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The Green Party of Canada has an extensive platform that covers everything from same-sex marriage to waste management. One of its key values is sustainability, both environmentally and fiscally. Like many of the other parties, it places a heavy emphasis on health and education. But the platform also includes policies on crime and foreign policy.
Health care
- Promote more outdoor activities and nutritious eating
- Provide research funding for alternative healing practices
- Enforce stricter labeling of food
- Establish the Canadian National Health Council, as recommended by the Romanow Commission
- Cut down on the number of working hours
- Replace the current Canada Food Guide with a new food guide that emphasizes fruits, vegetables and (for the first time) alternatives to meat and dairy products
- Hold a referendum on expanding the Canada Health Act to include prescription medicines
- Set targets to increase the number of Canadians who are physically active by 10 percentage points over the next five years
- Compensate doctors and hospitals that promote healthy living and disease prevention
- Establish three task forces to address health care problems "on a holistic and societal level"
- Respect the rights of the terminally ill to refuse treatment
- Reduce by 15 per cent the prevalence of obesity, as well as some cancers, including breast, colon, lung and prostate
- Encourage the full-cost pricing of tobacco products and junk food
- Ensure that Health Canada has enough funding to continue aboriginal and population-health initiatives
- Prohibit reproductive cloning
- Allow surplus cells created through IVF to be used for research
- Allow the creation of embryonic stem cells through nuclear transfer
Same-sex marriage
- The Green Party supports same-sex marriage
- Plans to uphold decisions by Ontario and B.C. courts
Defence
- Maintain a Rapid Response and Deployment Force capable of supporting humanitarian, environmental and peace-keeping missions
- Merge the National Reserve Force and Canadian Coast Guard to assume domestic responsibilities currently carried out by DND
- Combine the Department of National Defence, Foreign Affairs and the Canadian International Development Agency into one department -- Department of International Affairs and Global Security
- Only engage in military operations sanctioned by Parliament and the United Nations
Marijuana
- Legalize, regulate and tax marijuana production
- Use part of the tax revenues to fund addiction prevention and treatment
- Allow provinces to decide where and in what circumstances marijuana can be purchased legally
- Law enforcement should be directed at prohibiting exports and illegal production
- Amend the Controlled Substances Act to ensure provinces have a full range of options available for harm reduction and public health programs
- Provinces should create safe-injection clinics, needle exchanges and giving certified drug addicts access to safe doses
Municipalities
- Negotiate an agreement to give municipalities a share of the tax revenues
- Create new funding networks for more locally-run housing, childcare and health programs
- Support grassroots movement to create municipal charters
- Allow cities to license smaller, more efficient vehicles and exercise more control over transportation policies
- Introduce a fund for local and municipal procurement of electricity meters, through the Federation of Canadian Municipalities
Crime
- Allow more sentencing circles, house arrests and community service and civil suits for non-violent offenders
- Keep non-violent people who are employed under house arrest on parole or performing community service
- Decriminalize non-compliance with the national firearms registry and eliminate registration fees
- Legalize and tax marijuana production and consumption
- Recommend that provinces create safe injections clinics, needle exchange programs and access to "safe doses" for certified addicts
- Increase funding for women's shelters
- Create a task force on sex trafficking
- Provide counseling for sex workers trying to leave the trade
Gun registry
- Call a public inquiry into the ballooning costs of the federal gun registry
- Maintain the ban on fully automatic and paramilitary weapons
- Keep the registration of hand-guns and pistols
- Before getting a gun, the owner must have a firearm acquisition certificate
- Enforce a 28-day waiting period for a firearms acquisition certificate
- Require firearms owner to be licensed and trained to use a gun
- Prohibit youths under 16 and anyone with a criminal record from owning a gun
- Legislate mandatory jail time for anyone who commits a crime with a gun
Democratic Reform
- The Green Party will hold a national referendum on the future of the Senate
- The party believes in proportional representation, where the percentage of party seats won equal the party's percentage of the popular vote
- The Green Party will implement "fixed election dates" and "mid-term" referendums to be held after two years
Government accountability
- Allow the public to obtain detailed quarterly financial reports, including program expenditures and expenses of elected officials and civil servants
- Immediately release to the public all results of publicly-funded polling
- Ensure all newly-elected politicians undergo mandatory training in ethics and management
- Broadcast committee meetings and "town hall" citizens' meetings on television and the Internet
- Establish "whistleblower" protection
Taxes
- Lower taxes on income, profit and investment, while raising taxes on harmful activities such as pollution, waste and inefficiency
- Increase fuel taxes by ten cents per litre - to be phased in over three years
- Phase in a $10 per ton coal consumption tax - also to be phased in over three years
- Remove tax breaks on pesticides
- Implement a carbon tax on gasoline, diesel and coal
- Exclude ethanol blends and biodiesel from fuel tax increases
- Use half the revenue from pollution taxes to decrease income taxes
- The Green Party will reduce the marginal tax rate on the lowest federal tax bracket to give Canadians a tax cut of $3.5 billion
- Cancel planned cuts to corporate capital taxes
- Create a three-tiered annual rate of capital tax of $1,750 or $2,250 or $2,750 per each million dollars in paid-up capital
- Shift taxes onto land use and away from incomes
- Establish a special five-year tax break on energy efficiency retrofits in commercial and residential buildings
- Fund a citizens' body to review all federal tax regulations and recommend changes to promote clarity, as well as decrease the likelihood of future tax disputes
- Implement a national GST "feebate" program to promote fuel efficient cars and trucks - increase the GST on personal vehicles that are in the bottom half with respect to fuel efficiency, eliminate the GST for personal vehicles in the top half
- Create tax breaks for companies that are certified for ISO 9000 and ISO 14000
- Create tax-incentives for businesses to implement flexible schedules and on-site childcare
Foreign policy
- Declare Canada a military nuclear-free zone
- Only engage in military operations sanctioned by Parliament and the United Nations
- Push the development of the International Court of Justice
- Re-evaluate Canada's role in NATO
- Promote a United Nations without vetoes or permanent memberships; representation will be awarded to five more populous nations, the five wealthiest nations and five other nations elected from the general assembly
- Propose a standing international peacekeeping force under the UN
- Advocate for the creation of states for both Israelis and Palestinians
- Keep Canadian companies from selling military hardware to developing countries, or nations with poor records of human rights
- Support the provision of royalty-free medicine for Africa
- Support self-governance for Tibetan and Kurdish peoples
- Advocate for a sustained multinational peacekeeping force in the Congo
- Seek cooperation in the international community to police extremist and violence-prone groups who are a barrier to peace
- Lead a campaign to reduce unjust debt by "unscrupulous leaders"
- Opposed to space-based weapons
Immigration
- Remove barriers for reinstating professional credentials
- Reduce the costs of immigration, regulate the practices of "immigration consultants" and punish illegal smugglers
- Give cultural organizations charitable status
- Improve access to language instruction and the education system
- Improve the screening system to exclude potential immigrants with criminal histories
- Direct special funding to public schools in "landing zones" for new Canadians
Environment
- Increase fuel taxes by 10 cents per litre - to be phased in over three years
- Phase in a $10 per ton coal consumption tax - also to be phased in over three years
- Remove tax breaks on pesticides
- Implement a carbon tax on gasoline, diesel and coal
- Exclude ethanol blends and biodiesel from fuel tax increases
- Use half the revenue from pollution taxes to decrease income taxes
- Reduce energy demand and create good jobs through conservation and efficiency measures
- Develop renewable and alternative energy sources to phase out fossil fuel and nuclear power within 50 years
- Establish a special five-year tax break on energy efficiency retrofits in commercial and residential buildings
- Offer loans to small and medium-sized businesses to reduce their energy usage and operating costs
- Introduce a fund for local and municipal procurement of electricity meters, through the Federation of Canadian Municipalities
- Add CO2 to the National Registry of Pollutants
- A Green Party government will create a long term pollution management and reduction plan for all the chemicals in the National Pollutant Release Inventory
- Halt petroleum drilling in ecologically sensitive areas
- Perform an evaluation of all federally funded nuclear programs and plan to phase out federal funding
- Create offices for bioregional stewards, under the mandate of Environment Canada
- Seek intervener status in legal actions that impact the health of the ecosystem.
- Advocate for the maintenance of natural corridors
- Work with local environmental groups to reduce pollution levels in air, water and land
- Allocate funding for research on future energy and to host bi-annual international energy conferences
- Monitor waste management, and promote technologies that use sewage as an alternate energy source
Kyoto
- The Green Party says although the Kyoto Protocol is flawed, it is better to develop the treaty than lose time trying to negotiate a stronger agreement
- However, it recommends cancelling the mandate of the Voluntary Challenge Registry as Canada's Kyoto registry
- The party wants to restart a government-run Greenhouse Gas Emissions Registry
- It will require all companies earning more than $1 million in annual revenue to submit reports to the organization
Aboriginals
- Legislate "first use" fishing, hunting, trapping and logging rights to aboriginal and Metis people under federal jurisdiction
- Honor Canada's fiduciary responsibility to Aboriginal peoples
- Support a First Nations process that will address governance issues, legislative inconsistencies, policy inequities, reconciliation and the dismantling of the Department of Indian Affairs, if so desired
- Make aboriginal culture and history a mandatory component of Canadian history
- Deliver health care, education and other services in a way that incorporates traditional practices
Trade
- Propose a reform of the World Trade Organization and recommend it be placed under the United Nations General Assembly
- Renegotiate trade agreements to include punitive damages for nations who fail to protect human rights or follow environmental guidelines
- Renegotiate international trade agreements to ensure that they protect each nation's ability to regulate health care systems
Education
- Increase funding for early childhood education programs
- Re-invest in core funding for universities and colleges
- Roll back tuition to more affordable levels
- Establish a national life mentorship program matching seniors with younger people
- Allow retired people tuition-free access to college and university programs
- Provide needs-based grants
- Exempt education from future international trade agreements
- Encourage apprenticeships and skills enhancement by creating industry-wide cooperative education initiatives
- Direct special funding to public schools in "landing zones" for new Canadians
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