The federal NDP leader is campaigning with incumbents today to try to spread a 'stop Conservatives' message to Vancouver Island voters.
Jagmeet Singh was at Nanaimo's Maffeo Sutton Park on Monday, April 21, to promote aspects of his party's platform on pharmacare and to support Nanaimo-Ladysmith candidate Lisa Marie Barron.
Singh repeated his party's commitment to push for the immediate expansion of pharmacare to cover essential medicines within a year. He pointed out that the Conservatives voted against the pharmacare plan last year, and suggested the Liberal platform doesn't appear to budget for any expansion to pharmacare.
"We've heard so many heart-breaking stories of seniors cutting their pills in half, skipping prescriptions, parents who look at the cost of the medication that they need for their kids and then look at their bills and say, 'what do I choose, what do I give up?' That should not be a choice that anyone in this country makes," Singh said.
He said the NDP is the only party talking about defending health care and expanding pharmacare on the campaign trail and said that's been a takeaway for voters since last week's leaders' debate.
"We've seen after the debate a lot of Canadians saying, 'yeah, you know what, the only ones that stood up for the things that I care about were New Democrats'SA国际影视传媒�" he said. "Really, the question in this election for a lot of folks out there is who is going to fight for the things that you care about, the things that you hold dear. Who's going to defend those things?"
Past voting patterns suggest Nanaimo-Ladysmith is be a riding in which all four major parties are likely to be competitive, and Singh was asked about strategic voting. He replied that people should absolutely be thinking about how they want to cast their vote.
"If you want to stop Conservatives, the best way stop Conservatives on Vancouver Island is by voting New DemocratSA国际影视传媒�" he said. "Another really important way for people to vote is based on your values."
He said the cost of living, the housing crunch and health care seem to be the top-of-mind issues for voters in Nanaimo-Ladysmith, and talked about the NDP's previously announced policies on those fronts. He was asked about the NDP's ability to influence policy in a potential majority Liberal or Conservative government.
"We're not going to pre-suppose the outcome of this election," Singh said. "But we know for sure that the more New Democrats we send to Ottawa, the more power people will have and then you will have someone that's going to be there to fight for you. Fight to defend against the cuts that you don't want to see happen and fight to see the action that you do want to see happen."
The NDP leader also has stops planned today in Comox and Port Moody.
