In a tight election race, Canada’s major political parties have come up with some innovative and otherwise attention-getting promises to woo voters. Among them:
•The Green Party of Canada has pledged to build a global climate supercomputer.
•The Conservative Party of Canada is pledging to replace a simple federal carbon tax with a complex “Personal Low Carbon Savings Account” scheme, which would require a new bureaucracy to implement and manage.
•Conservatives have pledged to pursue the CANZUK free trade proposal with commonwealth countries (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, U.K.).
•The New Democratic Party (NDP) is pledging a guaranteed income for artists and cultural workers in the form of “income tax averaging.”
•After each major platform section, like housing or climate change, the Liberal Party of Canada platform includes a Gender and Diversity Impact Summary that explains how the policies affect women and LGBT and racial groups.
•The Liberals are pledging a Homebuyers’ Bill of Rights, which would include a ban on blind bidding to allow prospective buyers to know what other prospective buyers are offering.
•The Green Party says it will create high-speed rail links between Calgary and Edmonton and between Toronto and Quebec City.
•The NDP says it will ensure that all federal buildings use renewable energy by a date to be determined and that the federal government’s fleet of vehicles will be replaced by electric vehicles by 2025.
•The Conservatives are pledging to create a “Super EI” that would temporarily provide laid-off workers 75% of their salary when a province goes into a recession. Employment insurance levels would then return to the normal 55% level based on three months of job gains rather than GDP growth.
•No mandatory vaccines for federal employees under a Conservative government. Instead, unvaccinated workers would need to undergo a daily rapid test to show they do not have COVID-19 (The cost of tests can range from about $40 to $200 – or about $200 to $1,000 a week).
•The Conservatives are promising to cover the cost and enable restaurant owners to provide diners with 50% rebates on food and non-alcoholic drinks on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays during 2022. They also promise to halt automatic increases to federal liquor taxes each April.
•Conservatives have promised to launch the Explore and Support Canada initiative, which would provide Canadian residents with a 15% tax credit on the first $1,000 that they spend on vacations within Canada.
•The Greens have promised to establish a multi-party inner cabinet within its government that would be akin to Second World War “war cabinets” to ensure the party takes partisan politics out of fighting for environmental survival.
•The NDP promises to eliminate the first-past-the-post voting system within its first term in government.
