The Best Electoral Offer Yet
September 13, 2007 – 3:27 pmIf you’re wondering why electoral reform matters, take a look at the Green Party’s proposals, and ponder the fact that despite getting several percent of the popular vote, they have little or no chance of winning any seats (and hence of affecting policy, or growing in size). I don’t agree with lowering the voting age, and I don’t think there’d be much of a software industry left if people actually banned unpaid overtime, but other than that, this is the most sensible election platform I’ve seen in years. (And for those who still think the Greens are pie-in-the-sky treehuggers, read #9 carefully: no new nuclear or coal power, but only if consumers can reduce consumption by 20%.)
- Cut personal income taxes by $5.7 billion over four years by boosting the basic personal exemption from $8,377 to $11,000.
- Cut corporate income taxes by $1 billion over 4 years without affecting tax revenues by shifting taxes from profits to resource use.
- Phase out the Ontario health tax introduce by Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal government.
- Introduce a 2-per-cent carbon tax on oil, natural gas and coal imported or extracted for use in the province.
- Replace the existing property tax system with a “location value tax” based only on land and not building values, to encourage denser growth in urban areas.
- Merge Catholic and public schools into a single, publicly funded education system and introduce a mandatory world religion course.
- Cap university tuition at an average of $3,000 a year and college tuition at an average of $700 per year.
- Cap the amount of fresh water that water bottlers and industrial water users can take, and tax water use at $100 per million litres to encourage conservation.
- Ban the construction and refurbishment of nuclear reactors and phase out coal-fired power plants by 2009 if consumers can reduce electricity use by 20 per cent through conservation and energy efficiency programs.
- Adopt “California-style” emission standards for new cars, light trucks and SUVs by 2012, provide an additional $2,000 over the federal government’s existing sales tax rebate on the purchase of fuel efficient vehicles, and add an additional $2,000 levy on inefficient vehicles.
- Lower the voting age to 16.
- Boost the minimum wage to $10.25 by June 2008 and ban unpaid overtime.
- Provide a $1,000 health care allowance to low-income residents.
- Spend $10 million to help farmers switch to organic farming.
- Boost provincial spending on northern communities, including $90 million for health, $180 million for economic development and $25 million for transportation.
- Encourage homeowners to make their homes more energy efficient by boosting the provincial grant for that purpose from $5,000 to $10,000.
- Encourage municipal green building projects through a $500-million grant program.
- Spend $100 million to compensate farmers who preserve wildlife habitat such as wetlands instead of farming it.
- Phase in a province-wide ban on the cosmetic use of synthetic pesticides.
4 Responses to “The Best Electoral Offer Yet”
I see you’re not hiding your socialist tendencies
The 20% conservation number is interesting, but:
- something like 55% of our power comes from nuclear.
- a large portion of that 20% savings has to come from Industry, which will affect the economy (especially if competing geographies don’t follow us; companies will simply move).
- There’s no discussion of growth areas. For example, the gains from energy efficient appliances are almost entirely offset by the losses from *new* appliances (computers, TVs, etc.) in households. A/C is the highest growth area, at 10%/year, as the climate gets warmer and citizens become more affluent. and so on.
And I always love party platforms that promise to raise spending and lower taxes, and don’t say anything about where the missing money is going to come from…
By Harald on Sep 13, 2007
I don’t see how this platform is “socialist” — there are no proposals to nationalize industries, mandate a trade union presence in boardrooms, etc. And yes, there will be economic pain (and people will have to get used to the kinds of summer temperatures that people in places like Boston and Baltimore have had to live with since European settlement), but I’d rather pay that now than let the interest pile up for my daughter. As for the “missing money”, check the second half of #2, and #4, and the numbers on their web site: revenue lost through cuts in income tax will be replaced by increases in taxes on non-renewable resources. They’re not claiming they’ll take less out of the economy; they’ll just take it out of different places.
By Greg Wilson on Sep 13, 2007
I like the Green Party because they want to make the current economic system more transparent. For example, a lot of people think nuclear power is cheaper than solar… but the nuclear industry has buried literally billions of dollars in costs in our national debt. And the people of Canada will have to pay for disposal, security of the reactors, the opportunity cost in the form of reduced property values, etc. etc. Hardly a panacea, and carefully glossed over in marketing.
They always get my vote, to date in vain… but I’m hoping for change.
By Neil on Sep 13, 2007
I am very late to this discussion, but using “ban unpaid overtime” as a platform point seems to me to be a pretty transparent stunt. There will always be unpaid overtime in many sectors (hm, laboratory research anyone? How about mom ‘n pop ‘n kids operations?) regardless of whether it’s legal or not. Actually I suspect it’s not legal *now*, although I confess I don’t pay as much attention to labour law as I should.
By Richard Wintle on Oct 3, 2007