Biggest commitments since public health care

This came across my desk today from Charlie Angus. Pharmacare and Dental Care are huge but there is much more in the agreement.

... from Charlie Angus

 Here are some of the other elements that we put in place:

  • A three-year rollout for national dental care for families earning less than $90,000
  • Passing the Canada Pharmacare Act by the end of 2023
  • Bringing forward legislation on long-term care standards for seniors
  • Extending the rapid housing initiative
  • Re-focusing the Rental Construction Financing Initiative on affordable units (under 80% AMR) and using 80% AMR or below as definition of affordable housing
  • Moving forward on launching a Housing Accelerator Fund
  • Implementing a Homebuyer’s Bill of Rights and tackling the financialization of the housing market by the end of 2023
  • Including a $500 one-time top-up to Canada Housing Benefit in 2022, which would renew in coming years if the cost of living challenges remain
  • Through introducing an Early Learning and Child Care Act by the end of 2022, ensuring that childcare agreements have long-term protected funding that prioritizes non-profit and public spaces to deliver high-quality, affordable child care opportunities for families
  • Advancing measures to achieve significant emissions reductions by 2030 compared to 2005 levels. Continuing to identify ways to further accelerate the trajectory to achieve net-zero emissions no later than 2050
  • Creating the Clean Jobs Training Centre to support workers retention, redeployment and training
  • Just Transition legislation, guided by the feedback we receive from workers, unions, Indigenous peoples, communities, provinces, and territories
  • Developing a plan to phase out public financing of the fossil fuel sector, including from Crown corporations, including early moves in 2022
  • Home energy efficiency programs that both enhance energy affordability for Canadians and reduce emissions, with investments to support multiple streams, including low-income and multi-unit residential apartments. We will also ensure that this funding includes support for creating Canadian supply chains for this work to ensure the jobs stay in Canada and that we develop the skills to export these valuable energy efficiency products around the world
  • Ensuring that the 10 days of paid sick leave for all federally regulated workers starts as soon as possible in 2022
  • Introducing legislation by the end of 2023 to prohibit the use of replacement workers, “scabs,” when a union employer in a federally regulated industry has locked out employees or is in a strike
  • Making a significant additional investment in Indigenous housing in 2022. It will be up to First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities to determine how housing investments are designed and delivered
  • Accelerating the implementation of the Federal Pathway to Address Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ People with Indigenous partners
  • Creating a standing Federal-Provincial-Territorial table on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ People to facilitate and coordinate this work
  • Providing the necessary supports for First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities who wish to continue to undertake the work of burial searches at the former sites of residential schools

Minority governments work. In the last election, Canadians sent a clear message that they are sick of political games and want us to get down to making life better for people. New Democrats have an opportunity to create long-term change, and we are committed to following through.


... I'm excited. This is good news.

Mike Druiven

Secretary, Milton NDP EDA

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lets end the surgery backlog

Image
  The number of hospital beds in Ontario remained unchanged for the last 20 years (through Liberal and Conservative governments) but Ontario’s population grew by 3 million. Now Ford plans to cut the extra beds put in place for the Pandemic despite Ontario Hospital Association recommendations to keep them. A million Ontario residents are waiting for surgery but Ford is only addressing the delays that exceed medical guidelines! So if you are waiting for surgery the government isn’t going to do a thing about it until your situation becomes critical. Here are the OHA Recommendations for budget 2022. For the 2022-23 fiscal year, annual year-over-year base operating pressure:  3.5% ($735 million)  Dedicated funding to reduce the massive backlog of procedures and services.  Continued reimbursement for COVID-related expenses and lost revenues   2022/23 to be a “learning year” to determine which of the COVID-related expenses and lost revenues plus inflationary cost...
Read more

Tax Avoidance

Image
65 years ago Canadian corporations collectively paid about the same amount of tax as private Canadians. Today private citizens collectively pay 3 times as much as Canadian corporations. “In an average year, the 102 biggest companies in Canada pay $10.5 billion less than they would if they paid tax at the official corporate tax rate.” - Toronto Star. But when Revenue Canada tries to recoup 4.4 billion due to offshore tax evasion they can expect to get, maybe half. - National Post Groups like Taxfairness have plenty of straight forward ideas to turn this around. Like a financial activities tax: “Canada’s biggest banks and insurance companies remained profitable through the financial crisis and topped the list of large corporations making higher profits than usual during the pandemic. A Financial Activities Tax could also help cool the over-heating asset market, including housing. Such a tax, as proposed by the IMF, would generate at least $7 billion annually.” The problem is not uniqu...
Read more

UNDRIP

This weekend the Globe and Mail reported that several provincial governments want more time to examine the legislation that would apply the principles of UNDRIP (the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples). With this bill in place UNDRIP principles would interpret existing laws while helping to shape any future law making. The legislation is built on NDP MP Romeo Sagansh’s private members bill that passed third reading then died when the 2019 election was called. The list of detractors, Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta etc. reads like a list of Conservative Provincial governments in Canada. They want more time for discussions with their “ industry stakeholders and Indigenous communities.” Notice how they put “industry stakeholders” before “Indigenous Peoples”? Of course PC governments want more time to figure out how to prevent a bill that might endanger their unfettered access to natural resources on treaty lands. Their “industry partners” might actually have to pay mineral a...
Read more