The Green Party's election platform promises two kinds of help for married couples and families.
Don MacKinnon/AFP/Getty Images
Explainer
The Green Party platform
Globe staff
Globe and Mail Update
Published
Last updated
Take a look at Green Party election promises made so far
-
A CF-18 fighter jet undergoes routine inspection before take off at CFB Cold Lake in Alberta on Sept. 28, 2010.
Defence
-Introduce a Comprehensive Security Plan to coordinate between the RCMP, CSIS, CBSA, the Coast Guard and DFAIT
-Reduce military spending to 2005 levels
-Reorient toward peacekeeping UN missions and home border defence
-
Canadian dollars
The economy
-Cancel scheduled corporate tax rate reductions, rolling rate back to 19 per cent, level of 2009; also close tax haven loopholes for companies on worldwide income
-Establish a minimum wage of $10 an hour under the Canada Labour Code
-Provide federal funding to local green business start-ups and to locally-raised venture capital
-Create jobs through investment in renewable energy, expansion of passenger and industrial rail infrastructure and building retrofits
-Cancel various corporate tax credits including logging tax credit, mineral exploration tax credit and introduce a toxic tax on dangerous substances to discourage their use
-Eliminate subsidies on fossil fuels, with a first-year reduction of $1.4-billion
-Cut both employer and employee contributions to EI and CPP by a third, with the federal government making up the difference
-Reduce the size of deficit to $14.9 billion in 2012-2013 and to $5.5-billion in 2013-2014, and contributing $4.1-billion annually to bringing down the deficit in 2013-2014
-
Education
-A youth community and environment service program, which would provide federal minimum wage employment for 40,000 young people every year for three years, in exchange for a $4,000 tuition credit at the end of each year
-Increased workplace childcare spaces
-$400-millon annual increase in funding of post-secondary education needs-based scholarships and bursaries
-
People wait to see a doctor in the Emergency/Trauma Unit waiting area at Toronto's Sunnybrook Hospital on Dec. 5, 2010.
Health
-Spend $300-mllion annually to set up a national universal pharmacare program
-Provide more money to hire staff to open currently closed beds, fully utilize operating rooms and purchase new diagnostic equipment and transfer funds to provinces to build more long-term care beds
-Train more doctors and nurses, and work with the Canadian Medical Association to fast-track certification of foreign-trained health care professionals
-Provide student loan forgiveness incentives to graduating health care professionals who agree to work in rural facilities
-Provide safe drinking water to Canada’s First Nation communities. Part of direction of $800-million a year to safer drinking water, education and better housing on reserves
-Provide funds to alternative therapies, such as chiropractors, massage therapists and acupuncturists
-
Syncrude's oil sands plant at Mildred Lake, north of Fort McMurray, Alta.
The environment
-Phase out the use of all genetically-modified food products, and reduce the use of pesticides, growth hormones, antibiotics and other chemical agents in agriculture
-Amend the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to include the right of future Canadians to breathable air and drinkable water
-Increase EcoEnergy home energy retrofit grants by 50 per cent to $600-million in 2012-2013, and create new energy retrofit programs for low-income housing, universitiies, municipal buildings, schools and hospitals
-Levy a carbon charge on companies of $50 a tonne on CO2 emissions, increasing to $60 by 2013-2014. Offer carbon tax rebate to low-income Canadians
-Establish a National Parks Completion Budget of $500-million
-End federal assistance to the commercial seal hunt
-Strengthen the Canadian Environmental Protection Act with regulations to reduce airborne contaminants, substances shown to be a risk to human health, and toxic chemicals
-Create a national solar roof program, spending $180-million a year
-Add pollution prevention to the mandate of the CEPA
-Work towards a 'zero waste' future, where manufacturers are responsible for the entire lifespan of a product, including recycling at the end of its usefulness
-Create six municipal superfunds that address various environmental issues
-
The Guaranteed Income Supplement has been instrumental in reducing rates of poverty among the elderly in Canada over the past 35 years.
Seniors
-Work to enhance CPP by doubling target income replace rate from 25 per cent to 50 per cent of income received during working years
-Increase guaranteed income supplement for seniors by 25 per cent
-Ensure secure pensions
-Stop elder abuse
-Guarantee the right to draw a 'living will' that allows people to limit or refuse medical intervention if they are nearing the end of their life
-
Idman Shil at her Surrey BC home on October 28th, 2009. The former Somali refugee was told to leave her newborn behind by International Office of Migration staff at the refugee camp she was in in Uganda and and have him brought over at a later date, only to be told by Canadian Immigration officials that he is not eligible to come to Canada.
Immigration
-Allocate greater funding for training in official languages through earmarked transfers to the provinces
-Stronger regulations governing the practices of immigration consultants
-Advocate for the inclusion of 'environmental refugees' as a refugee category in Canada
-
Families
-Modify the Income Tax Act to enable income splitting
-Establish a national affordable housing program, building 20,000 new units a year and renewing 8,000 existing units a year
-Spend up to $1-billion a year to support existing and new child-care programs, including financial incentives for workplaces to create additional childcare spaces
-Reduce income taxes through revenue-neutral tax shifting made possible through the carbon tax
-
Jumbo carrots being harvested at the Visser Brothers Farm.— Peter Power/The Globe and Mail
Food
-Create fund for farmers to transition to organic farming. Spending of $75 million in 2011-2012, rising to $175-million each subsequent year; implement strict monitoring of pesticides.
-Expand domestic food production and procurement with “200-kilometre diet” promotion; expand farmers' markets and culinary tourism, rooftop gardens, urban agriculture and seed banks.
-Stop all federally funded research on genetically modified organisms (GMO). Cut all federal biotech funding to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Natural Resources Canada and 10 per cent of funding (which goes to GMO biotech) from NSERC and NRC
-Reform agricultural regulations “to challenge corporate concentration;” reform farm income supports; encourage grocery retailers to make shelf space for local foods
-Upgrade water treatment facilities
-Government agriculture research shifts from biotechnology to organic production.
-Establishment of greenhouse gas emission targets in collaboration with industry.
