ON MANUFACTURING JOBS AND POVERTY: Marston questions Conservative Government

MARSTON PUSHES TORIES ON MANUFACTURING
JOBS STRATEGY & POVERTY ERADICATION

Ottawa – During Question Period today, Wayne Marston (MP Hamilton East – Stoney Creek) drilled the Harper government on when they will have a strategy to protect and create manufacturing jobs in Hamilton.

“It’s not just the workers at Stelco and Hamilton Specialty Bar that are feeling the impact of job losses in the manufacturing sector: it is their families and the community as a whole that loses when the economic spin-off generated from well-paying manufacturing jobs are lost in a community like ours.”

Mr. Marston made reference to today’s Conference Board of Canada’s report card that gave Canada a failing grade on a number of important issues including the economy and poverty eradication.

Mr Marston was also pushing for the Canadian Revenue Agency to establish a better procedure whereby women who change marital status and are required to prove that status change, do not lose their child tax benefits during the period where they are forced to gather guarantors of their changed marital status.

“We can’t eradicate poverty when, after we’ve eliminated public childcare programs and replaced them with a paltry tax benefit, we make newly women headed households join the lines at food banks because of a change in marital status and paperwork hurdles. We also can’t eradicate poverty when we’re doing nothing to keep well-paying jobs communities like ours. ” commented Marston.

“First the Liberals and now the Conservatives have got Canada’s priorities wrong. It is time to stop corporate tax cuts and put working and middle-class Canadians first. It’s time for a made-in-Canada Jobs Strategy that keeps good paying jobs in Canada thereby contributing to poverty eradication and helps us create the jobs we need for the future.”