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Where the parties stand on five big issues

the party positions

Compiled by Adam Daff

Environment

Health Care

Business

Education

Accountability

Conservative:

Environment

Pull out of Kyoto to further cut green house gases and introduce Clean Air Act.

Health Care

$13 billion for provinces and drug plan; Work with provinces to build on the 2003 Health Accord on Health Renewal; Promote amateur sport and physical fitness.

Business

Reduce federal tax rate on middle-income Canadians by more than 25 per cent; Introduce a $2,000 per child deduction to reduce the tax burden on families with children; Invest in infrastructure by transferring at least 3 cents of the gas tax to the provinces; Cut "wasteful" subsidies by $10 billion in order to reduce taxes for all businesses, reduce capital gains, reduce corporate tax

Education

Improve loans and grants for students; Work with the provinces to reduce financial barriers to post-secondary education.

Accountability

Increase auditor general’s budget and role; End corporate and union political donations; Allow for independent Ethics Commissioner to be appointed by cabinet, not by the Prime Minister; Have elections on a fixed date every four years; Hold elections to fill vacancies in the Senate; Give Parliament, not the courts, the final decision on issues like marriage.

The candidates:

West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast: John Reynolds (MP)

Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon: Chuck Strahl (MP)

 

NDP

Environment

Create a crown corporation for green jobs; Invest in wind power; Tax incentives to produce fuel-efficient cars; Mandatory emission targets for car manufacturers

Health Care

Increase funding by $28 billion over four years; Reduce drug costs through bulk buying program and review copyrights; Strengthen the Canada Health Act to prohibit public money going to private, for-profit hospitals and responding to technological change by deeming diagnostics such as MRIs as medically necessary services, thus protecting them from privatization.

Business

Implement a U.S.-style inheritance tax on inheritances of more than $1 million, exempting in-family transfers of small businesses and family farms; Fairer taxes for small business; Ensure all Canadians who make less than $15,000 a year pay no federal income tax; Remove the GST from family essentials, starting with children’s clothing and medicine, school supplies, books, magazines, women’s hygiene products, and medical equipment.

Education

Cut tuition fees; set up needs based grants; end privatization of research; Credit all interest accrued on the Canada Student Loans program against graduates’ income taxes; Provide long-term federal funds to create an additional 200,000 child care spaces within four years.

Accountability

Tougher conflict-of-interest guidelines; Crack down on expense accounts; Embrace flexible federalism, based on respecting provincial jurisdiction and joint ventures with provinces; Recognize the historical fact that the federal government has unilaterally withdrawn funding from provinces, territories and municipalities and basing all future commitments on long-term, predictable funding and negotiation.

The candidates:

West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast: Nicholas Simons

Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon: Rollie Keith

Liberals

Environment

Stick with Kyoto; Make Canada world leader in wind power; Increase support for research on clean energy sources.

Health Care

$9 billion plus more to be negotiated later with the provinces, expand home care, create drug insurance; Overcome the shortage of medical providers by increasing the number of medical spaces in universities and accelerating the qualification of new immigrants with medical credentials.

Business

Accelerate foreign credential recognition; Invest in the fundamental drivers of economic performance – human skills, research and its commercial application, public infrastructure, and competitive taxes; Maintain a balanced budget; Reduce the federal government's debt ratio to 25 per cent within a decade; Promote increased venture capital; Decide by this year-end on a plan to provide, for the benefit of municipalities, a share of the federal gas tax – beginning in 2005, the amount will be ramped up within the next five years to 5 cents per litre for new infrastructure projects.

Education

Promote budget measures that help poor families save for university; Improve loans and grants for university students; new tax deduction for disabled.

Accountability

Judicial inquiry into sponsorship scandal; tighter monitoring of government spending; more internal audits; Free votes in the House of Commons; Ethics commissioner reports to Parliament, not the Prime Minister; Implement legislation to protect "whistleblowers"; Appoint Comptroller Generals in every government department to oversee all government expenditures.

The candidates:

West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast: Blair Wilson

Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon: Bob Besner

Greens

Environment

Give more power to municipalities to find public transit solutions; Replace the Voluntary Challenge Registry with a serious program to reduce industrial emissions.

Health Care

Reinforce publicly run health care system; Create more opportunities for outdoor physical activities; Provide coverage for proven complementary health care such as chiropractic.

Business

Accelerate the introduction of "green" industrial technologies; create tax breaks for companies that are certified ISO 9000 and ISO 14000.

Education

Increase funding for early childhood education; Ensure tuition free access to college and university programs for retired people; Establish Canadian mentorship network to allow young and old people to share ideas.

Accountability

Allow the public to obtain detailed quarterly financial reports of government spending; establish "whistlerblower" protection for civil servants and ombudsmen; Ensure citizens can register electronically for notification on political decisions that effect them.

The candidates:

West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast: Andrea Goldsmith

Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon: Aisha Coghlan

 

 

Other candidates:

Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon: Marijuana Party, Norm Siefken, Marxist Leninist Party, Dorothy Jean O’Donnell, Christian Heritage Party, Ron Gray

West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast: Marxist Leninist Party, Annie Jamieson, Canadian Action Party, Marc Bombois