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Like the Liberal and Conservative Parties, the New Democratic Party is going into the 2004 election with a new leader. Under Jack Layton, the party policy takes a clear stand on controversial issues, such as same-sex marriage and the decriminalization of marijuana. The NDP platform also emphasizes clean economic growth and green jobs.
Health care
- Canadians should be entitled to quality health care, regardless of wealth
- Reduce prescription drug costs with a national bulk-buying program
- Prohibit public money from going to private-for-profit clinics, and make diagnostics such as MRI's medically necessary services
- Phase in a pharmacare program, starting with low-income Canadians and those facing massive drug costs
- Outlaw the practice of "evergreening" prescription drugs. (evergreening refers to the practice of putting patent applications on slight variations of the same drug)
- Improve health-care services for First Nations; focus on closer-to-home solutions, rather than medical evacuations
- Implement public and non-profit-based home care
- Establish more community-based clinics to deal with minor medical problems
- Restore funding to ParticipAction, that national program that encouraged physical activity
- Promote proven alternative and traditional health practices
- Ban trans fatty acids in foods as they have done in a few European countries
- Ensure access to safe, therapeutic abortions
- Ensure the federal government address by "Romanow Gap" by paying 25 per cent of its costs within two years
- Better recognize foreign credentials of health professionals
- Implement recommendations on nursing shortages, made by the Canadian Nursing Advisory Committee
- Create a National Public Health Agency, modeled on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control
- Pursue a major federal plan focusing on prevention through better nutrition, exercise, quality housing and a healthy environment
- Take a precautionary approach to the approval of food and drugs
- Establish a Royal Commission to look at how to protect the sustainability of medicare
Same-sex marriage
- The NDP supports same-sex marriage, while respecting the rights of each religion to determine its own definition of marriage
- Abandon Martin's appeal of the court decision extending retroactive CPP survivor benefits to same-sex couples
Defence
- Support safe helicopters for the Canadian Armed Forces
- Make peacekeeping a priority, under the auspices of the UN
- Establish a Royal Commission to conduct a review of Canada's role in the post-Cold War world
- Increase salaries and improved housing for members of the Armed Forces
- Separate the Coast Guard from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans
- Work with other countries to develop replacements for NORAD and NATO
- Against the introduction of a national identity card
- Scrap the Anti-Terrorism Act
- The NDP is opposed to joining the U.S. missile defence plan
- Work with the United States to beef up border security
- Increase security provisions at remote airports
- Launch a full review of Canadian national defence
- Ensure Parliament votes before committing troops overseas
- If a decision is made not to enter war, members of the Canadian Armed Forces should not serve in or command other people's militaries
- Continue to work within mulinational arms reduction treaties to eventually eliminate chemical, biological and nuclear weapons
- Introduce legislation to ban racial profiling from federal departments and jurisdictions
Marijuana
- Introduce a non-punitive rule-based approach to deal with adult marijuana use
Municipalities
- Divert half the federal gas tax to municipalities to build infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists
- Restart a 10-year national housing program to build 200,000 affordable and co-op housing units
- Tax incentives for developers to develop and restore downtown buildings
- Use profits made by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation to underwrite low-interest mortgages for affordable housing
- Provide incentives for employers to provide transit passes as part of benefits
- All municipalities should receive a full refund on the GST and a portion of the federal gas tax for green transportation infrastructure
- Start a national building retrofit program for conservations and energy efficiency, paid for through future energy savings
- The NDP supports a permanent infrastructure program to protect the water supply
Crime
- Focus on eliminating poverty and investing in children at risk as root causes of crime
- Toughen up sentences, bail and release conditions for repeat violent offenders
- Develop a Victims' Bill of Rights
- Reinstate a national ports police to combat organized crime and smuggling
- Strengthen laws to combat organized crime and anti-gang laws, including better support for "megatrials"
- Support a national sex offender registry
- Ban the sale of assault rifles and automatic weapons
- Stengthen border controls and penalties for illegally importing guns into Canada
- Introduce a non-punitive rule-based approach to deal with adult marijuana use
- Launch a major anti-drug and anti-alcohol education program aimed at youth
- Expand the harm-reduction model for hard drugs, similar to injection sites used in Vancouver
- Ensure transparency and accountability in corporate accounting by bringing Canadian regulations in line with those in post-Enron America
Gun registry
- The NDP supports gun control but has serious concerns about the cost of the gun registry
Democratic Reform
- The NDP proposes a referendum on whether to change the voting system to one based on proportional representation, which would give parties seats based on based on the percentage of votes they receive
- Abolish the Senate
- Create aboriginal seats in Parliament
- Lower the voting age to 16
- Create an independent ethics counsellor, toughen up conflict-of-interest guidelines and crack down on expense accounts
- Implement a Parliamentary review of senior appointments to bodies such as Crown corporations, agencies and boards
- Have "third parties" report publicly on the funds they received for election campaigns and advertising
- Crack down on unaccountable election slush funds
- Enact whistleblower laws to protect civil servants
- Improve federal-provincial-territorial relationships through the Council of the Federation
- Ensure Parliament votes before committing troops overseas
Government accountability
- Create an independent ethics counsellor, toughen up conflict-of-interest guidelines and cracking down on expense accounts
- Implement a Parliamentary review of senior appointments to bodies such as Crown corporations, agencies and boards
- Have "third parties" report publicly on the funds they received for election campaigns and advertising
- Crack down on unaccountable election slush funds
- Enact whistleblower laws to protect civil servants
Taxes
- Ensure all Canadians who make less than $15,000 do not pay federal income tax
- Guarantee full indexing of tax brackets and credits
- Remove the GST from family essentials, including children's clothing and medicine, school supplies, books, magazines, female hygiene products and medical equipment
- Increase the Child Tax Benefit to $4,900 per child and allow Canada's poorest families, who don't pay tax, to qualify
- Make the disability tax credit and medical expenses tax credit fully refundable
- Abolish security fees on air travel
- Implement a U.S.-style tax inheritance on amounts of more than $1 million
- Treat income from capital gains the same as all employment income
- Reverse corporate tax deductions
- Keep EI premium rates at current levels
- Cancel all tax treaties with tax havens like Barbados
- Index the GST exemption threshold for small and home businesses to the rate of inflation
- Prohibit the practice of letting corporations deduct fines for environmental infractions or unsafe workplaces from their taxes
- Close corporate and very high income tax loopholes
Foreign policy
- Increase Canada's international development aid to 0.7 per cent of the GDP by 2015
- Canada should cancel all debts owed to us by developing countries while encouraging democracy and human rights in countries severely lacking
- Implement the Tobin Tax on currency speculation
- End Canada's long-standing objection to a G8 report that shows sustainable development is possible for developing nations through pollution-free renewable energy
- replace undemocratic, corporate-driven trade deals like NAFTA and the WTO with agreements based on the principles of fair and equitable trade
- Strengthen the United Nations and regional security bodies such as the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, to replace NATO and NORAD
- Strengthen the Special Economic Measures Act to enable Canada to implement economic sanctions on Canadian companies that contribute to serious human rights violations overseas
- Amend the State Immunity Act to allow Canadians to sue foreign governments for torture, war crimes and crimes against humanity
- Ensure peace and justice in the Middle East by working within the framework of United Nations resolutions and international law
- Support Canada's continued participation in multinational organizations such as La Francophonie and the Commonwealth
- Adopt legislation that allows criminal prosecution of Canadian-based corporations guilty of human rights violations overseas
- Ensure cheaper, generic versions of AIDS drugs are made available to developing countries
- Triple existing funding to the Global Fund for AIDS
- Create a new agency to promote fair and democratic elections in among emerging democracies
Immigration
- Raise immigration levels to one per cent of the population
- Enact a once-in-a-lifetime provision to enable Canadian citizens and permanent residents to sponsor one relative
- Work with the provinces and territories to better recognize foreign credentials of professionals
- Eliminate the head tax on immigrants
- Freeze immigration fees, and use the money instead for education and skills training in Canada
- End lengthy delays in processing applications from such posts as Beijing and Delhi
- Amend current immigration laws, that currently bar most immigrants that would have been admitted during the Trudeau era
- Allow those who already call Canada home the opportunity to apply for legal status
Environment
- Use the sale of Ottawa's 19-per-cent stake in Petro-Canada as collateral to borrow capital for a new Crown corporation for renewable energy
- Apply the polluter-pay principle
- Help Canada shift from fossil and nuclear energy toward green energy with a phased in tax regime
- Build more wind turbines and foster markets for wind energy
- Auction off emission credits to corporations
- Establish a university degree program in green technology
Transportation
- Share half of the federal gas tax to improve public transit, cycling and pedestrian infrastructure in urban areas, and freight rail and rural roads in rural communities
- Provide tax incentives and funding for research into new fuel technology for cars
- Make emission targets mandatory for all manufacturers selling cars in Canada, not voluntary
- Set mandatory sales targets for green cars
- Provide GST rebates on greener cars
- Make public transit passes to employees a tax deduction for employers
Kyoto
- Retrofit buildings to cut pollution, reduce energy costs and create jobs
- Export cleaner power from Quebec and Manitoba to coal-dependent provinces through an east-west transmission grid
- Support only those carbon sink projects that improve local biodiversity
Water
- New deal for cities should make clean drinking water and sustainable waste water treatment a priority
- Implement a ban on bulk water exports
- Create a federal department of water stewardship to develop common standards
- Draft national guidelines for clean drinking water
Toxics
- Ban all imports of toxic waste
- Require chemical companies to produce scientific evidence of a chemical's safety
- Renegotiate NAFTA with regard to environmental treaties
Biodiversity
- Let scientists, not politicians, determine whether a species is at risk, and aim to protect their habitat
- Impose a moratorium on new genetically engineered crops, and make labeling of all GMO's mandatory
- Impose a moratorium on current fish farm practices
- Move to sustainable forest practices
Aboriginals
- Convene a First Ministers' conference to discuss the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples
- Settle land claims and encourage partnerships between the business community and aboriginals
- Establish an Independent Land Claims commission to decide on specific claims
- Train 10,000 aboriginals in health, education and social services
- Make housing and infrastructure programs in aboriginal communities a top priority
- Expand the use of traditional aboriginal justice in the criminal justice system
- Abandon any appeal of court decisions on Indian residential schools and negotiate fairs settlements with abuse victims
- Create aboriginal seats in Parliament
- Recognize aboriginal self-governance as a fundamental component of a modern federal state
- Invest in new funding, staff and facilities for First Nations with regard to health care
- Improve health-care services for First Nations; focus on closer-to-home solutions, rather than medical evacuations
- Develop a national strategy to deal with issues faced by urban aboriginals
- Include First Nations leaders in all talks with provincial, territorial leaders and federal health care leaders
- Make clean water for aboriginal communities a top priority
- End low-level flight testing over Innu lands
Trade
- Replace undemocratic, corporate-driven trade deals like NAFTA and the WTO with agreements based on the principles of fair and equitable trade
- Eliminate the investor-state dispute mechanism in NAFTA, or Chapter 11
- Refuse to sign any agreement that contains investor state mechanisms
- Work with countries world-wide to negotiate a fair trade agreement that respects existing environmental, social and labour treaties
Education
- Cut tuition fees for post-secondary education with a plan to reduce fees by 10 per cent and then freeze them by increasing federal funding
- Provide needs-based grants to replace those administered by the Millennium Scholarship Fund
- Credit all interest accrued on Student Loans against graduates' income taxes
- Create a national training strategy for life-long learning for workers
- Develop a strategy with provinces and territories to ensure high-quality early childhood education across Canada within a decade
- Work with the provinces to establish a Canada Post-Secondary Education Act to prevent private, for-profit universities
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