Ontario NDP 2022 Election Platform Highlights
CHG’s William Norman highlights the Ontario NDP’s campaign promises by geographical location below.
“North/Northern Ontario” - General
- We will ensure that all children, whether they have a disability, are racialized, or are a member of a northern, rural, or Indigenous community, are provided with high-quality inclusive child care options that fit their circumstances.
- We’ll make sure health care workers get the pay they deserve and launch a campaign to recruit, retain and return nurses and other health care workers to our hospitals and public health units, including in underserved areas like rural and northern communities.
- We’ll remove the cap Doug Ford placed on supervised consumption sites, expedite approvals for supervised consumption sites in the north, and work to ensure safer alternatives to the current toxic and deadly supply of drugs available on the street
- Take immediate action to begin hiring 300 doctors in Northern Ontario including 100 specialists and 40 mental health practitioners.
- Fund travel accommodations for medical residents to take elective rotations in rural and Northern communities
- Create more residency rotation positions to help retain doctors in the North.
- Urge the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario to expedite the process for international medical graduates to obtain their licensure to work in Northern Ontario, understanding that more internationally trained health professionals will help alleviate the pressure on existing doctors and their practices
- Fund locums to allow travelling doctors to bring a resident with them when they go to a Northern Ontario community to practice
- Create a specific strategy to recruit and retain nurses in Northern Ontario
- More trades training in Northern Ontario, including community-run employment and training centres
- Ensure that Ontario continues to succeed in the screen-based industry by providing competitive tax credits, strong support for cutting-edge production facilities, and a plan to bring these jobs to more communities, including in Northern Ontario
- Ensure that all mining tax revenue goes right back to the Indigenous communities of the North.
- To support rural and Northern schools as their communities grow, we will double the Rural and Northern Education Fund.
- Ensure at least 25 per cent of cap-and-trade revenue goes to supports for rural, Northern, and low-income families
- Fully restore the Ontario Northlander, as part of our Northern Rail Strategy, and connect it with the Polar Express in Cochrane
- Make highways 11 and 17 priority roadways, designating them as Class 1 highways so that the province is required to clear them within eight hours of snowfall
- Getting needed roads built: We will move ahead with vital road construction projects like the fourlaning of Highway 69, Highway 11/17
Ring of Fire
- We’ll get the Ring of Fire project moving, the right way: with full transparency, community benefit agreements to guarantee jobs for Indigenous people, and proper environmental assessment. We’ll progress in full partnership with First Nations.
Northern Ontario School of Medicine
- We will develop an incentive package to recruit doctors, and their families, to live and work in Northern Ontario, expand the number of seats and training opportunities at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine and introduce a scholarship program for students from rural and remote communities in Northern Ontario who want to practice medicine.
- Hire 300+ doctors and 100+ specialists in Northern Ontario and increase residency positions at NOSM University
Brampton
- Prioritize badly needed hospital projects: We will ensure needed hospital projects and expansions in Brampton, Niagara Falls, Windsor-Essex and Kitchener get shovels in the ground without sacrificing needed health services in surrounding communities. We will immediately begin work on new hospital projects in Brampton, Scarborough and Sioux Lookout.
- We’ll immediately fund the building of a dedicated cancer care centre in Brampton.
- Extend the Hurontario LRT to downtown Brampton and restore the downtown loop as the line was originally planned
- We will cancel wasteful projects prioritized by the Ford Government such as Highway 413
Niagara Falls
- Prioritize badly needed hospital projects: We will ensure needed hospital projects and expansions in Brampton, Niagara Falls, Windsor-Essex and Kitchener get shovels in the ground without sacrificing needed health services in surrounding communities. We will immediately begin work on new hospital projects in Brampton, Scarborough and Sioux Lookout.
- Improving two-way all-day GO service between Kitchener-Waterloo and Toronto, and expanding year-round, daily-or-better service to Bowmanville, Grimsby, and Niagara.
Windsor-Essex
- Prioritize badly needed hospital projects: We will ensure needed hospital projects and expansions in Brampton, Niagara Falls, Windsor-Essex and Kitchener get shovels in the ground without sacrificing needed health services in surrounding communities. We will immediately begin work on new hospital projects in Brampton, Scarborough and Sioux Lookout.
- Getting needed roads built: We will move ahead with vital road construction projects like …Highway 3.
Kitchener-Waterloo
- Prioritize badly needed hospital projects: We will ensure needed hospital projects and expansions in Brampton, Niagara Falls, Windsor-Essex and Kitchener get shovels in the ground without sacrificing needed health services in surrounding communities. We will immediately begin work on new hospital projects in Brampton, Scarborough and Sioux Lookout.
- Improving two-way all-day GO service between Kitchener-Waterloo and Toronto
- We will move ahead with vital road construction projects like…the expansion of Highway 7 between Kitchener and Guelph.
Scarborough
- We will immediately begin work on new hospital projects in…Scarborough
Sioux Lookout
- We will immediately begin work on new hospital projects in…Sioux Lookout.
- Culturally competent health care for First Nations people: We’ll support expanding primary health care services to meet the unique needs of Indigenous people and honour the commitments in the plan for health transformation in Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) communities, including training more community health workers from northern Treaty communities, sponsorships for people to take the health manager and paramedic trainings, and funding the Sioux Lookout First Nations Health Authority Hospital development
Sudbury
- Return a midwifery program to Sudbury to support Indigenous and Francophone midwives and families.
- Stop fighting Ontario’s midwives in court and return a midwifery program to Sudbury to support Indigenous and Francophone midwives.
- Invest to ensure a University of Sudbury that’s by and for Francophones.
Carruthers Creek Headwaters (Ajax/Pickering)
- Expand the Greenbelt to include vital green spaces like the Carruthers Creek Headwaters.
Grassy Narrows
- Justice for Grassy Narrows: Clean up the mercury in the English-Wabigoon River system, taking immediate action to find and dig up the buried mercury upstream from Grassy Narrows.
London
- Immediately pass the Our London Family Act to combat Islamophobia, white supremacy and hate crimes in Ontario: The Ontario NDP collaborated with Muslim community leaders and organizations, like the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) on legislation that will enshrine in law concrete calls to action in the NCCM’s National Summit on Islamophobia.
GTHA
- Move forward on fare integration so people can move seamlessly across municipal borders, and implement a two-hour, flat rate fare across municipal transit in the GTHA to encourage riders to return to public transit post-pandemic and help local transit agencies recover. We’ll ensure transit users can transfer from GO service to local services like the TTC at no extra cost.
Bowmanville
- Improving two-way all-day GO service between Kitchener-Waterloo and Toronto, and expanding year-round, daily-or-better service to Bowmanville, Grimsby, and Niagara.
Grimsby
- Improving two-way all-day GO service between Kitchener-Waterloo and Toronto, and expanding year-round, daily-or-better service to Bowmanville, Grimsby, and Niagara.
Cochrane
- Fully restore the Ontario Northlander, as part of our Northern Rail Strategy, and connect it with the Polar Express in Cochrane
Sault Ste Marie
- Support the Huron Central and Algoma Central Rail Lines
Morriston
- We will move ahead with vital road construction projects like…the Morriston bypass,
Thunder Bay
- We will move ahead with vital road construction projects like…the Thunder Bay Expressway Interchange
Guelph
- We will move ahead with vital road construction projects like…the expansion of Highway 7 between Kitchener and Guelph.
Bradford
- We will cancel wasteful projects prioritized by the Ford Government such as the Bradford Bypass.
