THUNDER BAY — Federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh was in town to talk about the high cost of living in rural and remote communities especially in the northern parts of the province.
While hosting a round table with members of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, the Ontario Nurses Association, and Unifor on Friday morning, Singh heard about the plight of workers in health care.
Singh listened to stories of healthcare professionals working multiple jobs at facilities across the city and region just to make ends meet. There were several stories of workers who were given grocery cards because they were being forced to choose between buying food or paying for a roof over their heads.
Singh said he's heartbroken about the struggles that these workers are facing, the same workers that are in roles help keep people safe and to keep people healthy.
The NDP leader, who struck a confidence-and-supply agreement with the governing Liberals, called out Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Bank of Canada for increasing interest rates. Singh pointed to Trudeau and how Ottawa has the ability to stop this from happening.
"Inflation isn't coming down food prices continue to skyrocket, so we're saying we need to tackle the greedy CEO's that are jacking-up prices, making record profits where people can't even afford their groceries," he said. "We're going to target CEO's that are exploiting the inflation period."
He suggested better competition laws, better protection for consumers, and strengthening for workers. Touting that his party has increased the GST rebate, bringing dental care to low-income Canadians by the end of the year, the NDP leader wants to break up the monopoly of the corporations and put workers and people first over the corporations with better protection for consumers when it comes to price increases.
Singh went as far as suggesting what some European countries are doing called an "excess profit tax" to tackle corporate greed, dissuading companies in those countries from continually raising prices, which then puts pressure on workers and consumers are forced to pay more.
