Climate change is real, it is caused by human activity and it needs to be reversed if we are to continue to exist as a human race on this planet. For over 15 years this has been the position of highly respected climate scientists all over the world, including Canada’s David Suzuki and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Climate change deniers, on the other hand, are generally not climate scientists; rather than publish in peer reviews and debate at conferences, they focus their attention on the media and the general public. They receive significant funding from coal and oil companies, who would benefit from a reversal of the trend away from non-renewable energy.

We can’t allow ill-informed climate change deniers to stop us from beginning the changes we need to make now. That would be like doing nothing about smoking because a few doctors disagree that it causes lung cancer.

Ed Clark is the chief executive of Toronto-Dominion Bank and a member of the CCCE who recently stated, “We had a meeting two weeks ago, and almost every single person said raise my taxes, get this deficit done.”

But the only ones whose taxes should be raised are the ones who caused the recession in the first place: those financial and corporate big shots whose salaries and bonuses skyrocketed in the past decade at the expense of so many Canadians who lost well-paying jobs through downsizing and sending jobs offshore.

In the meantime, let’s get the government back to work developing an economy which gives average Canadians decent jobs.

 Several years ago I read a book called Ten Stupid Things People do to Mess up their Lives.  The author was a counsellor who empathized with her patients when they listed all the terrible blows life had dealt them.  But then she looked them straight in the eye and asked, “What are you going to do about it?”            

And that’s what we’re seeing today – ordinary citizens saying, “ I’m going to do something about it.”  I can’t tell you how heartened I am to witness the re-birth of participatory democracy across this country, especially here in Simcoe County.  The fight to stop Site 41 in Tiny and Springwater.  The fight against spending federal infrastructure money  on a state-of-the-art soccer field at a private school in Collingwood. ROSSCORE, the citizens’ movement in the southwest corner of the county, protesting the massive amounts of water being drained from the Oak Ridges Moraine to keep golf courses green.  The formation of Zero Waste Simcoe, whose mandate is to eliminate the need for landfill sites.            

We are using the internet, e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, blogs and even old-fashioned letters to the editor to share our ideas and to organize quickly.  We are discovering that there are many other who think as we do and we are mobilizing them            

This change is exciting!  But there’s something else that needs to change as well.  We need to leave behind us the word “enemy”.  We need to leave behind us the mindset that they are always wrong and we are always right.  We need to leave behind us labels such as “right-wing bastards”, “tree huggers” and “left-wing bleeding hearts”.  We need to remember that we are all Canadians; they may not see things as we do, but they are nevertheless our sisters and brothers.            

I think it’s fabulous that here today I see colleagues from the Liberal Party, the Marxist Leninist Party, the Green Party, Labour Council, the Council of Canadians, the NDP, young people and old.  And I’m sure there are supporters of the Conservative Party as well.  It reminds me of a story I once heard about John Turner when he was the Minister of Justice under Pierre Trudeau.  Before tabling legislation in the House of Commons, he would invite for dinner the justice critics of the opposition parties to ask their opinions on his proposals.  What a fine example of using great minds from all sides for the betterment of the country!            

Unfortunately, we have a log jam in Parliament today. We need politicians and their parties to be more respectful of each other and to put the needs of the country first. Perhaps then we can attract the kind of people we need to replace Tommy Douglas, Pierre Trudeau, John Diefenbaker and their like.            

So I challenge you when this rally is over to read a newspaper with a different point of view; read a blog by someone who argues from the other side; watch the news on a different TV channel.  Engage your friends, family, neighbours and co-workers in meaningful political conversations (whether they like it or not!).  We must dialogue if we are ever going to get them to change their minds.              

Coming here today is an example of what Canadians need to be doing.  We need to be informed and involved and encourage others to do the same.  Only then will our country re-gain its democratic strength.  

Austin says she is tired of Liberals and Conservatives insisting that they can only work if they have a majority government.  “ If 18% of  Canadians vote for the NDP, 6% vote for the Green Party, 8% vote for the Bloc, 35 % vote for the Conservatives and 33% vote for the Liberals, then 18% of legislation should mirror NDP policy, 6% mirror the Green Party, etc. etc.  In other words, the people are telling the parties to compromise!”

At best, says Austin, the Liberals might get a minority victory, in which case they would need the Bloc and the NDP to stay in power. At worst, she warns that a fall election could actually backfire on the Liberal Party and result in a Conservative majority.  A coalition now would be a much more reasonable and productive alternative.

Katy Austin,

President, Simcoe Grey New Democrats

They allowed a contract to build vehicles for the Canadian armed forces to go to an American plant instead of insisting that the company alter its Canadian plant and provide jobs for Canadian workers.  

They refused to give a grant to a Montreal gay arts festival (even though the festival met all the requirements) after flack within the party over a grant to Toronto’s Pride Week events.

They refuse to interfere in the sale of valuable Nortel assets to a Scandinavian firm when Waterloo’s Research in Motion wants to keep these assets in Canadian hands and thus keep Canada’s top brains here.

Finally, Simcoe Grey’s own Conservative MP, Helena Guergis, was only too pleased to present a recreational infrastructure stimulus cheque to a Collingwood private school for an artificial turf soccer field.  This is public money going to an institution for children of the rich elite; out of the 767 recreational infrastructure projects approved in Ontario, this was the only one given to a private school.  Meanwhile, the Town of Collingwood did not receive the funding it sought for a roof over the public skating rink.           

We expect better.  We expect a government that is interested in helping ordinary Canadians, not the elite.  

Katy Austin,
President, Simcoe Grey New Democrats

The arrest of Bernard Madoff exposed the corruption and greed in the investment industry. Corporations receiving government bailouts still consider it O.K. to pay their executives obscene salaries, bonuses and severance deals. Stephen Harper is bragging that Canada will have the lowest corporate tax rate in the G7 by 2012.

In the meantime, workers are losing their jobs; factories are closing up and moving back to the U.S. The provincial government is reneging on its promise to raise the minimum wage and increasing the tax burden on ordinary citizens by harmonizing the PST with the GST. It’s hard to qualify for EI, and when that runs out, many may lose their homes. The federal government has cut off support for child care spaces, putting more workers out of jobs and making it hard for others to keep theirs.

We watched for years as the rich got rich and the poor got poorer and trusted that the economic experts and the government knew what they were doing. Now that trust is rapidly disappearing and the anger is just beginning. In Europe, people are taking to the streets in protests over government inaction. Here in Ontario, a company rep was barricaded in his office when laid-off workers felt the company’s severance package offer was not satisfactory.

What we need is new type of economy, one that is “motivated directly by our desire to improve the human condition rather than by a hunger for private profit” (Jim Stanford, Economics for Everyone). The questions are where will the leadership come from and will it come in time before things get really ugly?

Katy Austin ,

Simcoe Grey NDP

Whether we agree or disagree with Mr. Galloway’s point of view, we must respect his right to express it.  How can Canadians develop informed opinions about the Afghan war and the Middle East conflict if they can’t hear the arguments from both sides? Mr. Kenney must allow us to make up our minds for ourselves.

  
Katy Austin

Simcoe Grey New Democrats

                Finley opposes raising EI benefits or  making it easier to qualify for the insurance payments. The government’s recent budget reforms to EI are minimal; they leave the maximum payment at $447 a week, and it is still difficult  to qualify for that paltry sum.  One wonders why many workers have to pay for an insurance that they will never be able to access when they need it. 

                The minister argues that with significant skill shortages in many parts of the country we should be putting our money into retraining.  But retraining is not a substitute for decent EI benefits, easier access to the system, ending the two-week waiting period and ending the practice of refusing to pay out benefits until severance packages have been exhausted.  In any case, for many laid off workers retraining is not an option because of intellectual limitations, age, and the fact that you have to have such an exorbitant number of hours to even qualify.

                If the Harper government really wanted to involve itself in new  job creation we should have seen a bolder and more visionary approach in the budget involving widespread development of green technology for the future.