The leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party (NDP), and the leader of the Official Opposition, visited Windsor-Essex over the past couple of days as part of her all-in tour.
Marit Stiles participated in roundtable discussions on Wednesday, alongside Windsor West NDP MPP Lisa Gretzky.
Some of the organizations that participated included UHC - Hub of Opportunities, Windsor Women Working With Immigrant Women (W5), and the Windsor Essex Regional Chamber of Commerce.
Stiles said she heard about the challenges families and working people are facing across the region.
"We heard about the importance of making sure that when people are on a layoff that they actually can receive ongoing certification and training, we heard about, of course, as I mentioned earlier, the reality that a lot of the Unifor members, a lot of folks right now here in Windsor are facing around uncertainty and anxiety of job losses, and the importance of the government continuing to invest in EV, and look for solutions and new supply chains," Stiles said.
Stiles said she heard about the barriers to employment.
"One of them is, can you get a bus to where that job or oppourtinity is, can you get transit there, very practical solutions, to some very significant issues," she said.
Stiles said she believed that the province should be providing operational funding for public transit.
"I think we will see the economic benefit of that immediately, right, because people as we said need to be able to get from point A to point B, and a lot of the workers that we're talking about here today are not people who are necessarily going to be able to afford a vehicle to get somewhere right away, so we need to make it easy," Stiles said.
Stiles was expected to attend a rally later Wednesday, join Unifor Local 195 workers on the picket line, and end her day by meeting with Caldwell First Nation Chief and Council Point Pelee.