Federal NDP leader tours Penticton, rails against Libs
Singh accuses Liberals of stalling on implenting universal health care
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Federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh talked about the future of the country and the future of the party during his Penticton visit on Friday.
Singh toured Okanagan College's Penticton campus and the En'owkin Centre, and ended his visit with a public questionand-answer session at Tin Whistle Brewing.
During a media roundtable earlier tin the day, Singh field a wide range of questions from housing and the environment to the opioid crisis and Indigenous issues.
With Penticton falling in a historically Conservative-voting area, Singh praised NDP MP Richard Cannings when asked if it would be challenge to keep this area orange.
"The focus is going to be on how do we listen to people's problems and then provide solutions to those problems, putting people front and centre of all of our discussions," Singh said.
With the NDP playing both centre and centre-left roles in the past, Singh said they differentiate with the Liberals on a few key issues, including their actions on housing.
"The government says we acknowledge it's a crisis, (but) here's the distinction: They say, ‘But hold on wait two years for our affordable housing plan to take effect. We're going to wait two years before 90 per cent of the funding actually flows,’" Singh said.
If he were prime minister with a majority tomorrow, the first thing Singh said he would act on is pharmacare.
The Liberals “just want to study it, and they didn't even put any dollars behind the study," Singh said.
"They proposed the study without any funding for the study and we're saying why do you need to study this? We've got all the evidence."
Singh was referring to Parliamentary Budget Office assessment that estimated $4 billion in savings if universal pharmacare was in place.
The leader also cited the inaction on electoral reform as a sticking point between the parties.
But in his discussions while travelling Canada, the issue popping up most, not just regionally but country-wide, is housing.
"Everyone's stressed about the fact that there's no housing and it's a major burden. So that's an issue that's not just limited to Penticton. I would say it was top of mind from everyone we spoke to," Singh said.
The other issue he has been hearing most about during similar visits across Canada is wealth inequality.
"The government says the economy is doing really well. They've been told the economy is moving along and people aren't really feeling that, though, in their lives," Singh said.
He pointed to a recent Ipsos Reid survey finding nearly half of Canadian respondents participants were $200 away from being unable to pay their bills.
"The economy may be working, but it's not working for everybody. It's working for a select few. So, that's something that's come up. People feel that," Singh said.
When questioned about his role in the trade dispute between provincial NDP governments in Alberta and B.C., Singh said his job was to challenge the federal government, the role of which is to show leadership.
"Premier Notley is doing exactly what she promised to do. She said she'd defend the interests of Alberta, defend the people of Alberta, the economy and she's doing what she promised to do," Singh said, calling Notley's climate change plan one of the best in the country.
"Premier Horgan is doing exactly what he promised to do. To defend the coastline, to defend the environment."
But Singh said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau broke his promise to have a modernized environmental assessment process for such projects.
"The prime minister committed to changing that, having a new process that was independent and science and evidence-based. It was not. He used the old process, which is widely known as a sham and approved an LNG project," Singh said.
"We're in this position now because of the federal government. It's the federal government's responsibility."