With the NDP in Parliament to keep the Liberals honest, and hold them to the promises made in their Family Pack, the following is a response to Harper’s Conservatives, for a more caring and compassionate Canada …
Michael Ignatieff’s / The Liberal Party platform
- A Pan-Canadian Learning Strategy, including a $500-million fund that would rise to $1 billion within four years for early childhood learning, and funding for aboriginal education, workforce literacy, language training for New Canadians, and access to higher education and training to build the best-educated, most skilled workforce in the world
- A Family Care Plan. $1 billion for family caregivers to enhance care for parents, grandparents and sick loved ones, to help reduce the pressure on hundreds of thousands of struggling Canadian families
Globe and Mail : The Liberal Platform Is Prudent and Pragmatic
- A Pension Reform Plan, including a $700-million boost to the Guaranteed Income Supplement, and the establishment of a voluntary Supplementary Canada Pension Plan to help more Canadians use the national pension plan to save for retirement and to protect the pension savings of Canadians whose companies have gone bankrupt
- A Veteran’s Learning Benefit that would invest $120-million over two years to allow Canadian Forces veterans full support to go to college or university for up to four years
- A green renovation tax credit worth $2,025 for expenses of up to $13,500 on new windows, doors and roofing
- Creation of a national infrastructure fund
- Restoration of the Court Challenges Programme; the expenditure of $100 million for a freshwater strategy; and the reallocation of $1 billion in funding, after the Afghan mission, to increase development aid and Canada’s participation in UN missions
- Creation of a fund for research on brain diseases
- Creation of a national food strategy, which includes $80 million over four years to expand farmers’ markets; $40 million over four years for increased access to healthy food for children of low-income families; $50 million over four years to improve food inspections and standards
- Doubling of funding to the Canada Council for the Arts and the restoring and increasing of funding for Trade Routes and PromArt, two art promotion programmes cut by the Conservatives
- New measures to increase government openness: The creation of opendata.gc.ca where departmental databases will be open to the public; publishing of access-to-information disclosures online
- Creation of a cap-and-trade system that would be compatible with the U.S. system, cover all industries and allow credits to be traded in international markets
- A new Canada youth service program that would support volunteer service abroad
- Quadrupling of renewable energy production, including wind, solar and biomass
- Increased access to credit for forestry sector to purchase new equipment
- Attracting up to 1,500 doctors and nurses annually to rural committees by forgiving student loans up to $20,000 over four years
- A $500-million investment to achieve 100 per cent high-speed Internet connectivity in rural and remote areas within three years. As the Liberal platforms states: Using proceeds from the upcoming spectrum auction slated for 2012, a Liberal government will set a goal of 100 percent high-speed internet connectivity of at least 1.5 MB/sec for all Canadian communities within three years of being elected. This commitment will increase the availability of affordable line and wireless connectivity, and improve mobile phone coverage in rural areas.
- A $3,000 tax credit for volunteer fire fighters to cover travel and training costs
