Lake Erie Steel Workers locked out one year

Please read local paper coverage @http://www.simcoereformer.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2476495

I visited this group on Wednesday and made a donation to their financial officer. While canvassing I met one of the locked out workers who suggested that I come and meet some of these locked out workers. These are our neighbours and our friends and they need our support. The Green Party of Canada believes solutions must be found at the local level and that those solutions must not only include the economical but the social (affects on the worker and the community) and the environment (makes economical sense to do this).

PART 1: BUILDING THE GREEN ECONOMY:

1. Maximize efficiency

The central driving principle of Green Economic Policy is maximizing efficiency. Green Party economic policies aim to improve the efficiency of resource and energy use by a factor of four.  

http://www.greeneconomics.ca/pub/1851
Based on the most recent budgets, the United States will outspend Canada on renewable energy by a factor of almost 14.

2. Get the prices right

To get there from here, market distortions created by a failure to internalize externalities must be removed.  In other words, we must get the prices right.  The single most significant government policy tool to advance or retard economic sustainability resides in the fiscal framework. 

The Green Party commitment to Green tax-shifting will:

• Reduce income taxes;
• Reduce payroll taxes; and,
• Introduce a carbon tax, sending a clear economic signal that wasting energy and resources implies real costs.

Lake Erie Steel workers (Local 8782) have extended an invitation to their neighbours, family and friends to join them on Mar 14, 2010 @ 1:00 pm and listen to some music and learn about the lost jobs. 486 constituents in the Haldimand Norfolk riding lost their livelihoods Mar 14, 2009, and the community lost their source of income. It is time to support this group who gave so much to our community.

On Aug 3, 2009 US Steel locked out all remaining workers.

The economic devastation to local communities is incalculable, yet this issue is hardly mentioned in the budget. CBC reviewed the budget with 2 economists - one from the Fraser Institute and one from CCPA (Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives). CCPA talked about the 1.5 million persons affected across Canada, the lack of services and higher paying jobs to replace economic losses to families and communities.The economist from the Fraser Institute talked about the need to tax less and to cut back on government services. Unemployment continues to be seen by the right as a tool to keep inflation down because those with the most lose value for possessions when inflation deflates the value they paid for their possessions, cutting into their 'real' profit.