11/14/2019
Hello my friends,
I hope you are all well.
I have the pleasure to announce you that I will be running to be elected a UNIVERSITY-ROSEDALE delegate for Alvin Tedjo in the upcoming Ontario Liberal Party Leadership Election Meeting on Sunday, February 9th.
Why do I support Alvin Tedjo?
Don't get me wrong, it's not that the other candidates are weak. No matter who wins, they'll be a great leader and I'll be happy to work hard to help them beat the Doug Ford Conservatives in the next Provincial elections.
But Alvin brings to the table what I value the most in politics: the courage to challenge the partisan status quo.
A father of three children who are all attending Catholic schools. Alvin is a proud practicing Catholic. Yet he plans to make public Catholic schools secular and open to everyone. For students, this change would mean the convenience of attending their closest school and less time on the bus. For teachers and early childhood educators, it would mean smaller class sizes, availability of more resources and the freedom to teach in any publicly funded school.
This change that politicians from all stripes deem impossible is highly recommended by all experts. According to Charles Pascal, a former Ontario Deputy Minister of Education and professor at OISE: “Providing Catholic education with public money is an anachronism waiting to be brought to an end by a courageous Queen’s Park legislature.”
Quebec, Manitoba and Newfoundland and Labrador have already done this. It’s time for Ontario to make a change and stop spending precious education dollars to maintain twice as many school boards as we actually need.
But that's only the icing on the cake.
Here's what really matters.
Alvin wants to see massive changes to our child care system.
Childcare has become so unaffordable that 80 per cent of Ontario families with children under four years old cannot afford the cost of licensed child care. There are only enough licensed spaces to accommodate 23 per cent of kids under the age of four. This is just not good enough. Many families are paying mortgage-level fees to access licensed childcare, and many more families can’t afford childcare at all.
High-quality universal licenced childcare can support better education outcomes for school aged children, improve social cohesion, take pressure off the family budget, and above all else, boost Ontario’s economy by giving families, and particularly women, the option of returning to the workplace sooner, leading to increased economic productivity as well as additional tax revenues for the government.
The consensus among experts and economists is that for every dollar invested in quality early childhood education, there is a $2.40 return to the economy.
A study by Deloitte estimates that by addressing the wage gap, Ontario government revenues from personal and sales tax could increase by $2.6 billion. The same study also estimates that government spending on social assistance, tax credits, and child benefits could decrease by $103 million, due to the projected increase in families’ income.
Alvin also plans to implement the Basic Income pilot program that was in place when the Liberal government was defeated.
Fighting poverty isn’t a partisan issue, at least it shouldn’t be. And it’s not an idea owned by progressives either. There have been nearly 500 studies on basic income, including pilots in Ontario and around the world.
Ontario’s Universal Basic Income would add over $10 billion to Ontario’s economy, create up to 80,000 jobs, and save the Ontario government hundreds of millions of dollars in administration costs and red tape. UBI grows the economy and unlocks opportunity for those stuck in the poverty cycle.
This basic income would replace programs more difficult and expensive to administer, like Ontario Works and ODSP, while retaining additional benefits and supports for people with disabilities. This brings dignity to our system, so people don’t need to justify the need for food, clothing, or shelter every two weeks.
The benefits of a universal basic income are well established. It provides a safety net for workers who lost their jobs that is less expensive to administer and easier to access than our current system.
In all these issues, Alvin never take the easy partisan road, by promoting ideological narratives that appeal at the gut level to Liberals.
Instead he choses to focus on evidence based policies meant to improve dramatically the way our Province functions.
Hugh Segal, an intellectual giant within the Progressive Conservative movement, has endorsed Alvin.
It speaks volumes about what Alvin is setting out to do.
He wants change at just about every level. Not change for the sake of change but change to bring about a society that meets the needs of everyday people.
I believe it's something worth fighting for.
I hope you'll join me in this new exciting adventure.
Take care.
