Katy Austin : New Democrats

Whom does the Harper Government Serve?

Katy Austin — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 13:32:00 +0000

What do the recent cutbacks to EI benefits, the disclosure that many wealthy Canadians are avoiding paying their share of taxes, and RBC’s outsourcing of jobs have in common? They all answer the question asked by Thomas Walkcom in Monday’s Star : Whom does the Harper Government’ s economic approach serve? The answer is: profitable corporations and their wealthy shareholders. Who’s being left behind? The rest of us.

It’s no wonder the country has a deficit. When the government makes it easy for corporations to outsource jobs, that leaves fewer middle-income Canadians paying decent taxes. When the government cuts back the budget for the Canada Revenue Agency, it has great difficulty getting the taxes owed by the wealthy who are stashing their money in offshore banks. Instead, the Harper government scapegoats those at the other end of the income spectrum: those who are unemployed. They are subjected to unannounced house calls, have a harder time qualifying for benefits and are forced to take lower paying jobs if they are available.

Walkcom also makes another excellent point – that the government’s new training initiative will be meaningless as long as corporations are allowed to hire foreign workers with the same skill sets at lower wages. What kind of jobs will there be for our children and grandchildren?

The gap between the rich and the rest of us continues to grow. It’s time to stand up and speak out.

April 10, 2013
Katy Austin, Simcoe Grey NDP
21 Stone St., Elmvale L0L1P0
705-322-2265

Party Leadership Convention Report

Katy Austin — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 19:01:15 +0000

Simcoe Grey was well represented at the recent NDP Leadership Convention, with 14 our members in attendance. Here are some of their comments:

Roland Gosselin (Thornbury): “The NDP party members are the most patient of any party I know. The quality of the candidates was astonishing. I liked the way the defeated candidates freed their supporters to vote the way they saw fit.”

Irene Bell (Wasaga Beach): “ Wow! The biggest and most exciting NDP event I have ever had the opportunity of attending. Everybody was there from left leaning Toronto city councillors to previous party leaders including Ed Broadbent. Can you imagine the buzz! But it’s not only the event itself. Just as important is the reconnecting with people you have known in the NDP in years gone by and learning what they are up to.”

David Matthews (Wasaga Beach): “The 2012 Leadership Convention was my first. I found it very exciting. The opportunity to meet and discuss politics with people from all across Canada was great. The number of young people was outstanding, and it shows that our party is attracting the youth of Canada. It came at a great time because it rejuvenated my batteries to fight even harder in the next campaign. It also made me feel even more proud to be a social democrat.”

Katy Austin (Elmvale): I was very impressed with the bilingualism of the whole event. Half the speeches were in French and the majority of the people on the floor seemed to understand what was being said. I really enjoyed meeting NDPers from all across Canada and especially the ones from Quebec. There was a real sense of collegiality and unity among us. Keep an eye on Nikki Ashton and Nathan Cullen; they will be playing key roles in the future of the party!”

George Glover (Wasaga Beach): “I struck by how bilingual the convention was. Every candidate for the leadership and every speaker spoke to some degree in both languages. That made me realize how vital it is for us to maintain our gains in Quebec. Fortunately, we now have a leader who speaks impeccable English and French. He is widely accepted in every part of Canada and he is our best hope of retaining Quebec. We have outstanding MPs from B.C. and Manitoba who can be crucial in winning seats in BC and the prairies. In Ontario we have Peggy Nash and Paul Dewar who will be valuable assets in our campaign efforts. It appears that Thomas Mulcair will try to maintain good relations with his opponents and hopefully will make full use of their abundant talents. I hope too that he will make use of Brian Topp. He has much to offer both inside and outside of Parliament.”

When Parties Work Together

Katy Austin — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 18:40:16 +0000

Congratulations to both Dalton McGuinty and Andrea Horwath! By listening to each other and to the will of the people, and by compromising their positions, they are making the minority government in Ontario work. The NDP used their strategic position as the holder of the balance of power to gain a few concessions for social democracy; the Liberals managed to avoid an election that most Ontarians did not want. The two leaders have set a precedent of working together that hopefully will be followed by all parties in the future.

What the Harper government has done to Canadian politics

Katy Austin — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 16:45:09 +0000

The ghosts of great Progressive Conservatives must be rolling in their graves when they see what the Harper government has done to Canadian politics.

What would the likes of John Diefenbaker, Robert Stanfield and John Robarts, all honourable politicians, be thinking today? Dismissing the seriousness of the “robo-calls” scandal is just the latest in a long list of disreputable actions by the Harper government. In the past three years, they ignored the recommendations of the all-party committee on poverty-reduction. They called the attempted coalition among the opposition parties “undemocratic” when it was constitutionally legal and had the backing of over 50% of voters. They cut taxes for corporations and the rich on the discredited theory that it would create jobs. They refuse to listen to objective expert advice when forming policy. They employ nasty attack ads against opposition parties. They falsely claimed that the cancellation of the long-form census was endorsed by Statistics Canada (this led to the resignation of the head of Statistics Canada in protest). They punish civil servants who speak truth to power, in fact firing the Ombudsman for Veterans Affairs who stood up for better treatment of veterans. I could go on and on.

Victor Pocaterra, former director of Conservative Riding associations in both Guelph and Kitchener summed it up recently in a letter to the editor of the Toronto Star: “They have gone against Canadian values and have made a joke out of our democracy.” Pocaterra is a former insider, who “has seen what is talked about in the party” and now deeply regrets all the work he has done for the Conservative Party of Canada. I suspect there are many more like him.

Katy Austin,
Simcoe Grey NDP

CBC: the Glue that Holds us Together

Katy Austin — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 00:10:38 +0000

This past Monday, two Conservative MPs (Rob Anders, Calgary West, and Garry Breitkreuz, Yorkton—Melville), presented petitions to the House of Commons seeking to “de-fund” the CBC.

They wondered, why, when we live in a 1,000-channel universe, we spend over $1 billion on a state broadcaster like the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. They claim that it gives the CBC an unfair advantage over its private sector competitors.

Well, as far as I’m concerned, let the advantage continue! The CBC is the glue that holds this country together. “Cross Country Check-up”, “Q”, “As it Happens”, “Ideas”, “The Current”, “The Vinyl Café” and “C’est la Vie” are just a few of the high quality radio shows that keep me informed about what is happening across the country and about how world issues are seen from a Canadian perspective. And they’re all commercial-free!

Let’s keep this national treasure. It’s $1.1 billion well spent.

General Meeting

Katy Austin — Thu, 05 May 2011 11:20:25 +0000

Simcoe Grey NDP Riding Association Annual General Meeting
Sunday, May 15, 1:00 p.m.
Fud Pub, 257 Main St. E. Stayner

Everyone interested is welcome to attend. Let’s keep the momentum going!

Kellie Leitch

Katy Austin — Thu, 05 May 2011 11:19:39 +0000

Katy Austin, NDP candidate in the federal election, wishes to congratulate Kellie Leitch for her win and thank the voters of Simcoe Grey who gave Katy a strong second place finish.
She reminds Ms. Leitch that she must represent all the citizens of Simcoe Grey, not just those who support the Conservative Party. The main issue on which Austin campaigned was the need to address the growing gap between the rich and powerful and the rest of Canadian society, who are finding it harder and harder to cope these days. It is her hope that Ms. Leitch and the Conservatives recognize the seriousness of this problem and take effective measures to address it.

NDP Surge in opinion Polls

Katy Austin — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 00:29:13 +0000

Katy Austin, NDP candidate in Simcoe Grey, is thrilled with her party’s surge in the opinion polls. With the split in the riding’s Conservative vote, the popularity of Jack Layton, and her 36 years of experience with the NDP, she now sees herself as the real alternative to the Liberal candidate in Simcoe Grey. Austin has emphasized from the very first day of the campaign that the key issue in this election is the need to reverse the gap between the rich and the poor. Her message and the positive campaign Jack Layton has waged seem to have resonated with voters, who are looking for a real change.

A Message for the Final Week

Katy Austin — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 17:18:21 +0000

There has been much talk about minority governments in this election. Minority governments do not necessarily mean instability. In the 1960s Lester Pearson of the Liberals, Tommy Douglas of the NDP and John Diefenbaker of the Progressive Conservatives worked together in back-to-back minority governments which brought us an amazing number of historic policies: universal health care, the Canada Pension Plan, Canada Student Loans, the Order of Canada, the 40-hour work week, two-week vacations, minimum wage, the Royal Commission on the Status of Women, and our Canadian flag. The difference between then and now is that back then the leader of the minority government was willing to co-operate with other parties to achieve goals for all Canadians. That is the kind of leadership Jack Layton and the NDP wants for Canada.

I still believe that the most important issue in this election campaign is the growing gap between the rich and the poor.

When I grew up in the 1950s there were no homeless people in downtown Toronto, no food banks, and people had little or no difficulty finding a job and an affordable house in which to raise their families. There were also no neighbourhoods full of extravagant homes and CEOs with six and seven figure salaries.

It all began to change in the 1980s and has continued to today: the rich and the large corporations have made huge contributions to the Conservative and the Liberal parties in exchange for a major overhaul of the federal tax system that considerably eased the burden on Canada’s well-to-do, reduced corporate tax rates so that already profitable corporations could pocket more of their wealth and brought in NAFTA, which resulted in a tremendous loss of good-paying jobs.

The NDP has consistently been the party looking after the interests of ordinary Canadians. We need to return to policies where the richest Canadians and the richest corporations pay their share in taxes so that we have a country which can fund the programs needed to make this country great for all its citizens. We need a progressive income tax system with a new rate of 60% for incomes above $500,000 and 70% for incomes above $2.5 million. We need to close the loopholes that benefit the rich. We need to support international measures to clamp down on tax avoiders and evaders who hide their money in overseas shelters. We need to re-visit the whole idea of NAFTA and instead support our Canadian companies whose existence is always threatened by multinational corporations. We need to protect and support our farmers against agribusiness giants like those who are putting Garrett Moy, an organic apple grower in Clarksburg, the Woods family, producers of all-Canadian honey in Hillsdale, and Harald Boker, an organic spelt farmer in Elmvale out of business.

With this renewed source of revenue, the NDP would bring back affordable housing; fund health care as Tommy Douglas envisioned it; put money into pensions, not planes; create jobs, not more jails; and reward green, not greed.

Canadians are now seeing Jack Layton and the NDP as a real alternative. I ask the people of Simcoe Grey to vote for the party who best represents their dreams for this country are, and I hope that that party is the NDP.

Katy Austin will be campaigning in the following areas the week of April 18 to 23:

Katy Austin — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 20:34:40 +0000

Monday, April 18: 9:00 a.m. Address to Grade 7 and 8 students at Father F.X. O’Reilly Elementary School, Tottenham
10:00 to 3:30 Canvassing in Tottenham
6:00 to 8:30 p.m. Canvassing in Elmvale

Tuesday, April 19: Canvassing in Collingwood 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
All Candidates Debate, Collingwood Legion 7:00 p.m.

Wednesday, April 20: Canvassing in Angus all day

Thursday, April 21: Canvassing in Alliston morning and afternoon
All Candidates Debate Banting Memorial High School, Alliston 7:00 p.m.

Friday, April 22 : Canvassing in Angus all day

Saturday, April 23: Canvassing in Creemore all day

705-322-2265 (home)
705-796-7348 (cell)