Trinity-Spadina MP named to NDP shadow cabinet

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Wednesday's throne speech didn't pass muster, at least according to the NDP.

Trinity-Spadina MP Olivia Chow, speaking to The Guardian by phone late Wednesday night from Ottawa, said the NDP planned to vote against it during the vote which was expected to take place yesterday (Thursday).

"Canadians expect and hope and need more from our government in these economically stormy times," she said.

"There's nothing there to take care of people's pensions, not much about savings, not much about jobs, like building affordable housing, investing in public transit, all of those critical things that will create jobs.

"New Democrats want more in the throne speech and we didn't get it, so we're disappointed and we're not supporting it."

The banks, she said, have been helped, receiving in the past couple of weeks "billions of dollars of loan guarantees from our government but no conditions."

At the same time, she said consumers and small businesses continue to "get gouged by credit card companies."

She would have liked to have seen a cap on interest rates.

In preparation for the new session of parliament, Chow has been named to the NDP shadow cabinet, retaining citizenship and immigration and also taking on the GTA file as well as children and childcare.

She listed what, for her, are some of the more pressing concerns in each file.

Citizenship and immigration: "We must stop expanding the temporary foreign workers program right now. We have 200,000 temporary foreign workers coming into Canada. It drives down Canadian wages and they can't bring their families over so it does not build communities. You lay off Canadian workers and you bring in temporary workers and give them much lower wages... and (the foreign workers) barely make ends meet, they have no money left at the end of the month, so they're not spending. That doesn't help out."

Children/childcare: "It's very expensive, we need to make it more affordable," she said simply, adding "we've been pushing for a national childcare program for a long time. And it's not in the throne speech, either, by the way."

GTA issues: "Having a national transit strategy - it's critical and it creates jobs - and affordable housing. This is a good time to invest in affordable housing because people are paying far too much in their housing costs and the housing market is not doing that great and this is a good time to invest."