Thursday 28 March 2013

ON NDP Stance on Funding for Public Transit

The other day, Martin Regg Cohn wrote a horribly twisted piece of anti-NDP propaganda in the Toronto Star. 
Andrea Horwath and the ON NDP are not changing their stance on any of this. They are still looking at the root cause of the money problems for public transit - the provincial and federal government increasingly cutting corporate taxes and making up the loss of revenue on the backs of everyone else. Public transit used to be funded by the province and the feds. That made sense. Then this funding was removed to pay for corporate tax cuts. The NDP is saying lets get back to sensible taxation of the corporations and sensible funding of large projects (like public transit).

Continuing with the aim of constantly giving to the rich and corporations, and, at the same time, taking more and more from the rest of us, is a plan that cannot continue (unsustainable) and a plan that is very unfair. It is also a plan of the corporate parties (Liberals and Cons). It is precisely because of this plan that our public transit is suffering and begging for money. This plan is why money has been pulled out from under public transit over the years by the provincial and federal governments. When the Chretien-Martin government massively cut transfers to the provinces, the provinces then began to massively cut programs and funding in the provinces (remember what Harris did in Ontario, including removal of provincial funding from public transit?). And besides these cuts, the Ontario governments have continued to reduce their funds by steadily decreasing corporate taxes to a ridiculously low amount - and STILL plan to continue cutting this revenue source for the province. The end result is that many important things go underfunded and the funds now have to come from those who can least afford to pay. 
Horwath and the ON NDP want to reverse this trend and stop trying to force those least able to pay, to pay for everything. I support this stand by the ON NDP.
They are not so much against new funding sources for transit, but FOR old sensible funding sources for transit.