The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.
The NDP will continue the fight to ban replacement workers during strikes and lockouts, Paul Loewenberg says. The NDP candidate for Sudbury spent an hour answering reader questions Wednesday afternoon in an electronic town hall.
“We are the only party in Ontario that has ever passed anti-replacement worker legislation and it is important that we bring it back,” he said. In April, Nickel Belt MPP France Gelinas’ bill to ban replacement workers died on the second reading.
Loewenberg also fielded questions about student debt, jobs, health care and the LHINs (local health integration networks).
“The NDP wants to freeze tuition fees by increasing the funding to universities for the first time in six years. What we also want is to provide interest- free Ontario student loans,” he said, in response to a question from a fourth-year Laurentian student who is $15,000 in debt.
“As a fourth-year student, this will benefit the students going forward for education. The best way we can benefit a student that has already been through school is to fight for jobs for the students to graduate into and allow them to pay their student loans off with good-paying jobs.”
The Ring of Fire, he said, has the potential to bring a lot of new jobs to Sudbury.
“The Ring of Fire is a unique opportunity for Northern Ontario to benefit, because Sudbury is a centre of skilled trades training. We can provide the workforce, we can provide the healthy climate for business to invest and develop the infrastructure we’ll need to provide for new employment opportunities.”
He also spoke out against lowering corporate taxes.
“The NDP wants to give tax breaks to companies who create jobs, and train people for jobs. We don’t believe in blank cheques for companies who have no intention of creating new jobs. The past his-tor y shows that corporate bailouts have done little to stimulate job creation but a lot to enrich the bank accounts of global corporations.”
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