Mantha’s News from the Park : Supporting Steel & Seniors
MPP Michael Mantha, Algoma-Manitoulin
Over the past week, controversies over Ontario’s steel crisis, cost increase for prescription drugs for seniors, and the lack of investment in mining and the Ring of Fire have been heating up conversations in the legislature. Ontarians have become accustomed to expecting less and less of this Liberal government; however we continue to grow frustrated with broken promise after broken promise.
Many steel producing and manufacturing communities are facing crisis. To date, steel communities’ cries for help have gone unanswered by this liberal government. Thursday I asked the Premier and Minister to commit to visit Sault Ste. Marie, Hamilton and other steel communities and meet with municipal leaders, workers unions, and creditors and work together to determine what measures this government should take to assist these communities and put pressure on the federal government to impose tariffs.
It is not only our steel industry facing economic uncertainty; Ontario’s seniors are becoming increasingly worried about the increase to their prescription drug costs. Ontarians are becoming increasingly aware that this 2016 Liberal budget has done nothing but make life harder for working families; it does not respect our seniors and the real struggles many of them face on fixed incomes. We know that as we age we need more medical attention. Now many seniors may have to pay more than twice than what they did before just to get medication to get healthy. The Liberal government thinks that putting “free vaccines” and “better programs” for the seniors will do solve the problem of an aging population; however it is short-sighted to think that an increase their medicine costs by double will not create massive fallout.
What our province needs is stability. We need it in our healthcare system, we need it in our job and industrial sector, and we need it in all aspects of our economy. As time passes, opportunity and good jobs are lost. This liberal government has made promises and then re-promised but they never deliver. For over eight years we have been promised to have money put into investing businesses and infrastructures into the Ring of Fire, yet progress has yet to be seen. The government claims that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity, what remains unclear is whose lifetime they are referring to.
My colleagues and I continue to stand up for seniors and pushing hard to ensure they have access to the prescription drugs they need, when they need them.
We continue to stand up for industries and the hard working people who drive them. We continue to demand leadership and a job creation plan for mining and manufacturing in the province. Ontario can and does deserve better from their government.
