NDP's Thomas Mulcair unveils urban agenda

[Joe Shlabotnik]

In a campaign-style stop at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre Sunday, Mulcair unveiled a five-point urban agenda in front of around 1,400 supporters.

He vowed to appoint a minister of urban affairs to his cabinet, answer long-standing calls from municipalities for beefed up transit funding, to create affordable child care spots, to improve the process of recognizing foreign credentials, and to lower the tax rate for small business by 2%.
He insisted that under Conservative rule, local governments must choose between addressing transit needs or focusing on other infrastructure improvements.

“That’s a false choice,” he added. “Cities like Toronto shouldn’t have to choose between better roads or better transit — Toronto needs both.”

Not long into his speech, Mulcair promised that an NDP government would include a minister of urban affairs who would address the funding woes experienced by Toronto and other cities which are trying to maintain a stock of public housing.

“Today, nearly 100,000 families are on the wait list for social housing in this city alone,” said Mulcair. “I’ll appoint a minister responsible for urban affairs with a mandate within the first 100 days of taking office to identify worthy extensions of the social housing investments that are soon set to expire and identify new investments to ensure we tackle the crisis of affordable housing and homelessness in Toronto and across Canada.”

From Toronto Sun http://www.torontosun.com/2015/03/15/ndps-thomas-mulcair-unveils-urban-agenda (sorry for the crappy source, but CBC is still caught up in Tudeaumania )

Also of note; Mulcair was marching in support in an anti bill-51 rally in Montreal Saturday too.

[delrem]

1. Good! All good!

[CanSocDem]

2. Sounds like a winner to me...(eom)