{"id":6742,"date":"2014-05-21T15:18:27","date_gmt":"2014-05-21T19:18:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=6742"},"modified":"2014-06-05T00:54:45","modified_gmt":"2014-06-05T04:54:45","slug":"new-democrats-will-represent-true-values-of-newmarket-aurora-duff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/new-democrats-will-represent-true-values-of-newmarket-aurora-duff\/","title":{"rendered":"New Democrats will represent true \u201cvalues\u201d of Newmarket-Aurora: Duff"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

The \u201cvalues\u201d of the people of Aurora and Newmarket have not been represented at Queen\u2019s Park by the Liberals or the Progressive Conservatives, and it is time for these values to have their day, according to Aurora\u2019s Angus Duff.<\/p>\n

Duff formally filed his papers on Saturday to be Newmarket-Aurora\u2019s NDP candidate for the June 12 provincial election. Accompanied by his daughter Gillian and son Charlie, he says these common values of the two communities have continually been underrepresented by the area\u2019s Provincial reps.
\n\u201cI think the essence of the values of the folks of Newmarket-Aurora are people who are caring, people who are generous, people who are concerned about social issues, and I got the sense that these weren\u2019t being represented by other parties.<\/p>\n

\u201cPersonally, I thought this was an opportunity for me to make a positive contribution to Newmarket-Aurora and I figured I had the skills and the voice of the people, so it was an opportune time to run for election.\u201d <\/p>\n

A professor in Business Administration with a specialization in Human Resource Management at Trent University\u2019s Oshawa Campus, Duff says this background has uniquely positioned him to understand \u201cthe challenges and needs of the public service\u201d, particularly in education.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe I can bring that practical understanding of work, combined with the needs of public service, to make a very positive contribution in Queen\u2019s Park,\u201d he says. \u201cHaving spent 15 years in Newmarket-Aurora, I believe I understand the needs and desires of constituents here, so I can effectively represent constituents at Queen\u2019s Park.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the predominant issues Duff feels needs to be better represented at Queen\u2019s Park is transit, particularly a \u201cpublic transportation system that works.\u201d He says he sees the current system as a \u201cpatchwork\u201d of systems that have been put together, resulting in inadequate and impractical bus scheduling. <\/p>\n

\u201cI believe that transit needs in this area are focused on having all-day transit into Newmarket-Aurora,\u201d he says. \u201cThis is a promise that has been made repeatedly by Conservative candidates in the past, which have not been delivered on, even though Conservatives have had the power. It has been repeatedly promised through the Liberal party but, again, not acted upon even though they lead the province. I believe I can be a voice for that need for public transit in Newmarket-Aurora.\u201d<\/p>\n

If elected, the NDP he said would be given the opportunity to \u201cinvestigate how we would actually execute that\u201d, but it is \u201cthe allocation of energy and resources which, until now, has not been addressed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another priority is what he terms \u201cthe need and focus on the preservation of education and health care\u201d in the area. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I talk to voters, they are concerned about the erosion of education,\u201d he says. \u201cThey are concerned about pending cuts to education. They are concerned about the quality of health care. Additionally, the support for workers in Newmarket-Aurora right now is such that we have some workers who are really struggling and the DNP is focused on supporting those workers through an increase in the minimum wage to $12 and providing some support for the elimination of HST on energy bills.\u201d<\/p>\n

Transit growth, as well as growth and support for businesses, go hand in hand, he argued. To underscore his point, he recalls a conversation with Stephanie from the Studio 44 Salon on Wellington Street near the GO Station. She lives in Holland Landing, but has to drive to Aurora to her business right next to the GO Station because hers is not a typical 9 to 5 job. <\/p>\n

\u201cI believe all-day Go service will open up business opportunities along the Aurora-Barrie corridor by connecting people in those various communities,\u201d he said. \u201cThe NDP have committed to offering an HST rebate on hydro bills. The harmonization of HST, as it applies to Hydro, has created a situation where our constituents, faced with high energy bills already, are being charged provincial tax on top of those costs, so the NDP have committed to removing the HST from bills, providing a direct savings to our constituents.\u201d <\/p>\n

At the end of the day, however, voters, he says, will have to consider the \u201cburgeoning debt\u201d created by the Liberals, the money they have spent on government, and whether they are seeing anything on their bottom line to justify it. <\/p>\n

\u201cI speak to a lot of people who are disillusioned with the government in terms of thinking the government has not represented their values, so I believe the voters are going to look at the bottom line by saying, \u2018Here is a government that provides the services that are valuable to me. They provide health care, education, public transit, child care, and this is a government that shows more fiscal responsibility than has been demonstrated by the Liberals over the last 10 years.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The \u201cvalues\u201d of the people of Aurora and Newmarket have not been represented at Queen\u2019s Park by the Liberals or the Progressive Conservatives, and it is time for these values to have their day, according to Aurora\u2019s Angus Duff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6711,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_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}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/2014-05-22-09.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-1KK","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-29 13:59:44","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\/6742","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=6742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}