FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 4, 2019
NDP PLAN PUTS PEOPLE FIRST: ALISON COFFIN
Making life affordable for families, seniors, and young people is about building a better Newfoundland and Labrador.
ST. JOHN’S – This morning, NL NDP Leader Alison Coffin unveiled the NDP’s action plan for making life more affordable for people in the province.
“Every month, too many families, seniors, and young people in this province juggle paying their bills and worry about the increasing cost of living,” said Coffin. “This is driving young people away from the province, it is causing families to pull back on their spending, it is hurting local businesses, and it is squeezing seniors on fixed incomes into poverty.”
Coffin says if we want to keep young people and families in the province, attract newcomers, and ensure seniors are not robbed of their quality of life, the focus must be on making life more affordable by investing in quality public services.
“For far too long, successive Liberal and PC governments have saddled the province with enormous debt while failing to invest in the services that people need. They failed to put people first,” said Coffin. “The NDP will fight to make life more affordable for people by investing in the services they need.”
The NDP’s commitments to making life more affordable include:
- Increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2021
- Collaborating with the Public Utilities Board to develop a realistic rate mitigation plan to keep rates at 13 cents a kilowatt-hour
- Investing in child care with a goal of a $25-a-day child care program
- Keeping the post-secondary education tuition freeze and reinstating the full needs-based grants program
- Investing $2 million to retrofit more low-income households and $3 million to launch a small business retrofit program
- Creating a regional public transit system that makes getting around more affordable.
“As Leader of the NL NDP, I am committed to building a prosperous economy where everyone has an opportunity to get an education and a job,” added Coffin. “Together, we can build a province where people have access to the quality public services they need to help raise a family and care for their parents.”
Every New Democrat elected to the House of Assembly means one more voice fighting for a more affordable life for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.
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For more information, please contact Nina Amrov, Press Secretary: phone (709) 746-7455 or e-mail news@nl.ndp.ca.