Re-Elect Doly Begum

Welcome to our campaign website!

Scarborough Southwest is an example of the best that Canada can be: a thriving community of people from all corners of the world living and working together. Our diversity and harmony are truly our strength.

It is an honour to represent our interests at Queen's Park.

But there is much more to do.

Ontario is a very wealthy province, but our per capita spending on our vital public services is the lowest in Canada. There is very harmful wealth and income inequality in Ontario.

This must change.

From creating the sustainable economy of tomorrow to ensuring our children are safe and healthy to improving our healthcare system, I know that we can achieve much more when we work together.

I hope you join me to help build the Scarborough and the Ontario we all know is possible.

Yours truly, serving you,

Our Plan

To read the full ONDP platform click here.

Affordable Childcare

Better Healthcare for Scarborough

Dignified and Culturally Appropriate Seniors' Care

A Real Plan to Protect our Environment

An End to Food Insecurity and Child Poverty

Affordable Housing for All

Public Transit that Works for Scarborough

Safer Roads in Our Communities

A More Welcoming Scarborough for Newcomers

A Quality Education System

Affordable Childcare

Parents deserve to have access to the highest quality education and care for their little ones, without having to worry about whether they have enough money to pay for it or if they will even get a spot.

During her first term Doly has served as the critic of Child Care and Early Learning in the Ontario Legislature and fought tirelessly for quality and affordable child care. After listening to parents and early childhood educators across Ontario Doly proposed Bill 45: Child Care and Early Years Amendment Act, which called for the Government to invest in not-for-profit child care. Doly also joined child care advocates to successfully keep the Wage Enhancement Grant of $2 per hour for Early Childhood Educators that the government wanted to cut.

Doly and the Ontario NDP will take steps to ensure that child care needs are adequately addressed and met including a commitment to work with the federal government to get child care down to $10-per-day as soon as possible, expand the number of high-quality, public and non-profit child care spaces, and make sure child care jobs actually pay the bills.

Do you agree?

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Better Healthcare for Scarborough

For too long, Scarborough has been left behind when it comes to healthcare funding. The people of Scarborough, many of them immigrants to Canada, work hard, contribute to our economy and pay their taxes. Home to many essential workers, Scarborough has borne much of the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic and yet never received funding that would account for our increasing population and growing complexity of care.

We need a commitment to improve access and wait times for family doctors so families in Scarborough can get checkups and treatments when they need them without delay and stress.

Despite being one of the most populated areas of Toronto, Scarborough has been faced with limited funding for the maintenance of its hospitals and critical staff shortages. Hospitals in Scarborough have been neglected and forced to operate not only with lack of resources inside but also in old buildings that are physically deteriorating year after year. With only one emergency room for the population of 650 000, residents in Scarborough face extremely long wait times, a shortage of nurses and a system that’s stretched to its breaking point.

Throughout her four years in office, Doly has been a passionate advocate for better healthcare in Scarborough. In the Ontario Legislature, she has consistently been a voice for Scarborough healthcare workers and patients who have been desperately asking the Ontario government to provide adequate funds for their hospitals. When Scarborough neighbourhoods were reported to have disproportionately high levels of positive COVID-19 rates in 2021, Doly successfully advocated for Scarborough residents to achieve accessibility and equity during COVID-19 vaccines distribution.

Doly and the ONDP have a plan to:

Implement Universal Pharmacare, to ensure that all Ontarians would be able to access the prescriptions they need
Increase hospital funding by 5.3%, so all hospitals are able to receive the adequate support necessary for the needs of the patients
Clear the backlog of surgeries
Hire more nurses
Construct more hospitals and expand existing ones, including new hospital beds in Scarborough
Make mental health care a part of our universal healthcare system

Healthcare is a human right, and we must invest in our healthcare system.

Do you agree?

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Dignified and Culturally Appropriate Seniors' Care

Our parents and grandparents built this province, they cared for us when we were young and vulnerable. We have a duty to take care of them as they age. COVID-19 has revealed what many family members and seniors' advocates have raised for years: the bitter truth about the harrowing conditions of long term care homes and the state of seniors' care in our province. Government after government has failed to provide elders in the most vulnerable time of their lives with the care and resources needed for a safe, protected and quality living environment.

Doly made this her own mandate, a commitment and fought relentlessly in Queen’s Park to address the issues of seniors' care. She has raised the issues of lack of safety inspections in long-term care homes and fought for a minimum standard of care including cleaning and feeding. Doly has been working hard to make sure that LTC residents, their families and staff have the support they need. She fought for sufficient and equitable PPE supply, access to vaccination and an increased level of care for local seniors.

Doly is committed to ensuring that seniors' care is publicly funded, adequately staffed and that care workers have fair wages and job security. She will continue to fight and ensure that the health and wellbeing of the elderly are prioritized. The ONDP plan invests a record amount into home care, and transforms the patchwork, privatized and unreliable system into a new, public and not-for-profit system. This plan includes culturally responsive home care, hiring and training staff who can communicate with seniors in their own language and supporting elders in a way that respects their culture.

Doly and the ONDP have a plan to:

Overhaul home care to help people live at home longer
Make all long-term care public and not-for-profit
Build small, modern, family-like homes in all parts of the province
Staff up with full-time, well-paid, well-trained caregivers
Make family caregivers partners, not just visitors
Create affirming care that is culturally responsive and inclusive
Clear the wait list so nobody has to wait years for a bed, and even longer for a culturally appropriate home
Guarantee new and stronger protections, including comprehensive inspections and a Seniors’ Advocate

Our seniors deserve to live with dignity.

Do you agree?

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A Real Plan to Protect our Environment

Scarborough Southwest is a home to unique green spaces, mature canopy trees, wildlife, migratory and resident birds and the beautiful Bluffs that many come to enjoy from all over the city. Local residents truly care for the environment and work hard to protect the treasures of our neighborhoods.

Local residents also feel that the climate crisis is the defining issue of our time and raise valid concerns about green energy, buildings and transit, cap and trade, zero emission vehicles, sustainable development, greenbelt and watershed protection and more.

Doly believes that all climate action starts at the local level. That’s why she launched the Scarborough Southwest Environmental Group to address the challenges that the climate crisis has brought forth in our community. The group focuses efforts on protecting local green spaces, sustainable building projects, revitalizing native plants, addressing invasive species and transitioning from fossil fuels to green energy. Doly has an active commitment to make sure that our environment is protected for the generations to come and this will require concrete efforts to tackle climate change.

A healthy and prosperous future for all Ontarians is worth the investment. Simply put, the cost of inaction when it comes to the climate crisis will be far higher than the investments we must make now to secure a safer, more prosperous future. We don’t have time to wait. Doly and the ONDP remain committed to implementing proactive, climate-safe actions that will protect the environment:

Bring Ontario to net-zero emissions
Change how we move: Transform transportation
Change how we build: Retrofit program
Guaranteed green jobs
Transition our electricity supply
Protect our water and green spaces
Cut down waste
Foster climate change resilience

Do you agree?

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An End to Food Insecurity and Child Poverty

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought forth many financial burdens on communities in Ontario and especially in Scarborough. Many people have lost their jobs, and have difficulties in being able to afford the basic necessities of life. Scarborough faces one of the highest food insecurity rates in the province, especially because grocery store prices have become increasingly expensive.

Food banks are being stretched to their breaking point and 1 in 10 Canadian families experience poverty.

We need to ensure that children and families have a secure, dignified existence.

Doly and the ONDP are committed to ensuring that food security and poverty eradication become vital priorities for the Ontario government.

In order to maintain this commitment, we plan to do the following:

Work with the Ministry of Community and Social Services to create a food curriculum that would help families get the food they need
Continue to work with the Feed Scarborough initiative to ensure that community members have access to healthy and adequate meals
Advocate for a provincial school lunch program, so that no student has to study on an empty stomach
Establish a living minimum wage of $20 an hour to ensure families have enough to get by

No one should have to worry about how or when they will get their next meal and no child should grow up in poverty.

Do you agree?

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Affordable Housing for All

Access to housing became critical over the last few years as we watched rent and home prices skyrocket. In fact, it is the largest expense that families across Scarborough Southwest have to bear. Young families, new immigrants, and the next generation can no longer afford to own their first homes or build a life in our neighbourhoods.

People in our community are faced with unprecedented increases in mortgage, lack of regulations, unfair practices from corporate landlords, and more.. Owning or renting a home now takes up almost half of a family’s household income.

Vulnerable communities across Scarborough Southwest and Ontario have been left behind as the social housing lists continue to grow, while people wait decades to find a safe and stable home for their families.

Ontarians deserve an affordable and accessible place to call home. They deserve to be able to build a life in this province without being priced out of their communities due to skyrocketing housing prices and housing speculation.

Doly knows what our communities need. She knows that the young family looking to buy their first home in Scarborough Southwest can no longer be left behind because of speculators and unprecedented housing prices. She knows that renters in our neighbourhoods deserve better than being taken advantage of by big corporate landlords. She knows that small landlords and homeowners in our communities need regulations that protect them. This is why, Doly and the Ontario NDP are fighting to:

Offer a first time buyers a down payment loan
Makeit easier for homeowners to reconfigure their properties to create more rental units.
Offer a shared equity loan of up to 10 percent (income tested) for first time buyers to use for their down payment
Repairing Ontario’s social housing stock and committing to building new affordable homes
Reinstate equitable rent controls for all
Protect tenants from wrongful evictions
Ensure that Landlord and Tenant Board operates fairly
Encourage the development of the construction of “missing middle,” housing such as duplex expand townhouses for more affordability
Crack down on speculators, both resident and non resident to make housing more affordable

Public Transit that Works for Scarborough

Public transportation is a necessity for many of our communities in Scarborough who need to go to work, school, or run daily errands. Many commuters are also front line workers, who work in the healthcare settings, grocery stores, and other essential services. It is only fair that we have access to transportation that is frequent, reliable, and safe. It is clear that Scarborough transit systems have been faced with decades of negligence.

Doly has been a strong advocate for investing in more frequent and accessible transit for residents of Scarborough including more local bus stops in each neighbourhood, accessible subway stations, and more funding for operation to improve the service for mobility within and outside of Scarborough.

Doly has also been instrumental in helping TTC employees including local operators to get vaccines in an easy and convenient way during the pandemic to ensure they were protected.

With the Ontario NDP, Doly will continue to fight for more investment in operating funding, committing to the Canadian manufacture of transit vehicles to help economic growth in our province and create more jobs.

Doly and the NDP have a plan to:

Electrify all municipal transit fleets by 2040
Increase provincial transit funding to municipalities
Work with the city to ensure routes have more frequent stops in local neighbourhoods
Ensure accessibility funding for subway stations

We need safe, effective and reliable public transit that works for Scarborough.

Do you agree?

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Safer Roads in Our Communities

In 2021, almost half of all fatal traffic accidents happened in Scarborough. Drivers, pedestrians, transit users, and cyclists alike know that lack of political will to make our roads safer has caused immense loss in our communities. For decades, residents of Scarborough have called for changes to speed regulations and increased protections for pedestrians and vulnerable road users.

Doly has worked with Scarborough Southwest community members to help install a stop light to make sure seniors in the area remained safe, supported countless families impacted by lack of proper road safety regulations in our community, and supported local advocacy for safer streets.

We know that safe streets are a shared responsibility, this is why Doly has worked with advocates and families to introduce legislation that calls for unprecedented changes to Highway Traffic Act to make sure negligent drivers face consequences and that vulnerable road users are protected with accountability and justice.

A More Welcoming Scarborough for Newcomers

Supporting immigrants, newcomers, and helping build our skilled workforce

Hard working immigrants and newcomers who come to Ontario in the hope of building a better life, but are often not given a fair shot at success when they arrive. Despite coming to this province with skills, education, and experience - lack of proper procedure to recognize international training or education and fairness for immigrants in the workforce often leads to underemployment and intergenerational struggles that leave our communities behind.

Throughout the pandemic, internationally trained healthcare workers were unable to help relieve the unprecedented strain on our healthcare system despite their skills, training, and willingness. Many had to watch from the sidelines while their communities struggled to get access to basic healthcare amidst a public health crisis.

Doly knows how difficult it is for those in our community who come here to build a new, better life in Ontario but are not given the support, resources, and opportunities to do so. She has heard from and supported immigrants - both old and new - as they navigated barriers such as lack of language access, culturally appropriate care, and most importantly, lack of pathways to recognize their skills and training.

Doly and the Ontario NDP want to build a province where everyone has a fair shot at building a good life. We will work towards:

Building a system to recognize the skills and credentials of internationally-educated workers, including healthcare professionals
Expanding and updating the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program to not only attract more skilled immigrants to Ontario but also making sure they are able to work in their fields
Implementing a language access strategy to make sure that multilingual Ontarians from all walks of life - Indigenous communities, Franco-Ontarians, immigrants - can access services in their language of choice

A Quality Education System

Students, education workers, and families deserve well-resourced and safe classrooms. Despite the need for smaller classrooms, support for educators, safer classrooms, necessary repairs in our public schools - the Ford government continued to make millions of dollars worth of cuts to our education system.

When COVID-19 hit our schools, the government failed to not only protect students and staff, they also failed to have a proper plan that ensured disruption-free learning throughout the pandemic. Families in Scarborough Southwest are burnt out, students are struggling with their well being, and education workers are having to put their health at risk. Our community cannot afford four more years of neglect, endless cuts, and ineffective leadership that leaves our communities behind.

Ontario deserves a government that takes bold and decisive action to invest in our schools and ensure a brighter future for our province. Over the past four years, Doly has been an avid advocate for students, teachers, and families in Scarborough Southwest. She has called for:

Smaller, safer class sizes with more caring staff from ECEs to custodians to teachers.
Improved ventilation with clear standards, classroom inspections and public reporting
Mental health supports and curriculum adjustments to help students recover emotionally and academically
More in-school supports for students with disabilities
Paid sick days and family care days for everyone, including parents so they can keep sick kids at home, and all education workers
A proactive strategy to reach out to families to get students vaccinated, with mandatory vaccination requirements for education workers.
A robust plan to get 5-11 year olds the protection of a vaccine as soon as it is available
Adding the COVID-19 vaccine to the existing required vaccines list for students.

Doly knows that making our schools pandemic-proof also means tackling the 16.8 billion dollar school repair backlog left behind by the former governments over the past two decades and was allowed to grow under the current government. One time funding for upgrades must be backed up by a long-term plan to fix and maintain our school infrastructure. This is why, Doly and the Ontario NDP will:

Ensure smaller class sizes to meet the needs of all students. We’ll cap classes for Grades 4 through 8 and reduce high school class sizes.
Hire 20,000 teachers and education workers, additional mental health and child and youth workers and invest in school remedial learning programs.
Commit to tackling the $16 billion infrastructure deficit built up by previous governments.
Fix the rules around education development charges so that all school boards, including the TDSB, can collect EDCs and have the flexibility to use them to build and repair schools.
Remove mandatory e-learning courses and support the elimination of the wasteful EQAO
Oppose any plans to privatize our education system

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