No more “3rd class” status
Posted Apr 8, 2011 06:23:40 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Kitchener-Centre NDP candidate Peter Thurley wants to make it abundantly clear that his party is deserving of more than just “third class” status.
“The reality is that Karen Redman is no different from Stephen Woodworth in terms of representation in Ottawa,” Thurley says of two of his competitors in the hotly contested riding.
Woodworth narrowly (339 votes) won the Kitchener-Centre seat from Redman in 2008 after Redman had held it for four terms. In the past 50 years, there has been only one occasion when the Kitchener-Centre riding was won by a candidate whose party did not go on to form the government.
But during his one-hour, online chat at 570 News, Thurley was adamant that a vote for the NDP represents a vote for change. He believes that there are too many similarities between his competitors to make one a better choice than the other.
“Unfortunately voting for Karen Redman in Kitchener-Centre is going to get you a representative that has acted as a cheerleader for the Harper Conservatives,” Thurley wrote during the online chat.
Afterwards, he said he enjoyed the experience and saw it as a way for media to reach new demographics and for candidates to reach new voters.
“I appreciated having questions from all sides of the debate,” Thurley noted. “Some were friendly and some were asking me some pretty difficult questions. I’m really glad I had the chance to answer a few.”
For a complete transcript of Thurley’s chat, click here.
Thurley says two issues have clearly emerged early in this campaign. One is that the Canada Pension Plan needs to be beefed up, something he says an NDP government would do. The other, he says, is to lower taxes, particularly the HST and its impact on home heating.
“Every person I talk to at the door tells me they’ve noticed their heating bill has gone sky high,” Thurley relates. “Even my own heating bill jumped $40 over two months and I live in a small apartment. I can’t imagine what it’s like for some families, living in houses and having to feed their families.”
Our online chats continue today with Richard Walsh-Bowers, an Independent candidate in the riding of Kitchener-Waterloo. Submit your questions now by following this link.
