{"id":29905,"date":"2021-09-02T16:32:41","date_gmt":"2021-09-02T20:32:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=29905"},"modified":"2021-09-02T16:48:41","modified_gmt":"2021-09-02T20:48:41","slug":"meet-your-candidates-yvonne-kelly-ndp-newmarket-aurora","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/meet-your-candidates-yvonne-kelly-ndp-newmarket-aurora\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Your Candidates \u2013 Yvonne Kelly (NDP – Newmarket-Aurora)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There have always been gaps in Canadian society, but COVID-19 has only \u201cexacerbated\u201d problems that already existed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So says Yvonne Kelly, who will carry the New Democratic Party of Canada banner in Newmarket-Aurora for the Federal election set for September 20.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now in her third campaign to turn Aurora\u2019s north riding orange for the first time, Ms. Kelly says it is time for voters to think seriously about the NDP as a viable alternative to Liberal and Conservative governments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you look at Provincial governments right across the country, the NDP have the best track record for fiscal responsibility while also achieving the broad social goals and programs they set out to do,\u201d says Ms. Kelly. \u201cHave we led federally? No, but we have certainly been in minority positions where we have been able to get amazing things happening.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The global pandemic is a prime example, she says, pointing to the efforts of NDP leader Jagmeet Singh on CERB and EI to help Canadians stay afloat during unprecedented uncertainty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have very distinct ideas about how to solve [problems],\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Ms. Kelly first became involved in local politics even before securing her party\u2019s nomination locally, she was a campaign leader driven to \u201cbuild community and build a progressive moment\u201d with other people. In the last three or four years, momentum has built in the area of social equity, diversity and inclusion. As she goes door-to-door, Ms. Kelly says residents are saying \u201cwe want to do more.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe issues of the NDP are the issues I stand for,\u201d says Ms. Kelly, who grew up in Saskatchewan, the home province of party-founder Tommy Douglas. \u201cI feel, as a society, we are only going to advance together if we take care of those who are left behind at times, who are left out of opportunities, who don\u2019t have the same capacity to earn income as those who are able to make the most of whatever financial gains they either came into the world with or have been able to accrue. We can\u2019t leave people behind. There is just something fundamentally wrong about that idea.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A key area where she says many people have been left behind is the issue of affordability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

10 years ago, it would have been hard to believe that in Aurora and Newmarket there would come a day when they \u201cmight not be able to afford a home or not be able to afford rent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat has ramped up in a way nobody saw coming,\u201d she says. \u201cIt is a global problem, but if we don\u2019t deal with it in our own back yard, we\u2019re never going to get ahead of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Housing was a top-of-mind priority for her in the last Federal campaign in 2019 and it remains so today, along with affordable child care, implementing a pharmacare program and, of course, improving the environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re the only country that has a universal health care system that doesn\u2019t have a universal drug or pharmacare plan,\u201d she says. \u201c[Our Federal] governments have known forever that they need to go toe-to-toe with the big pharmaceutical companies and purchase nationally so that we can pass along those savings to those who need them because when your housing is out of reach, when you can\u2019t count on the type of work that is going to give you health benefits and a decent, adequate income, one of the first places, aside from cutting back on food, you\u2019re going to cut back on your prescription drugs. Everyone is dealing with the cost and we pay the third highest amount on prescription drugs as anywhere in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you talk to folks who are fighting for the environment, they will tell you that nothing else matters as much. On the one hand, they\u2019re very right because we only have a certain number of years to be able to address this. It is hard to tell someone who can\u2019t put food on the table that the environment is the most important issue, so I don\u2019t get into the game of ranking them, but getting our carbon emissions down, getting net zero by 2050, is the goal we have set right now and we would like to see that happen sooner. The only way you can do that is by standing up to big polluters, not providing loopholes, stop investing in fossil fuels and oil companies, and start investing in green infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doing so will be a shot in the arm for good jobs as well and keep Canadians \u201con the right side of history.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

History also needs to be addressed and that is why Ms. Kelly says as a Member of Parliament she will be an advocate for the Indigenous community and Truth & Reconciliation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is, she says, \u201ckind of like a ball that gets passed around\u201d from government to government and that needs to stop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe know our communities are going through a lot, they are going through trauma and they are being re-traumatized,\u201d she says, referencing the re-discovery of the remains of thousands of children in areas associated with residential schools. \u201cWe need to support people, we need to stop taking people to court, and we need to make sure we make good on the promise of clean water. We\u2019re not talking about complicated things; if Newmarket and Aurora ran out of clean drinking water, you can be damn sure there would be hell on the street and people stomping on the doors of Council and things would be turned around very quickly. \u201cIt is about making people\u2019s lives better in all counts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong>
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/em><\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There have always been gaps in Canadian society, but COVID-19 has only \u201cexacerbated\u201d problems that already existed. So says Yvonne Kelly, who will carry the New Democratic Party of Canada banner in Newmarket-Aurora for the Federal election set for September 20. Now in her third campaign to turn Aurora\u2019s north riding orange for the first […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":29906,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/2021-09-02-04.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-7Ml","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-14 14:13:30","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}