Home

An open letter to the voters of Windsor West

from Liz White, Director, Environment Voters

Dear Voter,

I urge you to vote for Brian Masse, your NDP candidate in the Monday, May 13^th by-election in Windsor West. I’m asking you to vote for Brian Masse because in this by-election your vote can have life and death consequences. That is no exaggeration.

The environmental policies of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and the Liberal Party are killing people in Windsor. Perhaps you’ve been touched by the tragedies. The Liberals will never change their deadly policies until voters like us demand a clean, healthy environment, one that won’t kill or harm us and our families. And, we have to make our demand in the language of votes and election losses, the only language Liberals hear.

The Liberal Party and Jean Chrétien are confident that Windsor West is a safe seat. It’s criminal they haven’t made Windsor’s environment just as safe for the voters who trusted them.

There are only two realistic candidates in the Windsor West by-election: Brian Masse for the NDP, and the Liberal candidate. The Canadian Alliance candidate is unfit to be a Member of Parliament. When Windsor Star reporter Mary Agnes asked him "how he would deal with Windsor West's environmental problems, he said he was skeptical about the link between ill health and pollution outlined in a recent study." He should be ashamed.

The study, "Community Health Profile of Windsor, Ontario, Canada: Anatomy of a Great Lakes Area of Concern," was written by two eminent scientists — Michael Gilbertson, a Canadian government scientist, and James Brophy with Occupational Health Clinics for Ontario Workers — and was published in Environmental Health Perspectives (December 2001). Using Health Canada statistics, Gilbertson and Brophy showed that people in Windsor have the highest death and illness rates in all of Ontario. Even more troubling is the young age at which people in Windsor become sick. The list of diseases in Windsor linked to pollution is truly frightening:

The Canadian Alliance candidate lacks the expertise to judge the Gilbertson-Brophy report. So for him to casually dismiss what was uncovered is not just stupid and irresponsible, it’s dangerous. The Canadian Alliance should disavow their candidate.

The toxic environmental problems in Windsor West are a direct consequence of Liberal policies. One of the first things Jean Chrétien did when he became Prime Minister in 1993 was gut the environmental protections created by Brian Mulroney. If Chrétien had had the vision and courage to build on Brian Mulroney’s environmental legacy, the people in Windsor West would not be suffering so much, and many loved ones would likely still be alive.

Today, the Liberals are doing little to protect Windsor’s environment, despite knowing all about the suffering and death rates. They are actively working to avoid implementing even the modest hopes of the Kyoto global warming treaty. Even the Health Canada program that provided the statistics used in the Gilbertson-Brophy report that documented the environmental horrors in Windsor has been closed.

The Liberal candidate seems ignorant of the fact that the policies and failures of his party and Prime Minister Chrétien are largely responsible for Windsor’s toxic environment. In his campaign literature, he promises to "work to enforce Canadian/U.S. Agreements on local and transboundary air and Great Lakes water pollution." Doesn’t he know it’s his party — the Liberal Party — that failed to enforce the agreements? He also promises to "work with community partners to implement the recommendations in the Gilbertson-Brophy Report," the report I mentioned above. Doesn’t the Liberal candidate know that his party and Prime Minister Chrétien could have prevented much of the horror exposed in the report?

The Liberal candidate is fooling himself — or perhaps he’s trying to fool us — if he thinks he is going to have much influence over Chrétien, the cabinet, or public policy. If elected, he will be the most junior, least experienced, least significant Liberal back-bencher in Ottawa.

Voting Liberal has never done much for Windsor, even when the Member of Parliament was the Deputy Prime Minister. For the Liberal candidate, becoming an MP might be a good career move, but the record shows it won’t do much good for the voters of Windsor West.

Brian Masse is the only candidate in Windsor West who has served in public office. All the rest, if elected, would be learning on the job, at a time when Windsor is facing crucial challenges.

I’ve spent years working in politics, at all levels. I’ve worked with hundreds of politicians, and in almost all cases, the best of them — those who do the most for their constituents — are those who choose to work their way through the ranks: from school trustee, to city councillor, to Member of Parliament. Party affiliation doesn’t matter. Experience does.

Coming up through the ranks, politicians learn the difficult art of politics, of making common cause with people of competing interests, of making progress when none seems possible. In almost all cases, politicians who choose to start at the bottom are more interested in their constituents’ needs rather than their own careers. They tend to seek higher office in order to do more for their constituents, not to benefit themselves. Conversely, the candidates who strive to start in the highest offices often seem more interested in themselves than in helping their constituents. Given a choice, I’d vote for the politician who worked his or her way up — as Brian Masse has done.

For our environmental protection, and to serve voters like you well, there is no better choice for Member of Parliament from Windsor West than Brian Masse. Unlike the Liberals, Brian Masse knows that the environment is the foundation issue. He knows that it is impossible to have our health, and social and economic well-being without a clean, healthy environment. He also knows that strong environmental protections do not impede business and development, but rather make Canada more competitive in international markets, and more attractive to investment. A clean healthy environment means more investment, more jobs, and improved health and social well-being.

I urge you to vote for Brian Masse. Brian Masse has served you well as a City Councillor. He can do even more for you in Ottawa.

Yours sincerely,

Liz White
Director

On Monday May 13^th
vote for Brian Masse, NDP

For further information call
Environment Voters

416-462-9541

Authorized by Environment Voters, 221 Broadview Ave., Toronto, ON M4M 2G3