‘We won’t forget Brampton’ — NDP candidates pledge not to leave home concerns behind if voters propel them to Ottawa

Every four years, Brampton finds itself at the centre of Canada’s political world. The leaders of all the main parties sweep through the Flower City repeatedly in the runup to federal elections, canvassing for votes. Yet, as the polls close, a collective amnesia falls over Ottawa, leaving Brampton and its voters behind. 

With the election campaign period now officially underway, Brampton is once more front and centre in the eyes of politicians and party leaders. So far this week, for example, Liberal Leader and former prime minister Justin Trudeau has stopped by, as well as NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh.

However, as The Pointer has reported, Brampton does not receive even close to its fair share of federal funding. A whole range of issues — from transit to healthcare — has reached the breaking point over the past four years, as federal funds have been diverted to projects elsewhere. 

Now election season is back and so are the politicians; they’re back to ask Bramptonians to lend them their vote once more. 

On Thursday the NDP and its leader were in town to talk about housing, healthcare and elected officials letting Brampton down. “If I had to give one [priority issue], housing is by far the top one,” NDP candidate Jordan Boswell told The Pointer, speaking about his campaign to unseat Liberal Ramesh Sangha in Brampton Centre. 

Jordan Boswell, NDP candidate for Brampton Centre

When asked about concrete plans to deal with the affordable housing crisis in his constituency, Boswell pointed to his party’s commitment to building 500,000 new affordable homes across the country — though he admitted he did not know how many would spring up in Brampton. “Why are we declaring something a crisis if we’re not going to do anything about it?” Boswell asked rhetorically. “We [the NDP] have got a plan to build those units; we’re going to take housing seriously. It’s an issue which affects all of Canada, obviously, but we’re really seeing it here in Brampton.”

A clear priority for the NDP as a whole is the issues surrounding healthcare, an issue perhaps more pronounced in Brampton than any other municipality in the country. When quizzed by The Pointer, three of the city’s five NDP candidates described healthcare as their main priority. The questions were, however, posed at an NDP event announcing a promise to build Brampton a new hospital, a context that suggests the candidates might have been parroting the party line. 

“Healthcare is a real big issue for folks. We have over 600,000 people, but just one hospital — we don’t have enough services,” Saranjit Singh, a human rights lawyer and NDP candidate for Brampton East, explained to The Pointer. “A lot of people are really upset at the cuts they’ve seen under the Conservatives as well as under the Liberals. We’ve had five Liberal MPs and a lot of folks tell me they haven’t seen any sort of action; they haven’t seen return on their investment.”

The NDP Leader said that while healthcare is a provincial responsibility, the federal government can fund healthcare infrastructure, which is what he has now pledged to do for Brampton. He addressed the possible challenge of working with Premier Doug Ford, who in the fall of 2018 led a vote that defeated a provincial NDP motion to build a third hospital in Brampton. Jagmeet Singh said on Thursday, standing just outside the walls of Brampton Civic Hospital, that just because Ford has put up roadblocks to helping Brampton, doesn't mean the party leader, if elected, won't try to work with the unpopular Ontario PC premier.

Saranjit Singh (right), NDP candidate for Brampton East

Navjit Kaur, running for Brampton West, echoed her fellow candidate, making repeated references to her young family. “My personal story is that I have two little children; my little one, she gets sick a lot — she has compromised lungs,” she said. Multiple trips to Brampton Civic and upsettingly long wait times forced her into action. “When you go there and wait eight to nine hours, it’s devastating as a parent watching your child not being able to breathe and suffering,” she continued. “Either you can watch the crisis unfold or you can sit up and be the change — and that’s why I decided to run with the NDP.” 

Melissa Edwards, running for Brampton North, where the city’s sole full-service hospital is located, agreed that healthcare was her top priority, with affordable housing second. The NDP’s final Brampton candidate, Mandeep Kaur, pleaded illness and promised to speak to The Pointer at a later date. 

Despite making an issue of healthcare in Brampton at this election, the NDP’s rhetoric is focussed heavily on the past. The message from every candidate and the party’s leader is the same: Brampton’s four Liberal MPs (five were elected in 2015, but Raj Grewal was removed from the party following his problems with gambling) have failed to stand up for their city. They say that those representing the NDP would behave differently.

Navjit Kaur is running for the NDP in Brampton West.

“In 2015, Brampton sent five Liberal MPs to Ottawa — they voted for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau,” NDP leader Jagmeet Singh told assembled media in front of Brampton Civic Hospital.  He added: “Well, after four years of having these Liberal MPs, people continue to suffer.”

This, though, is a pitch that Brampton has heard before. In a city that voted Conservative in 2011 only to align with the Liberal Party in 2015, broken promises are not a new concept. So how can the NDP be trusted to keep their pledges instead of disappearing to Ottawa with the key handed to them by Bramptonian voters? 

Leader Jagmeet Singh told The Pointer the answer was simple: his party has a different DNA from Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives or Justin Trudeau’s Liberals. “Well, the main difference is if you look at Liberal and Conservative governments, they’ve got a really long track record of working hard to make life easier for the richest,”  Singh explained.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh

“That makes life harder for everyone else. So really, it is that our values are different. This isn’t about the Liberal MPs, it’s really about the Liberal Party itself. For example, they promised to reduce the cost of medication in 2015; we’re four years later and they didn’t. How can we believe them now? They made this commitment four years ago, had four years to do it and they didn’t. It wasn’t a single cent out of our dollar budget to do this, but they didn’t, because they have different priorities. We believe we should be working for people. We’re in it for people — and that’s the big difference.”

Singh’s pitch is compelling. But while it tugs at the heartstrings, it is noticeably light on detail. With three levels of governance in Canada,  it’s easy for the top tier to become detached. When Brampton East candidate Saranjit Singh was asked if he would break ranks to stand up for his constituency, he argued that his party would never put him in that sort of position. He said: “I’m lucky to be with a party like the NDP, who hold all the same values as I do. To me, this is a type of leader I believe in. I don’t think that that [defying the party] is an issue we’d come across.”  

Navjit Kaur and Melissa Edwards pointed to their history within Brampton as evidence they wouldn’t neglect the city. Kaur lives with her family in Brampton West. Edwards, a community leader in Brampton North, told The Pointer she would continue going to residents’ doors even after the campaign was over. “I will continue knocking on doors to ensure we are listening to the residents of Brampton and ensuring that they have a voice in Ottawa.” 

NDP candidate for Brampton North Melissa Edwards

Faith in politicians is at a low ebb. A poll conducted by Ipsos MORI and shared by Global News last week suggested that 61 percent of Canadians do not think traditional political parties care about “people like them,” while 67 percent of those polled felt the economy was “rigged in favour of the rich and powerful.” Those numbers suggest that appealing to disgruntled voters will be difficult, no matter how much a party tries to portray itself as a champion of ordinary people and their needs. It’s a strategy, though, that you get only one shot at; parties can’t point fingers at broken promises unless they keep all of their own. 

With that in mind, the NDP’s brave gamble for the Brampton vote could reap dividends. However, as a city remembered only conveniently by most in Ottawa, confidence in federal hopefuls can be hard to come by. Bramptonians may need to see more than a contrast of style against Liberal incumbents to turn their votes orange when they go to the polls.

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Twitter: @isaaccallan