NDP Leader Rolls Through Niagara One More Time

By Doug Draper

It was like a combination homecoming and love-in when Andrea Horwath’s bus rolled in to Niagara this October 5.

An exuberant NDP leader Andrea Horwath greets supporters in Niagara one more time. Photo by Doug Draper

“Thanks so much for coming back,” said one Niagara area resident as the NDP leader exchanged hugs and handshakes during the stop in Niagara Falls – one day before voters across Ontario go to the polls to decide who will be the makers and shakers at Queen’s Park over the next four years or (if we end up with a minority government) however long the government lasts.

Horwath, who was making her second trip to Niagara since this election campaign officially began and has been here several times to support candidates and residents fighting for better hospital care, was not interested in entertaining the media chatter about a possible minority government. She was more interested in talking to her supporters about a “momentum” she feels “is still growing” for her party as the hours before the polling stations opened ticked down.
Let’s do in Ontario what they did yesterday in Manitoba,  said Horwathin so many words of the sweeping victory there for the NDP in a provincial election. She went on to speak of her hope that Ontario voters will not re-elect “the same old party (the Liberals) that has taken you for granted for years and years and years.”

Niagara Falls NDP candidate Wayne Redekop at Horwath rally with retiring NDP rep Peter Kormos.

The Liberals cut a deal with the federal Conservative government to bring in the harmonized sales tax (HST), she said, and it wrote “blank cheques” for corporations to export manufacturing jobs overseas. It also inflated the wages of CEOs and other administrators of hospital systems while funding for front-line services for patients were slashed.

Horwath said she is not interested, at this point, in talking about “making a deal” with one of the other two main parties should there be a minority government. The only deal she wants right now is for her supporters and others to bring in an NDP government places the concern of ordinary people above those of corporations and CEOs.

Lots of Niagara hugs for Horwath

The NDP leader also put in a strong word for the candidates running in the Niagara area, including Wayne Redekop, the party’s candidate in the Niagara Falls riding, Cindy Forster in the Welland riding and Irene

While Horwath’s supporters were cheering her at the rally, Liberal campaigners from the headquarters of that party’s Niagara Falls candidate Kim Craitor, located only a few doors away, handed members of the media a release, saying that even Horwath’s hometown paper, The Hamilton Spectator, has recently “sound the alarm” about her policies.

“An NDP government would not be good for Ontario,” reads the October 5 editorial in the Spectator. “The NDP plan to hike corporate taxes to 14 per cent is wrong-headed and would damage Ontario’s economy. Freezing hospital and other public sector CEO salaries again has some grassroots appeal, but is unrealistic and would lead to bleeding off talent to more competitive jurisdictions.”

This criticism, from a Torstar (Toronto Star-owned newspaper with a long-time Liberal Party bias) seemed not to deter Horwath as she basked in the support she received at the Niagara Falls rally.

“Tomorrow you can choose,” she said. “More closed emergency rooms and pay hikes for CEOs, or a party that will put patients first.” said Horwath. “We will deliver change that puts people first. Tomorrow people in Niagara have a real choice. They can vote out of hope, not out of fear. They can vote for the NDP.”

Then off to Kitchener the Andrea Horwath bus went.

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