Post-election message to voters, friends, comrades, and supporters

Dear Voters, Friends, Comrades and Supporters,

We made a big impact even before the vote considering our size.  In the final results we came close to breaking 100 votes, which is 44% higher than our previous vote.  In the Student Vote however we got 10% of the vote (327 votes), and came in 2nd place at St. Catharines Collegiate.

We got extensive media coverage this election despite still being excluded from the St. Catharines Standard debate, who claimed their studio did not have enough space even though they didn't call me when the 4th candidate cancelled and even though next door the Welland Tribune, with fewer resources, had a debate with 5 candidates.

We got a 400 word column which was printed in the St.. Catharines Standard, Niagara Falls Review, Wellland Tribune, Ft. Erie Times, and Niagara Advance:

http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/2014/06/10/column-communist-party-offers-new-solutions

For this election we tried a new advertising option by buying space at the St Catharines downtown videoscreen terminal where we had a flash animation ad:

Some still shots:

Ontario leader Liz Rowley's visit (see poster below) was covered by Niagara This Week:

http://www.muskokaregion.com/community-story/4573155-communists-striving-for-change/

The visit included a morning interview on 610 KDKA's Tom McConnell show:

https://soundcloud.com/communistpartyontario/communist-candidate-saleh-waziruddin-and-provincial-leader-elizabeth-rowley-interviewed-on-610-ckbt

I was also on the radio debating the Conservative and NDP candidate at Brock CFBU's The LGBTQI Hour, where our platform was the only one to include LGBTQI issues:

http://thelgbtqhour.com/podcasts/files/Show18/KNSLGBTQHour-Show18-Podcast.mp3

Other debates included

- an all-candidates forum at the Denis Morris Catholic Secondary School, where we got 13% of the Student Vote

- the Niagara Health Coalition and the Retired Teachers of Ontario Branch 14 all-candidates debate

- and the live televized TV Cogeco all-candidates debate as part of the "Behind the Ballot Niagara" program which was covered in Niagara This Week:

http://www.niagarathisweek.com/news-story/4562003-a-healthy-debate/

This campaign also included the systematic canvassing of targetted buildings, and Vote Communist signs were placed at strategic locations including within view of the GM plant entrance.

Please keep following this blog for more about the Communist Party in Niagara for after the election.

Niagara Advance column: Communist party offers new solutions

The following column appeared in the Niagara Advance on June 10, 2012

http://www.niagaraadvance.ca/2014/06/10/column-communist-party-offers-new-solutions?fb_action_ids=10100454206702969&fb_action_types=og.recommends

Provincial election

COLUMN: Communist party offers new solutions

Tuesday, June 10, 2014 10:40:54 EDT PM

EDITOR'S NOTE: Saleh Waziruddin, the Communist Party candidate for St. Catharines, was not part of the online candidates’ debate organized by the Standard recently. For that reason, we offer his column today.

SALEH WAZIRUDDIN

Communist Party

The job creation solutions offered by other parties, which amount to giveaways to corporations through tax cuts/grants/lower costs, won’t work because companies don’t invest when the economy is down.

They haven’t been creating jobs, despite the lowest corporate tax rates in the industrialized world (don’t take my word for it, this is according to the Ontario government). They are instead pulling equipment out of plants unless workers give up pensions and take 50% pay cuts.

The first step to addressing the problem is to hold onto the jobs we have through plant closure legislation. The province should take over profitable plants that owners want to shut down only because of the rat race to the bottom they’ve created.

The Communist Party is the only party offering this solution.

Because we keep throwing public money at corporations without any result (even the Bank of Canada governor scolded them for sitting on profits without investing it), we’re forced to make do with not enough when it comes to public services like hospitals, schools and social assistance.

Recently, a 77-year-old man was discharged from the St Catharines hospital in the middle of a blizzard before his friends could come to pick him up, and the mayor of Wainfleet’s son had to wait 36 hours to get his broken leg treated. The hospital says it has to prioritize, but it would have more to prioritize with if we funded public services based on needs and not what’s left over.

For a start, we should restore all the hospital beds, staff and services cut in the Harris years instead of closing more local services.

We need to at least double the social assistance rates to catch up with earlier freezes while waiting for jobs that haven’t been coming. We are slowly starving those conscripted into poverty.

We could fund this through taking back corporate tax cuts, which would still be lower than the U.S.

Some are afraid to vote Communist because they think it’s wasting their vote. But voting for the “lesser evil” leads to having to choose between two increasingly bad “evils.”

In Alberta, we had the spectacle of NDPers urging a Conservative vote to block the Wild Rose party. We can avoid this nightmare by using our vote to send a message. Voting Communist is not just a vote, it’s a declaration of an emancipation on the way.

News Talk Radio interview with Communist Party of Canada (Ontario) leader Liz Rowley and candidate Saleh Waziruddin

Please listen to a recording from CKTB 610's Tom McConnell's show interview with Liz Rowley, the leader of the Communist Party of Canada (Ontario), and myself on Monday June 2nd.

http://communistpartyontario.ca/?p=357