Irene's Posts

It was my pleasure to join students, teachers, and the Kinette's at West Nissouri Public School to congratulate this year's "I am Proud to be Canadian" essay winner, Connor Aarts. It was my privilege to present Connor with two new maps of Canada, one for his school and one for himself, as well as a new Canadian Flag for his school and desk sized flag for him to keep, along with a certificate of congratulations from parliament.

My thanks to the Kinette's for organizing this contest and my thanks to Connor for allowing me to share an excerpt of his essay with you.

LONDON – NDP Railway Caucus Chair Mike Sullivan (York South—Weston) and local London—Fanshawe NDP representatives, MP Irene Mathyssen and MPP Teresa Armstrong, held a roundtable to discuss the negative effects of nearly $300-million Conservative cuts to VIA Rail in the London region.

OTTAWA – The NDP is dismayed that in Budget 2013, while Conservatives propose some modest steps, they ignore the real priorities of seniors. With seniors representing the fastest growing segment of our population, one would expect a more serious commitment from this government.

Ms. Irene Mathyssen (London—Fanshawe, NDP): Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives are taking a mother with cancer to court, yet another example of the government targeting out-of-work Canadians and restricting the EI benefits that they have paid into for years. For Jane Kittmer, it gets worse. Not only is she battling cancer, now she has to battle the Conservatives, too.

Ottawa – The federal budget was announced in Ottawa today.  The budget is shuffling money around with no new investments in our communities.

“This budget is not what Canadians need right now” said Irene Mathyssen, MP for London-Fanshawe.  “We need investments in our communities and in our families. Stephen Harper promised to focus on jobs, but instead he's pushing ahead with job-killing austerity cuts, introducing no new measures to create jobs and playing a shell game with skills training money.”