<\/p>\n
Sep 30, 2017 @ 19:17<\/b><\/p>\n
On Friday, September 29th, 2017, Northern Ontario NDP MPPs Michael Mantha (Algoma Manitoulin), France G\u00e9linas (Nickel Belt), Gilles Bisson, (Timmins\u2014James Bay), Sarah Campbell (Kenora\u2014Rainy River) and John Vanthof (Timiskaming\u2014Cochrane) released the following joint statement responding to recent comments by the Liberals and Progressive Conservatives about Northern Ontario:<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the same debate where the Liberal member from Northumberland\u2014Quinte West called the North \u201cno man\u2019s land,\u201d the Conservative member for Nipissing characterized it as \u2018rock and swamp\u2019. New Democrats were quick to bring the discussion back to Northern policy then and we\u2019ll continue to do so.<\/p>\n
The North is not the \u2018no man\u2019s land,\u2019 the Liberals describe and is so much more than just \u2018rock and swamp,\u2019 despite what the Conservatives may think\u2014the North is our home and home to many Ontario families. Exchanging political cheap shots doesn\u2019t benefit Northern families, it moves the discussion away from solving the challenges and seizing the opportunities the North provides.<\/p>\n
Northern families need doctors, specialists, community schools, and jobs and opportunities\u2014especially for young people. It\u2019s bad enough that it took a comment in Toronto for the Conservatives to finally realize that the Liberals don\u2019t stand up for Northern Ontario but using this issue as a way to avoid talking about policies that can benefit our region is a disservice to us all.<\/p>\n
Northerners haven\u2019t forgotten that the last time the Conservatives called the shots the cuts to the North were deep in health care, rail and bus transportation\u2014municipal transit services vanished altogether in places like Fort Frances and Dryden because of these cuts. The North remembers that they slashed five ridings in our region. Now, the Conservative are hiding any plans they have for the North because they know that Northern families won\u2019t like them.<\/p>\n
New Democrats will continue to focus on the things that matter to Northern families \u2014sparking the Ring of Fire development, stopping the closure of our schools, lowering electricity costs and ending the deep cuts to Northern health. We don\u2019t need comments made in Toronto to know that the Liberals will continue to let us down and that the Conservatives would cut the things we care about. And we certainly don\u2019t need Conservatives piling on to those negative stereotypes.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Handard: <\/strong>Sept. 21 2017<\/p>\n Mr. Victor Fedeli:<\/strong><\/p>\n In the north, Speaker, if you travel and you fly over and look down, you\u2019re going to see one of two things. You\u2019re going to see either rock or swamp.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll use the polite word\u2014<\/p>\n[interjections]\n Mr. Victor Fedeli:<\/strong> Lakes\u2014lots of lakes. You\u2019re going to see wetlands.<\/p>\n[debate continues]\n Mr. John Vanthof:<\/strong> The member from Nipissing, whom I deeply respect and who is from northern Ontario and proud of it, I\u2019m sure, stated that when you fly over northern Ontario, you don\u2019t see anything but rock and swamp. I\u2019ve farmed my whole life in northern Ontario, and maybe that\u2019s all you see in Nipissing and North Bay, but over northern Ontario, there are all kinds of other opportunities that we can exploit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sep 30, 2017 @ 19:17 On Friday, September 29th, 2017, Northern Ontario NDP MPPs Michael Mantha (Algoma Manitoulin), France G\u00e9linas (Nickel Belt), Gilles Bisson, (Timmins\u2014James Bay), Sarah Campbell (Kenora\u2014Rainy River) and John Vanthof (Timiskaming\u2014Cochrane) released the following joint statement responding to recent comments by the Liberals and Progressive Conservatives about Northern Ontario: \u201cIn the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-northern-ontario"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-08 13:04:40","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6659"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6660,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6659\/revisions\/6660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}