Layton runs for the NDP

Popular Toronto politician brings social vision to federal agenda

Jack Layton shows a different face to the militants of the New Democratic Party: the face of a winner. As he states in his slogan for his leadership campaign, Layton wants to give new energy and new leadership to his party.
"If you were to ask anybody on the street what is the NDP's vision for Canada," he says, "99 percent will be unable to answer. Ours is a communications problem, rather than a programme problem."

Who are you sending your message to?
"First of all to the people living in large cities. A very high percentage of Canadians, in fact, live in urban areas or in their suburbs. The federal government has lost interest in them and in their rights. 'My' NDP will give attention to the needs of urban centres, from transportation to infrastructures to quality of life, beginning with the problems of pollution of the water we drink and the air we breathe."
The Prime Minister recently declared that he will meet the premiers about the healthcare system.
"What will he tell them? That they have been dismantling it piece by piece in order to privatize it and make it the same as the U.S. system? Healthcare is everybody's right, and there must not be any financial discrimination preventing access to it. On the contrary, we should go in the opposite direction. The national healthcare system should be integrated with a drug programme that could guarantee all Canadians the possibility to get the drugs they need."
You seem to consider the United States as a threat.
"Not at all! The threat is not the U.S.A. but our complete acquiescence to George W. Bush's decisions. It's incredible that a few days ago our Minister McCallum declared that Canada was ready to go to war alongside the U.S.A. even without a decision by the United Nations. Our country always trusted the U.N. and was among its staunchest supporters; we cannot renege our past just because we are afraid of economic retaliation that would bring our economy, locked in step with the American one, to its knees."
How do you propose we "disengage" from such a cumbersome neighbour?
"That's simple, by improving our relations with the European Union and with Asia. I don't mean just economic relations, but also political bonds. We should not leave France and Germany alone in opposing an indiscriminate assault on Iraq, as this is also the position of millions of Canadians."
Right now the Federal budget is active.
"And yet, many services have been cut. I intend to increase spending without increasing taxes, continuing with the tax cuts proposed by Paul Martin, with one exception: the capital gain tax. People who spend their working day flipping hamburgers or laying bricks pay their taxes on their entire gains; those who are lucky enough to spend their day handling stocks only pay on 50 percent of theirs... this is illogical."

Publication Date: 2003-01-26
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=2279