Peel Region spends a lot of money propping up people who don’t have jobs or whose jobs don’t pay enough for them to support themselves and their kids.
And rightly so. Canada is a country where climate kills, where lack of shelter, clothing and food can be lethal.
The problem with Peel taking responsibility for our own cash-poor people is that other levels of government don’t do their share. For instance, the federal Tory government continues a practice established by a former Liberal government of holding onto a $51-billion employment insurance surplus while limiting benefits to people who have paid into EI, but are now out of work.
Ontario’s manufacturing sector is taking a beating with job numbers shrinking and unemployment growing. Peel, in particular, needs that EI money.
But as Tory and Liberal governments connive at keeping the workers’ billions in the federal government loot bag, where can cheated people look for aid?
They might check out the New Democratic Party, which has 12 bills before the House of Commons aimed at putting EI money into the pockets of the people who paid for an insurance plan that doesn’t pay them.
Will any of these worker-friendly bills be passed?
Probably not, because the NDP is not the governing party.
