CUPE's election report card

 Privatization

 Party

 Plan

 Analysis

 Grade

 NDP

• Jack Layton has spoken out against Harper’s Building Canada Fund, declaring that the NDP will “fight tooth and nail to protect public services”.
• Invest the equivalent of one cent of the GST into funding our cities and communities by 2011.
• Invest in new municipal water and wastewater infrastructure.
• Federal investments in public transit and infrastructure.

• The NDP platform on privatization issues is the best for the economy, for workers and for the public services. They have spoken out the most against privatization
• Will strengthen access to safe drinking water

 A+

 Conservative

• Stephen Harper has said nothing about deregulation, privatization or the value of public services during this campaign.

• The Conservatives have pushed an aggressive privatization agenda: their Building Canada Fund has forced municipalities to consider costly, risky and unaccountable public-private partnerships for large infrastructure projects.

 F-

 Green

• Platform pledges to “restore the tradition of investing in public facilities and services”. No further explanation is provided.

• Platform is vague, with no clear commitment to end privatization.

 D+

 Liberal

• -While their platform doesn’t overtly mention “privatization” or “P3”, it does state that “the federal investment must leverage significant private investment.”

• The Liberals have been tight-lipped on the issue of P3s and privatization of the public service, likely because the previous Liberal government was a big supporter.

 D-

Health care

 Party

 Plan

 Analysis

 Grade

 NDP

• Prohibit the use of federal funding to support any form of parallel, private, for-profit service delivery, and fully enforce the Canada Health Act.
• Require transparency and accountability by provinces and territories on their compliance with the Canada Health Act.
  • Expand programs for addiction and prevention, mental health, home care and chronic diseases
  • Train more doctors, nurses and health care professionals

• A commitment to protect the system and stop privatization.
• No mention of facility-based long term care
• No national standards for home care or other new funds.

 A-

 Conservative

• Train more doctors, nurses and health care professionals
• No mention of medicare
• No pledge to ensure access for Canadians to a universal, single-tier public health care system

• Avoiding a pledge to protect public health care is not surprising. For-profit clinics have grown at an alarming rate, and Harper has ignored widespread violations of the Canada Health Act

 F

 Green

• Oppose any level of private, for-profit or two-tier health care.
• Enforce the Canada Health Act.
• Hire staff to open closed hospital beds and fully utilize hospital operating rooms.
• Expand medicare to include dental care
• Expand home care, assisted living and long-term care
• Train more doctors, nurses and health care professionals

• A comprehensive platform with a clear anti-privatization message
• No mention of national standards or non-profit status for new home care, assisted living and long term care beds.

 A-

 Liberal

• Enforce both the spirit and the letter of the Canada Health Act so that patients will be confident that they will receive the care they need when they need it, regardless of ability to pay, where they live, or the nature of their illness.
• Train more doctors, nurses and health care professionals
• Catastrophic prescription drug plan

• Mentioning the Canada Health Act is a smart move, but remaining vague on how to enforce it shows a lack of effort.

 C

Child care

 Party

 Plan

 Analysis

 Grade

 NDP

• Establish and adequately fund a quality, accessible, affordable, non-profit, Canada-wide child care and early learning program.
• An investment starting at $1.45 billion and climbing to $1.75 billion over the next four years.
• Create 150,000 new child care spaces in the first year, growing to 220,000 spaces by the fourth year.
• Enact the New Democrats’ Early Learning and Child Care Act – which has already passed Second Reading in Parliament

• Plan ensures universal, non-profit child care, which is supported by strong policy and legislation.

 A

 Conservative

• Fully index the $100 per month Universal Child Care Benefit to inflation.
• Make the $100 per month tax-free for sole-support, single-income parents

• Out of touch with family needs

 F

 Green

• Restore and revamp the 2005 agreement reached between the federal government, provinces and territories to achieve a universal child care program in Canada.
• Accelerate the creation of workplace child care spaces through a direct tax credit to employers.

• Shows a limited understanding of child care

 Incomplete

 Liberal

• Establish coast-to-coast, high quality, universal, community-based, early education and child care.
• This investment will increase over a four-year period climbing to $1.25 billion annually
• Introduce the choice to take a shorter parental leave at a higher benefit level, or a longer leave (up to 18 months) at a lower benefit level.

• Universal services that make child care and early learning inseparable
• The NDP platform provides more money, and legislation to ensure the same standards across Canada. It also demands that child care be not-for-profit. The Liberal platform does not.

 B

 Economy

 Party

 Plan

 Analysis

 Grade

 NDP

• A Green-Collar Jobs Fund of $750 million a year to train new workers and re-train displaced Workers.
• Protection for consumers
• Tougher regulation of the financial industry
• Improve employment standards
• Investments in education, and research and development
• Made-in-Canada procurement and job-focused trade strategies.
• Re-establish the National Minimum Wage, and set it at $10 per hour.
• Establish a Canadian Pension Benefits Guarantee Fund.

• The most comprehensive and realistic set of policies to improve Canada’s economy and protect working people.
• Improved employment standards, labour rights, strong protection for consumers; and a better anti-poverty plan with a higher minimum wage, and improvements to EI.
• Only the NDP called for stronger regulation of the financial industry in their platform.
• Platform could do more to rein in financial speculation, and make the tax system more progressive

 A

 Conservative

• Reduce tax on business
• Further deregulation of resource development and of the financial industry through “principles-based regulation”
• Aggressive promotion of free trade and economic agreements, in Canada and abroad
• Allow more foreign takeovers to take place without review
• Decriminalization of a number of consumer protection and competition act laws
• Limited support for auto and aerospace industries

• The Harper platform is based on the same fundamental economic policies of tax cuts, deregulation, free trade and privatization that caused the most severe financial and economic crisis since the Great Depression.
• Does nothing to protect workers, pensioners or low and middle income families.
• Expect more privatization, sales of public assets, and deep cuts to public services to pay for their expensive tax cuts.

 F

 Green

• Reduce income, corporate and payroll tax, introduce carbon tax
• Eliminate corporate subsidies.
• Eliminate personal taxes on incomes below the low-income cut-off.
• Raise income tax for the wealthy
• Re-establish a federal minimum wage of $10 an hour.
• Create a job strategy linked to the development of a green economy.

• Good support for labour and equality rights, public infrastructure investment, and a Guaranteed Liveable Income.
• Many tax proposals are regressive or unworkable. There is too much faith on tax shifting and the free market to transform the economy (and not enough support for the public services)

 B-

 Liberal

• Green shift plan: shift Canada’s tax system away from income and towards pollution. Every dollar that is raised from taxing carbon pollution will be returned to Canadians in tax cuts.
• Accelerate corporate tax cuts
• Create a $1-billion Advanced Manufacturing Prosperity (AMP) Fund
• 30-50 plan to fight poverty, limited improvements to EI and health care

• Takes positive steps to reduce poverty; increase infrastructure and education funding; provide industry investment and progressive tax shifting
• Delays some promises until the end of a 4 year mandate
• The Liberals will have to come up with $12 billion in unspecified cuts to pay for more corporate tax cuts
• Implicit support for privatization
• Lax regulation policies

 C

 Environment

 Party

 Plan

 Analysis

 Grade

 NDP

• Implement a “cap-and-trade” carbon pricing system. All revenue will go to environmental solutions.
• Halt new tar sands development until emissions are capped.
• $600 million Industry Innovation Fund to help businesses reduce their energy use
• $4 billion in transit over the first four years
• $10 million Safe Water Fund to address issues of emerging pollutants and help communities monitor water quality.
• Establish the Canadian Renewable Energy Agency to encourage and develop renewable energy in Canada.

• An extensive climate change plan
• Includes a low-income retrofit program
• Does not include a carbon tax

 Conservative

• Cut tax on diesel and aviation fuel in half
• Stiffer penalties for serious environmental crimes
• Prohibit the exportation of bitumen to countries outside Canada that do not have equivalent emission reduction targets

• Diesel tax cut is costly and environmentally reckless
• Plan is unworkable, complicated, bad for the environment and the economy

 Green

• Green tax shift
• Create a Small Cities Green Venture Capital Fund to support viable local green-business start-ups
• Offer incentives for all industrial buildings to be made more energy efficient.
• Require that all manufactured goods, including vehicles, be designed for easy recycling and, as in Germany, that they contain 90 per cent recycled materials by 2025.

 Liberal

• Reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 60 to 80 percent below 1990 emission levels by 2050.
• Create a carbon trading system.
• Create a Renewable Power Production Incentive -Double the federal financial incentives to help Canadians make energy-saving home retrofits.
• Establish the Green Fisheries and Transport Fund to assist public transit authorities and industry to become more energy efficient
• $400 million Canada Water Fund for water-treatment infrastructure

• Dion has shown commitment to the environment with his Green Shift plan.
• Policies are not as comprehensive as the Greens or the NDP

 A-