Toronto Star : NDP slams Harper Tories

NDP slams Harper Tories

Conservatives have reversed gains, party says
Environment, daycare and native accord cited

BRUCE CAMPION-SMITH | OTTAWA BUREAU | September 9, 2006

QUEBEC CITY—With Stephen Harper as prime minister, Canada has lost its way on the international stage, and at home is seeing the reversal of gains made on behalf of children, aboriginals and on climate change, federal New Democrats charge.

The NDP yesterday kicked off one of its biggest conventions ever, taking aim at the Conservative government and the Liberals who preceded them.

Manitoba Premier Gary Doer got delegates fired up with his warning that in the last 12 months, Canada has moved backwards on the "3 Ks — kids, Kelowna and Kyoto."

He slammed the Tories for their plan to cancel the Liberals' child-care program after provinces had moved ahead with capital investments, higher salaries for daycare workers and new standards.

"You can't take down the bricks, you can't reduce the salaries and you can't lower the standards, just because the government has changed in Ottawa," he said. "The kids of Canada have a deal with Canada."

Doer also lamented the Conservatives' refusal to move forward with the Kelowna accord, a federal-provincial agreement with native groups to pump billions of dollars into education, health care, housing and economic opportunities.

"It's the first time we had that kind of consensus and plan to move forward," Doer said. "With the wealth we have in Canada today, we have a moral obligation to invest ... in inclusion for aboriginal people."

NDP Leader Jack Layton saved his toughest words for Harper's foreign policy, which he said is moving in lockstep with U.S. President George W. Bush, while avoiding the world's most significant issues.

"When it comes to those issues affecting human security on this planet, our government is dramatically and significantly failing to take action," Layton told reporters.

"All of the focus has been on the issues and the world view as identified by George Bush and what he regards to be the greatest threat," Layton said.

Thus, he said, the Conservatives are ignoring crises such as the AIDS pandemic, global poverty and climate change.

"The toll is taken in lives. This isn't political rhetoric," he said.

He singled Harper out for his decision to stay away from last month's international AIDS conference in Toronto.

Former United Nations ambassador Stephen Lewis, who last night slammed the Tories for staying silent on the AIDS issue, said Ottawa's fumbling on the international stage gives New Democrats a "tremendous mandate" to fight an election.

"We have the capacity to turn things around internationally if only Canada provided the leadership," Lewis said.

Speaking at the convention was an Afghan parliamentarian who says Canadian soldiers are fighting to sustain a government that includes murderers, rapists, drug-dealers and warlords.

Malalai Joya says the new government is just as repressive as the Taliban and is even more dangerous because it has powerful international support.

"They are like brothers of the Taliban and this is the main reason why the security situation in Afghanistan is getting worse and worse," Joya told Canadian Press.

Some 1,500 New Democrats are here for what's billed as the biggest party convention in years. While the party won 11 more seats in the Jan. 23 election, raising its seat total to 29, and boosted its popular support by 500,000 votes, it faces a challenge in the coming months.

The Green Party has just elected Elizabeth May as its leader and the media-savvy former head of the Sierra Club of Canada could steal the NDP's thunder on the environmental front.

As well, the Liberals are expected to steal the headlines as their leadership race intensifies over the coming months.

Meanwhile, two high-profile New Democrats said this week they were quitting the party.

Paul Summerville, former chief economist at RBC and star candidate in the Toronto riding of St. Paul's in the last election, said he was leaving because the party is hostile to the market economy.

Carl Hetu, the Quebec co-chairman of Layton's leadership campaign, said the party appeared to be heading nowhere in the province.

With files from Canadian Press