to get Christmas presents for my family and I’m not happy to hear that McGuinty is getting another $40,000 a year.”
Working people see executive salaries skyrocketing. A typical Corporate Executive now takes in what the average Canadian worker earns in a full year by 9:46 a.m. on January 2nd. Those same Corporate Executives pocket a full-time minimum wage worker’s annual income by 12:40 in the afternoon on New Year’s Day – before the hangover has even worn off.
And working people see the bloated executive pay that’s happened in our hydro-electricity system. Hydro One boss Tom Parkinson - who received $1.6 million a year in pay and bonuses – gets caught trying to hide his personal travel expenses on his secretary’s credit card – so the McGuinty government gives him a $3 million golden handshake to celibrate and reward his greed.
And working people see through the shallow, phony boy scout act of a McGuinty government that talks about caring for people but spends weeks and months plotting and scheming about how they will ram through their own 31% pay hike just before Christmas when they hope people won’t notice.
And all the while, repeating their disgusting mantra, that Ontario can’t afford a $10 minimum wage.

Mr. McGuinty – Mr. Tory – New Democrats want you to know something. New Democrats will not sleep – we will not slumber – we will not rest – until Ontario has a $10 an hour minimum wage – and every working person in this province gets a fair day’s pay for a hard day’s work. It’s only fair. It’s an idea whose time has come.
One more thing. I call on the McGuinty Government to immediately call back the Legislature to make a $10 an hour minimum wage the law in Ontario. If you can pass a 31% pay hike for yourselves in 8 days, you can raise the minimum wage in 8 days.

FIX EDUCATION FUNDING
To build a prosperous Ontario – Ontario needs the best education system in the world.
Next Friday is Groundhog Day. Let’s hope the groundhog doesn’t surface and stick her head up in a school playground or she will see the shadow of Mike Harris and we’ll be sure to have another six weeks of winter.
Dalton McGuinty calls himself the Education Premier. The reality is the former Conservative government’s flawed school funding formula belongs to Dalton McGuinty now – and he hasn’t fixed it. It’s another broken promise.
Despite McGuinty’s promises – despite his self-serving taxpayer-funded TV ads – despite the dozens of photo-ops -- students are still losing programs, educational assistants are still being laid off, and community schools are still in danger of being closed. Next year will only be worse, as dozens of school boards will have exhausted their operating reserves and will start closing schools.
As one school board trustee said just this October: “When schools lose vice-principals and are paying supply teachers from their pop machine revenues, something’s terribly wrong.”
More and more, in McGuinty’s Ontario, those tools and supports your child needs to succeed come with a hefty price tag. If you’re a parent, you know the bite that chocolate bars and other school fundraisers take out of your wallets. Now we have school boards like York Region charging students user fees to get extra help after school.
I believe in a different kind of public education system – one where every student gets an even start – where every child – has an equal chance to succeed.
Now, more than ever, we need to fix school funding to ensure EVERY student has the tools and supports they need to succeed. That’s an IDEA that people support.
But it doesn’t stop there. Dalton McGuinty’s broken promise to keep college and university tuition fees affordable now has students and their families facing 20 to 36 per cent tuition hikes over four years. That’s enough to scare the groundhog for another 6 weeks. A law to freeze tuition fee increases through 2007. We call it the Ban Tuition Hikes bill. It’s an idea the Doer NDP government of Manitoba implemented years ago. It’s an idea whose time has come in Ontario.

FAIR PROPERTY TAXES
If you’re lucky – and you’ve gotten the training you need – found a good job – saved up – and retired in your family home – you’re not safe and secure yet.
Skyrocketing property taxes are forcing seniors out of their homes. One of them – a west-end Toronto woman whose property assessment shot up 28% told us: “I don’t want to move. It is my home and I want to live here until I die. What’s wrong with that?”
There’s nothing wrong with that. But from Dalton McGuinty - we’ve seen the same old story – promise to fix the problem, break that promise, then say “give me some time” and “maybe after the next election”.
He has time to give himself and MPPs a 31% pay hike, but not to fix an arbitrary and unfair property tax regime that is literally forcing many seniors from homes they’ve lived in for decades. Is that fair? I don’t think so either.
Our own Task Force on Assessment and Property Tax toured the province, met with ordinary homeowners, and came up with a practical solution -- The Freeze-Until-Sale model that freezes the assessed value of your home at its purchase price for as long as you own and live in your home. It’s fair, predictable and understandable. It’s an idea that has a successful track record in other jurisdictions – and it’s an idea whose time has come in Ontario..

ANTI-SCAB
Last week I was honoured to join the workers at Nova Vita, a shelter in Brantford. They were on the picket-line, supported by dozens of brothers and sisters from the Brantford community. The employer, a government-funded agency, was bringing in scabs and housing them at the shelter itself. How can they get away with it?
The other day the workers brought a giant inflatable rat to Brantford city hall to expose the scandal of scabs living side by side with women at the shelter. Who is the chief rat? That would be the Premier who continues to allow scabs in Ontario workplaces. Those women in Brantford know, and we know, there’s no place for scabs in Ontario. Ban scabs that take the jobs of hard-working men and women. That’s an idea for today in Ontario.

HEALTH CARE
New Democrats stand up for worker rights. We also stand up for Medicare. We are the party of public health care. We are the party of the Greatest Canadian – Tommy Douglas. We are the party that pioneered the Canadian value that health services ought not to have a price tag on them, and that people should be able to get whatever health services they require irrespective of their individual capacity to pay.

Dalton McGuinty’s broken health care promises speak for themselves. A regressive health tax that hits low- and middle-income families hardest. Chiropractic, optometry and physiotherapy services – all delisted. IBI treatment for autistic kids – denied. Wait times for health procedures up – not down – and deceptive government wait time figures the auditor general says need to be taken with “a grain of salt.” And just try to find a family doctor – it can’t be done.
Let me tell you about one broken promise that really touched me. Gordon Holnbeck is 90 years old. He and his wife Arbie live together at the Fairhaven long-term care home in Peterborough. I’ve had the honour to visit them in their home. What he told me troubled me greatly. He told me the seniors he lives with in long-term care – people who built this province -- are getting squeezed so much that the only fresh fruit they get for food is half a banana once every two weeks. No matter how hard the dedicated front-line staff work, no matter how many days they come in early and leave late, no matter how many breaks they skip, no matter how many lunches they miss – none of that will improve care for the seniors who built this province unless and until there are minimum standards of care for seniors in long-term care – and more front-line staff to make it a reality.
Dalton McGuinty promised seniors like Mr. Holnbeck higher standards of care. But this fall – he introduced something we call the ‘No minimum standards for seniors Act’ – because it falls short, falls very very short, of what Ontario seniors were promised and what they need. McGuinty promised seniors would have a minimum 2.25 hours of daily nursing care and three baths a day – is it in the Act? No. They promised to hold the line on nursing home fees – is it in the Act? No, and fees went up this year. They promised an Ombudsman to help seniors. That’s right, broken promise.
Seniors worked hard all their lives to build our communities. McGuinty gave himself a $40,000 a year pay raise. We can make sure he gives seniors like Gordon and Arbie Holnbeck more than half a banana every two weeks. We can fight for minimum standards of care for seniors – so they can retire in dignity – and live active and healthy lives. That’s a fresh idea.
Dalton McGuinty says it’s not time for better long-term care. He says we can’t afford it – this from the guy whose pay raise shenanigans make Hydro One CEO Tom Parkinson look like a model citizen.
But Mr.McGuinty does have the money for something else - profit-driven private money hospitals.
They even found a nice, harmless name for them that includes the word “Public” – Public Private Partnerships. And a cute acronym – P3’s – sounds like a Star Wars robot. Some call them AFPs – Alternative Financing and Procurement. Such bafflegab. I call them what they are – profit-driven, private-finance hospitals. And they are the wrong way to go!
When the former Conservative government announced two private hospital projects, Dalton McGuinty called them a waste of money and promised to scrap them. Now the same Dalton McGuinty says he likes profit-driven private-finance hospitals. In fact he likes them so much he wants to see 30 of them. Under Dalton McGuinty’s husbandry, this Trojan Horse of health care privatization has turned into a wild herd of greedy privatizers.
Untold millions of public health care dollars are being sucked out of patient care and given to corporate profits. The profit-driven private money hospital in Brampton will cost $175 million more than a public hospital. Multiply that by 30 and you get an idea of the kind of health care dollars Dalton McGuinty will waste catering to corporate profit interest.
And for what – profit-driven private hospitals that cut corners on nurses, beds, equipment, maintenance, laundry and food – the kind of lower quality that invites the explosion of private American-style buy-your-way-to-the-front-of-the-line two-tier health care that Leo Gerard told us about yesterday. With side effects like those, the patient should realize this is not a healthy prescription.

We know what we need to keep our public health care system thriving. Keep it public. If you have 10 public health care dollars, make sure 10 dollars goes to patient care – not $7 to patients and $3 to corporate profits. That’s a fresh idea.

JOBS
Too many of my days begin and end with stories of people who can’t get the health care they need. These days – even more start and end with stories of ordinary working people who have lost their jobs. People like Jo-Ann Mackenzie. She worked at the Image Craft greeting card plant in Cambridge – until the company shut the plant down this summer. I went to Cambridge to meet with Jo-Ann and the other workers. We sat at picnic tables – and they told me their stories – their worries – about how to pay the rent – how to pay for their prescriptions – how to make ends meet for their family.
Under Dalton McGuinty, more than 140,000 men and women have lost their jobs in the manufacturing and forest sector. That’s the population of Sudbury. That’s 140,000 families in communities across Ontario that have lost the support, the security, and the sense of belonging to the community that comes with good, well-paying, sustainable jobs.
The list reads like the who’s who of Ontario industry, the industry and jobs that built this province. Navistar in Chatham, 700 jobs lost. Freightliner in St. Thomas, 800 workers laid off. Ford in Oakville, 215 men and women out of work. Bowater, in Ignace, 50 jobs gone. Abitibi’s mill in Kenora – closed. 300 Jobs gone.
Farm families are feeling the squeeze too. All across rural Ontario, Dalton McGuinty’s lack of action – his failure to address the farm income security crisis that has been dragging on for too long – threatens to drive hard-working farm families off the land.
What are the McGuinty Liberals doing to stop the haemorrhaging of jobs, the weekly loss of good jobs? They say it’s not important. They call it “a little bit of contraction.” They call workers “whiners” and “crybabies” and tell them they’re getting off “scot-free.” And they call all this job loss “inevitable.”
They are like deer caught in the headlights of global capitalism So they do nothing. Except give themselves a 31 per cent pay hike. Was there ever a starker example of a government so totally out of touch with the lives of everyday families?

New Democrats have some ideas. Those pulp and paper mills in northern Ontario that are being destroyed by skyrocketing hydro rates are surrounded by hydro dams that produce some of the lowest-cost electricity in the world. Why not allow them to take advantage of that nature-given benefit rather than punishing those workers and their communities? What a novel idea.
And it’s not just the pulp and paper industry. In the last year, Canada’s two largest mining companies, Inco and Falconbridge, both based in Ontario, were sold lock, stock and barrel, and the McGuinty Liberals didn’t even whimper, didn’t utter a word. Hundreds of auto parts jobs are being lost virtually every day. Industries and jobs where Ontario has had an edge, where Ontario has real advantages, are being lost or destroyed under a McGuinty government that is enthralled with letting global corporations have free reign.
There are ideas to sustain jobs and sustain communities. And the leadership that is promoting and pushing these ideas is coming from New Democrats who are in this room today. Cec Makowski and the Communications, Energy, Paperworkers, and Wayne Fraser and District 6 of the United Steelworkers, have been travelling across the province, from community to community and workplace to workplace, showing that Dalton McGuinty is wrong, there is a future for good jobs and strong communities in Thunder Bay, inSmooth Rock Falls, in Sault Ste Marie, in Long Lac and Dryden, and many more.
New Democrats know that government has a role to protect jobs and communities. Government has a duty to stand up for the dignity of working families. And we have a novel idea on how to do it. It’s called a Jobs Commissioner. A Jobs Commissioner would be proactive and ensure the government has a strategy to reduce the job destruction and sustain many of the jobs that are at risk. Now that’s the kind of fresh idea Ontario working families need.
And while we’re at it, we should negotiate revenue sharing deals with First Nations communities so they can begin to share in Ontario’s mining and mineral prosperity. Resource revenue sharing with First Nations is already happening in Quebec and Manitoba and it works. It’s time to bring the idea to Ontario!

ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT
Who would have believed the McGuinty Liberals would have so totally botched up the energy agenda?
Promising to shut coal plants by 2007 – then breaking that promise three separate times. No effective energy conservation plan. No thoughtful electricity policy. Presiding over exploding executive salaries at Hydro One, Ontario Power Generation ,the Ontario Power Authority, the Independent Electricity System Operator, and the Ontario Energy Board.
Dalton McGuinty promised he was going to freeze hydro rates until 2007. The reality for most people and small business is the Hydro bill has doubled in the last three years. Operational costs in our hydro-electricity system have increased by $1.2 billion with no positive benefit. And over 140,000 workers who are paying for the McGuinty Liberals’ wrong-headed electricity policies with their jobs.
People are worried – about being able to pay the hydro bill, about keeping the lights on, about dirty air, about climate change, about losing their job. And they should be. And these worries will remain - until someone starts making better decisions.
Ontario needs fresh ideas on clean and reliable electricity.
It’s time to think big about energy efficiency. That’s the only way we’re going to keep the lights on, keep hydro rates affordable, tackle pollution and climate change problems, and sustain jobs – challenges that threaten the quality of life of everyday families.
We need to make energy efficiency the next really big idea – like Medicare and like public education.

Dalton McGuinty says we need Nanticoke. He says we need more nuclear plants - $45 billion more in nuclear plants. I say it’s time for New Democrats to champion an energy efficiency and renewable energy revolution.
Ontario continues to have potential for renewable energy like falling water, wind, solar and biomass. But let’s keep them public. But let me focus on energy efficiency, because efficiency is Ontario’s greatest untapped energy resource.
Paying people to consume less. A provincial building retrofit plan. Stronger energy standards for new buildings and appliances. A home appliance retirement plan – that provides people with low-interest loans to put old fridges and appliances that use too much electricity out to pasture. That kind of vigorous commitment to energy efficiency would save Ontario billions of dollars, create thousands of new jobs and sustain the ones we have by reducing electricity consumption demand, lowering prices and strengthening local economies.
It’s time for action. There are positive, practical, achievable, fresh ideas we can start on today to meet Ontario’s electricity challenges. We can save energy, create jobs, spur economic investment and, in the end, give our children the gift of clean air and climate stability..

CONCLUSION
Hope and fresh ideas – that’s what this election campaign will be about. That’s what the people I talk with in the by-elections want, who get angry when they see MPPs vote themselves a 31% raise when they can barely make ends meet on an income at or barely above the minimum wage.
Hope and fresh ideas. That’s what families in Kenora and Sault Ste. Marie and Iroquois Falls and Cambridge and London and Niagara want as they see their jobs, homes, everything they’ve been building fall apart when everyone at the plant or the mill is laid off.
Hope and fresh ideas. It’s what is needed for kids without textbooks, young people who can’t afford an education, families waiting for health care, seniors in long-term care waiting for dignity and vulnerable citizens being left behind
Hope and fresh ideas. It’s what is desperately needed to clean our air and save our planet.
Hope and fresh ideas. It’s what we need to give working families a break.
Hope and fresh ideas. It all begins here, this weekend.
Now, let’s roll up our sleeves –get to work – and make sure that on October 4th - Ontario GETs ORANGE.