Labour day lost its way
Federal NDP leader Thomas Mulcair speaks to reporters in Ottawa.
Credits: Andre Forget / QMI AGENCY
ST. JOHN'S, N.L. - The Conservatives are not keeping Canada's resource-led economy balanced, NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair says.
During a caucus retreat being held in St. John's, N.L., Mulcair continued to criticize the Conservative government's environmental polices and its effects on the country's economy.
"We will always be a largely resource-based economy but we have lost the balanced economy that we've built up painstakingly since the Second World War," Mulcair told reporters at a press conference. "It's become destabilized as we've put more and more of our eggs in the resource basket, and we've got to look at the fact that we have lost 500,000 good paying manufacturing jobs -- jobs with enough of a salary for a family to live on, that's being lost and often replaced by part-time, precarious work in the service sector."
Unofficially, the topic of the day was the Quebec election, which resulted in a minority Parti Quebecois government and ended in a fatal shooting.
Of the 103 seats the NDP won in the last federal election, 59 are in Quebec, with some newly-elected MPs supporting provincial separatist groups both currently and in the past.
With the major meeting wrapping on Thursday, smaller groups of NDP MPs will be travelling throughout Newfoundland and Labrador.
The NDP has two seats in the province, including St. John's East, held by the popular former leader of the provincial NDP, Jack Harris.
The party believes they can win more support in the region by focusing on working class issues.
kris.sims@sunmedia.ca
Twitter: @kris_sims
During a caucus retreat being held in St. John's, N.L., Mulcair continued to criticize the Conservative government's environmental polices and its effects on the country's economy.
"We will always be a largely resource-based economy but we have lost the balanced economy that we've built up painstakingly since the Second World War," Mulcair told reporters at a press conference. "It's become destabilized as we've put more and more of our eggs in the resource basket, and we've got to look at the fact that we have lost 500,000 good paying manufacturing jobs -- jobs with enough of a salary for a family to live on, that's being lost and often replaced by part-time, precarious work in the service sector."
Unofficially, the topic of the day was the Quebec election, which resulted in a minority Parti Quebecois government and ended in a fatal shooting.
Of the 103 seats the NDP won in the last federal election, 59 are in Quebec, with some newly-elected MPs supporting provincial separatist groups both currently and in the past.
With the major meeting wrapping on Thursday, smaller groups of NDP MPs will be travelling throughout Newfoundland and Labrador.
The NDP has two seats in the province, including St. John's East, held by the popular former leader of the provincial NDP, Jack Harris.
The party believes they can win more support in the region by focusing on working class issues.
kris.sims@sunmedia.ca
Twitter: @kris_sims
