The NDP released their election platform today. Called “Building The Country of Our Dreams” [PDF], it mostly summarizes the various proposals the NDP has been promoting over this entire campaign – affordable daycare, making post-secondary education more affordable, increasing corporate taxes and so on. (Discussion on Reddit.)
Some highlights identified by a Reddit user:
- 7,000 more doctors, nurses and nurse practitioners and other health professionals
- expanding home care to 41,000 more seniors and providing funding for 5,000 more nursing home beds
- Tripling paid leave available for those too ill to work
- one million quality childcare spaces at no more than $15 a day
- extra five weeks of parental leave
- Cracking down on excessive ATM fees
- Creating 40,000 jobs, co-op placements and internships for youth
- reducing the small business tax from 11 to 9%
- $1.5 billion per year in new infrastructure funding to municipalities to fix roads, bridges and water treatment systems
- $1.3 billion per year in a national strategy to improve transit and reduce gridlock
- retrofit over 50,000 homes and apartment buildings
- returning the retirement age from 67 to 65
- Restoring home mail delivery
- hire 2,500 more front-line police officers
- Investing $454 million to give our veterans support
- Bolstering food and rail safety regulations
- repealing Bill C-51
- bringing in proportional representation for elections
- Giving the Parliamentary Budget Officer independent authority, and creating a Parliamentary Science Officer
There are many out there who are lumping the NDP & Liberals together (and I’ve been guilty of that on occasion myself) but although there are some similarities (which are especially appealing for those wanting to see Stephen Harper gone), there are some very stark differences between the two parties that people should consider if they’re thinking of voting for one party in place of the other…
- Trans-Pacific Partnership
Along with the Conservatives, the Liberals have indicated their support for this massive international trade deal while the NDP is strongly opposed to the deal which could cause great harm to Canada’s agricultural and automotive sectors as well as causing grave concerns for copyright, intellectual property rights, and Canada’s ability to write its own laws regarding the Internet as well as Canada’s sovereignty in general (this is the first and probably only time I’ll link to the Green Party in this series of posts!) 😉 - C-51
Even though the Conservatives had a majority position and the Liberals did not need to vote in favour of it, they chose to do what was politically popular at the time and support Bill C-51 which gives much greater surveillance powers to the government. Officially meant to help prevent terrorism, the bill actually could end up leading to increased government spying on private citizens in violation of our Charter rights. Rightly, this bill is losing support as more and more Canadians become aware of how it could fundamentally change the nature of our freedoms. - Keystone XL Pipeline
Again, the Liberals overlap with the Harper Conservatives in saying support this pipeline (just like most Republicans in the US) while the NDP (like most Democrats in the US including Obama and Hillary Clinton) have said very clearly that they oppose it.
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