| Sun Media Newspapers and Canadian Press TORONTO -- An NDP government would ensure that all Ontario patients suffering emergency illnesses and injuries would be assessed within 15 minutes of entering hospitals, NDP leader Howard Hampton promised yesterday. Hampton said he would enshrine the guarantee in a patient's bill of rights if elected premier in the next provincial vote, expected this spring. "Our patients' bill of rights guarantees first and foremost the quality and safety of your care," he told 500 delegates at a meeting of the party's provincial council. "That means professional assessment of all emergency cases within 15 minutes of coming into the ER." In releasing its platform, the NDP looked back to the future with promises of rent control, anti-replacement worker legislation, public housing creation, non-profit health care, employment equity and tax hikes for the well off. But in new twists, in addition to improvements in ER care, Hampton said university and college tuition fees would drop 10 per cent and 500 new environment enforcement officers would be hired. The Tories' education Bill 160, labour Bill 7 and workfare program would all disappear under an NDP government. "We know that working families in Ontario have had enough of Conservative cuts, enough of Liberal flip-flopping about those cuts," Hampton said. He lashed out repeatedly at the Liberals, including leader Dalton McGunity's attempt to limit teacher strikes and the Liberal's record of voting against pay equity, employment equity and legislation banning replacement workers. The Canadian Auto Workers have raised the specter of "strategic voting" in the next election, choosing the best candidate in individual ridings to defeat a Tory even if it means voting Liberal. Yesterday, a member of the Ontario Federation of Labour drew a standing ovation when he said that group would support only the NDP. Hampton said his $1.5 billion worth of promises won't add a cent to the deficit since he intends to roll back the 30-per-cent Tory tax cut for people whose taxable income is more than $80,000 a year (gross income would be $100,000 plus). Hampton isn't guaranteeing a balance budget, but said the NDP is the only political party telling people how it intends to pay for its promises. Despite harsh criticism of the Tories at the time, Hampton is not promising to reverse the 21.6-per-cent cuts to welfare made by the Harris government. "If you actually read the six commitments and see how they link together we've got a very good program for attaching poverty and attacking homelessness," he said. Hampton said he'll wait to see how the economy performs to see what more an NDP government can do. |
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