MEDIA RELEASE: Saleh Waziruddin is the Communist Party candidate for St. Catharines, Running to Defend and Extend new Minimum Wage and Labour Standards

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 19, 2018

MEDIA RELEASE: Saleh Waziruddin is the Communist Party candidate for St. Catharines, Running to Defend and Extend new Minimum Wage and Labour Standards

ST CATHARINES, ON – Saleh Waziruddin is the Communist Party of Canada (Ontario) candidate for the St. Catharines riding, one of 12 candidates the party is running in the Ontario election. “I am running because we need MPP's who represent the majority of us conscripted into poverty and unemployment, starting with defending and extending the new minimum wage and labour standards” said Saleh Waziruddin.

“The Liberal government has already taken away holiday pay from part time workers saying it's not fair to full timers, but that's not true it doesn't effect full timers. If you work you should be paid for the holiday, that's the point of having stat holidays!” said Saleh.

“Autoworkers, including people who make parts or store them in warehouses, are excluded from getting 10 sick days without expensive doctor's notes because the government is telling us autoworkers have it made. That's just not true, they've made lots of concession and now we have 2^nd and 3^rd tier workers who won't even make a regular wage for 10 years.”

Saleh also wants to get rid of “deeming” where the minimum wage is deducted from injured workers' compensation because they are assumed or “deemed” to working a minimum wage job. “Working a minimum wage job often makes the injuries worse, as we've seen from cases right here in St. Catharines” Saleh argued.

Saleh is also campaigning to replace the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority board, which the Communist Party called for in a special resolution on June 11, 2017 (http://communistpartyontario.ca/special-resolution-on-the-niagara-peninsula-conservation-authority/). “They're supposed to be protecting the environment but instead they say their job is economic development which is not what the law says. They're giving away land which will choke off the few remaining wetlands we have left in the world. By treaty obligations there is supposed to more consultation with First Nations which has not been done” complained Saleh.

The Communist Party, Canada's second oldest party, has elected two Ontario MPP's before, and will finance its platform through doubling the corporate tax rate, which would still be low for industrialized countries, and restoring the corporate capital tax which was dropped to zero in 2010. “Instead of giving away the wealth we create to corporations which were sitting on the money instead of investing it, we should take it back for our basic needs” Saleh explained.

Saleh Waziruddin lives in St. Catharines where he previously worked at a call centre for nine years. Saleh has run twice in the riding provincially and federally. He has two years of management experience in municipal government and has an undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering and Public Policy & Management from Carnegie Mellon University. He is a member of the executive committees of the Canadian Network on Cuba and Canadian Peace Congress, and has been involved in local campaigns for raising the minimum wage and labour standards, as well as for Indigenous and Palestine solidarity.