Latest / Kvetch & Release / Ontario NDP leader Marit Stiles tours Windsor-Essex with MPP Lisa Gretzky

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Ontario NDP leader Marit Stiles tours Windsor-Essex with MPP Lisa Gretzky · Kvetch & Release

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  We just had our Ontario NDP leader go on a little bit of a tour
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  here in Windsor with our Windsor to comsie Representative of Provincial Parliament, Lisa Gretzki,
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  stopping off at a few different places, not for profits, some schools,
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  to talk about a bunch of different things that are going on quite frankly,
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  so we decided we'd use this opportunity to check in with Windsor to come
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  see MPP Lisa gret Ski to discuss Lisa, how you doing, I'm doing
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  well, John, How are you doing really well? Thanks? It must
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  be always great to have the leader stop by in your riding. Oh,
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  it's fantastic. She's been here a few times. So it's always nice to
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  have Mark come back and meet with the people in the community and hear about
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  what's going on in Windsor and some priorities that we need to have legislatively.
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  So you and Ontario NDP leader Merit Styles went to the Welcome Center shelter for
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  women and families today. They got an OTF grant they did so they got
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  some much needed fun from the Antario Trillium Foundation, a non part design,
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  largely volunteer red organizations for funding to be able to provide some more spaces for
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  counseling and in cake and that kind of thing at the shelter and make it
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  feel a little more accessible for folks in the community. So it was great
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  to be with Lady Laffett and the team at Welcome Center to see what kind
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  of work they've got going on, and you know, get to check in
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  about the sports and services are offering there. Absolutely, and you also stopped
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  off at the Downtown Mission. I had a chance to speak with them yesterday,
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  with Rukshini Punaya Ghula and the executive director, and about some of the
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  things that they provide there as well as just dealing with this heat and what
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  it must be like. Yeah, yeah, so I was. I was
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  thrilled to the Downtown Mission, especially beah Living. Downtown is near and dear
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  to my heart, and so it was great to take Mark through the Downtown
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  Mission to see some of the great works they're doing there, but also to
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  talk about some of the barriers that they're facing not just providing service, but
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  for their clients, their guests that rely on those supports and services. To
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  talk about housing and food and security and mental health and addictions supports. So
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  it was really good to have Marek in town to connect with those people kind
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  of one on one and again to hear what's going on and whensor Essex so
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  that we can take that back to Queen's Park. Now will the end of
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  October, since the government decided they want to take an extended vacation. Extended
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  vacation and maybe a election sooner than later, but we can talk about that
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  in a little bit. I know that one of the big things that you
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  like to discuss because of how important it is is intimate partner violence and that
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  there was a roundtable which was held. Yeah, actually we just ran wrapped
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  up that roundtable and I could tell you that we could have talked for much,
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  much longer, but we had community service providers, We had a mom
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  of well Bartolocuso Sallah Buley's mom, Sara was killed by her former partner and
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  that's how going through the court, so she joined us and it was great
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  to have that conversation about the successes but also the barriers that those service providers
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  and people that rely on them they're facing, and where the province really needs
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  to go to address and in partner violence. Well, It's an important thing
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  that needs to be addressed, and it's picking up more steam in terms of
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  governments discussing it. But I don't know why it's taking so long for everyone
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  to be able to recognize that it needs to be addressed at all different levels.
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  Lastly, one of the things that I want to discuss with you is
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  just this gosh darn heat that we're dealing with right now and what it must
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  be like for students that are in schools. I know that we have our
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  local ETFO president, Marius Bagnolo, urging the province let's get some air conditioners
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  in these schools, and you and Maritt Styles went to a school to check
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  it out. Yeah, we went to Prince d and you know what we
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  were hearing from the staff there is earlier in the day when we were there,
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  about eleven eleven thirty, they were saying the attempts were just over thirty
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  degrees in the classrooms and that wasn't taking into account the commodity. So,
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  as I believe you just said leading into this, we're at about forty one
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  degrees with a forty forty one with the humidity, and we have students that
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  are getting sick. We're getting workers better getting sick from being in these classrooms.
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  And what we're seeing is the Conservative government is really not taking these things
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  seriously and they're not making the investments that are needed in order to provide a
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  safe learning and working environment for these kids. I'm getting calls from parents who
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  are saying that they're having to stay home from work, so they're losing out
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  on an income because it's safer for them to keep their kids at home than
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  to send them to a school where there's extreme heat like this. And there's
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  I think it's about a sixteen billion dollar repair back lug right now schools across
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  the province, and this government is not addressing that. And one of those
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  things is to provide air conditioning on the hot days. And I'm sure that
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  schools in the winter have proper seeding in the classrooms so the kids aren't there
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  having to sit in their coats and s while learning. Well, I mean,
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  listen, you're not going to be getting good grades and if you're dealing
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  with the temperatures like this, and quite frankly, I don't know what the
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  kids are doing in school right now. It's the nineteenth of June. They're
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  pretty well done. Just I would say let them go, or at least
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  just give them all cold bottles of water. But speaking about the school board,
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  we know that locally here with the Greatersex County District School Board, there
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  is the risk of this provincial takeover with this new five hundred and thirty two
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  million dollars budget, with the six point three to eight million deficit as a
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  result of it. Obviously, what the board, what trustees are saying is
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  an underfunding from the provincial level. And I'm sure you would agree with that.
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  What I want to ask you about right now, going back into something
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  that our ETFO president said, Mario Spagnolo, talking about the riskiness of this
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  and the unfunded positions that are going to be reviewed, he says that well,
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  he said to trustees that the provincial government is using the trustees themselves as
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  a shield to continue to devalue our schools. If it means the ministry takes
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  over the board, so be it. Let our provincial elected officials be accountable
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  for the slashing of the central services to students in need. Pretty dramatic words
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  there from our local ETFO president saying, hey take it over, you guys
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  can deal with the problems that you have created. I just I would love
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  to get your reaction to those statements, essentially saying we want to kick the
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  ball over to Lisa to an extent, but I imagine your response would be,
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  we're not the majority. Yeah, yeah, it lies on the Conservative
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  government who hold a majority that control the first strings and make policy decisions.
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  And I think you know to what Mario was saying is this government wants to
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  abdicate responsibility to the trustees while also trying to take more and more control for
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  themselves. And ultimately, the trustees make decisions based on the funding that the
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  province is providing. So when school boards are looking at a deficit, they're
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  supposed to submit a balance budget by law. And I want to be clear,
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  it's not just here in Windsor Essex. It's all over the province.
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  This is happening with school boards. So I think you know, basically to
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  what Mura was saying is if the government starts to come in and take over
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  these school boards, then the government shows that they are directly responsible for their
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  failures. They can't blame the trustees anymore. They can't look the other way
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  when we're talking about shortfalls and cutting stuff and the most vulnerable students, oftentimes
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  those with special education. These are the most deeply impacted by the government not
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  properly funding the system. So I think I don't want to speak on Mura's
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  behalf, but I think that was basically the sentiment is, then come in
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  and take over this board and the others, because now you're actually we're going
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  to be able to point at your failures and your bad policy decisions and truly
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  hold you accountable, and you will not have anyone else to point at,
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  which is what the government's doing. They're trying to point the finger somewhere else.
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  The money flows from the province, if you'll just give me one last
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  moment here. We saw yesterday a realignment of budget priorities at the University of
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  Windsor which ended up ending the University Players program as well as a realignment of
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  the Entrepreneurial Center as well, and the university says, look, we're in
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  a tough space. We can't go raising our students tuition. There's a cap
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  on the international students that we can bring in. There's only so many domestic
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  students that are attracted to coming here, and the province quite frankly, isn't
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  funding us and neither is the FEDS to the level that we want our public
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  institutions at all levels right now, Lisa are making decisions, and I don't
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  think that these are the only two that are going to be happening. Imagine
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  we're going to see more and more of this. I wonder what your thoughts
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  are just on the general state of funding of our public institution, public institutions,
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  our public services in the face of you know, large spending promises.
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  I'm thinking somewhere between two hundred and fifty million to a billion dollars to the
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  beer store. Yeah, And the important piece on that is the government is
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  choosing to spend that money. It could be upwards of a billion dollars to
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  get out of a contract with the beer store a year early. So if
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  they waited twelve months eleven months now, then there would be no cost.
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  But the government chooses to make that decision to spend the taxpayers money on something
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  like that rather than putting it into our public education system, whether that's elementary,
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  secondary or post secondary. So I think it speaks a lot, frankly
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  to the government's priority priorities and what we're seeing more and more is the government
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  is pulling back on the probably funded publicly delivered lot a profit institutions like our
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  colleges, universities, schools, public schools in a drive to bring in privatization
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  and to see more and more of those private agencies that run on profit.
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  And that's not the direction we should go. That costs the taxpayers more because
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  it's the taxpayers paying for that. It costs the taxpayers more, and it
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  also limits access for our population and create barriers for many people to actually access
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  education. And historically government has underfunded programs like the arts and cultures programs,
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  and that's not a direction that we should be going. Especially look at our
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  area. We're rich with arts and culture. We should be we should be
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  encouraging that and investing in that. And when you're talking about entrepreneurships, this
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  government wants to say they're all about small business. But at the end of
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  the day, if we're cutting programs education programs on onto preneurship and helping foster
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  that and get people on their feet to start their own businesses, what does
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  that say about the government really if they're not willing to find programs that actually
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  facilitates well don't get me started about this government and small business. Lisa,
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  you know where I'm going to go with that one, but I do.
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  I want to thank you for your time and for just allowing me to sort
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  of go all over the place on a little bit of a journey with you
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  here for the last couple of minutes. We jumped on a lot of different
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  topics, but I appreciate it. Yeah, I appreciate it. Thanks for
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  your time. Thank you very much. Lisa Gretzky is our member of provincial
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  Parliament for Windsor to come see and she just had a tour of the area
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  with the Ontario NDP leader Marit Styles.