FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 17, 2011
(Ottawa, ON) – Last Friday, Interim Leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada, Nycole Turmel announced the appointment of Joe Comartin, M.P. for Windsor-Tecumseh as Her Majesty’s Official Opposition House Leader.
Comartin was appointed following NDP MP Thomas Mulcair’s decision to step down as Opposition House Leader and formally announce his bid in the upcoming leadership race.
Dear Friends,
Tens of thousands of Canadians have written to me in recent weeks to wish me well. I want to thank each and every one of you for your thoughtful, inspiring and often beautiful notes, cards and gifts. Your spirit and love have lit up my home, my spirit, and my determination.
Unfortunately my treatment has not worked out as I hoped. So I am giving this letter to my partner Olivia to share with you in the circumstance in which I cannot continue.
For too long, the climate on Parliament Hill has been one of bitter division, toxic partisanship and needless politicization of even the simplest issues.
With the expiry of existing Federal Health Accords which underwrite Medicare looming in 2014, Canadians face a daunting choice: whom do you trust to protect and reinvigorate our cherished universal public health care system for a new generation?
The global recession starkly revealed many of the shortcomings inherent in Canada’s present patchwork system of public and private pensions. Too many retirees and pensioners – not least here in Windsor/Essex – found after a lifetime of playing by the rules that the abuses of a few crooked institutions in the financial sector could place at risk everything they’d worked for.
We’ve all heard, witnessed, or experienced such horror stories: good people ruined by the vagaries of the financial marketplace and the cold indifference of Tory Government.
