To the Expositor:
As the provincial election approaches and after attending the All Candidates’ Debate at MSS on Wednesday, May 21 it has become ever more clear that the Progressive Conservatives and their leader Tim Hudak’s platform have their sights set directly on public sector workers in this province and similarly on all the public sector workers on Manitoulin Island.
Listening to the PC candidate Jib Turner talk I really do not think he has a grasp at all as to how many public sector workers there actually are on this Island; it is the majority of employed people who live here. Nurses and hospital workers, long term care facility workers, teachers and elementary and secondary school workers, police officers, paramedics and emergency services workers, assisted living workers, highway maintenance workers, hydro workers, LCBO workers…and the list go on.
I have been waiting to hear a public statement come from Mr. Turner’s party leader saying that he will not freeze the wages of public sector workers but will just go after their high-paid management, but we all know that will never happen and to have Mr. Turner even suggest that this is the case is, in my mind, a complete joke!
I had personal experience with what happened to healthcare when the public sector was last attacked by a provincial Tory leader: his name was Mike Harris and his axe swinging campaign wasn’t a pretty thing. In fact, the health care sector has never completely recovered from his devastation of our health care system.
In the same breath Hudak touts that he will give big corporations further tax breaks. As an Islander I ask you, do you see many big corporations on Manitoulin Island? Do you see the hundreds of public sector workers going to work to provide all the necessary services to the citizens of Our Island?
On Election Day, let’s give Mr. Turner the answer he deserves—”no” to attacks on our local public sector workers and “no” to further corporate tax breaks!
Greg Young Wikwemikong
