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www.oakvillebeaver.com The Oakville Beaver, Wednesday June 20, 2007 - 3 Layton pitches NDP platform at Chamber breakfast By David Lea OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF As the Oakville chapter of the New Democratic Party continues to search for a candidate to run in the next federal election, Party Leader Jack Layton dropped by to help drum up support. Layton, the man who is credited with doubling the votes for the NDP in the 2004 election, attended an Oakville Chamber of Commerce breakfast on Friday, where he spoke about various topics from the environment to the prosperity gap currently being faced every day by ordinary Canadians. Despite the serious nature of his speech, Layton began on a light note. "Thank goodness the weather is bad for golf this morning, otherwise we wouldn't have had this kind of a turnout," said Layton sparking laughter from the crowd of more than 100 people. He also made a lot of friends among the crowd when he announced that because the NDP had forced the redistribution of a $4-billion corporate tax cut towards a variety of more necessary services, Oakville stood to receive about $4 million to be spent on transit and about $8 million for affordable housing. Layton noted he had a strong connection to Oakville as the town is not only home to his aunt, but also the source of many fond memories. "In the mid-1960s, my father was involved with an engineering firm in Montreal that happened to be doing some NDP Leader Jack Layton of the engineering and architecture for the Ford Plant here," he said. "I would tag along and I got a chance to be with my dad, who went on to get involved with some very innovative energy ideas." Besides helping to construct some of the first wind turbines on Prince Edward Island and Gaspe, Layton says his father also turned the two family cars into hybrid cars. Unfortunately, back then, Layton's father was not able to convince Ford of the potential of the hybrid car. "Most good ideas start in Canada, the problem is we don't always take them from idea to full development and the Japanese kind of jumped out in front of us on that one. People are now buying hybrids from Japan. I still think we should start building a green car here in Canada to create some jobs here," said Layton pro- voking applause from the audience. In addition to the environment, the plight of low-income families, overshadowed by a booming economy, was another topic on Layton's mind. "What we see is an awful lot of families who are really starting to feel the squeeze, whether they're seniors, whether they're the middle class `sandwich generation' that have parents to care for at the same time as they have young people needing university or college training," he said. "We've lost 250,000 manufacturing jobs across Canada in the last four years. With a typical family of four affected that way that's a million Canadians, and the typical salary loss is about $10,000. This is driving a lot of people into difficult situations." Layton described this growing trend of desperation as the prosperity gap, which, he says, to ignore will prove very costly and result in severe consequences for society. One example of these consequences Layton pointed to was increased crime committed by youths. "It costs us over $100,000 per year to put a young person into jail. It would cost dramatically less if we had youth programs in the community funded by our federal government," he said. "It would be better for our young people because then they will become taxpayers and members of the community rather than us having to use our tax dollars to keep them behind bars." Layton also said the prosperity gap needs to be tackled by introducing strate- gies to manage the economy better, which includes passing laws so that successful Canadian companies are not bought out from under us. Alcoa's acquisition of the Canadian company Alcan was pointed to by Layton as something that just wasn't right. He pointed out the poorly-run American company could buy the successful Canadian company, but the reverse could not happen because the U.S. has rules that would prevent such a thing. "You know, I'm a big fan of the Boy Scouts, but I don't think we have to be the Boy Scout of free trade and foreign investment for the world while the others are simply taking advantage of us. I think we need to be a little bit tougher," said Layton to the applause and cheers of the audience. Of all the factors Layton says are contributing to the prosperity gap, the inability of families to afford vital medicines was the most sobering. "I talked to the Pharmacists Association two weeks ago and I said, `I bet some of your pharmacists have had the experience of someone coming up to the counter being told the price of a prescription and having to walk away because they can't afford it," said Layton. "The pharmacists looked at me and they said, `Jack that happens every single day. We see that every single day, all of our pharmacists do.'" Layton knows firsthand as the father of a child with severe asthma that medications for his condition can be expensive, with the cost of multiple inhalers running as high as $250-$300 a month. For someone working a job with no drug plan, this proves an impossible price to meet. "A person earning minimum wage, working 40 hours a week would be lucky to cover their rent, let alone food, let alone $300," said Layton. 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