Canada Votes 2021: Week 1 of the Campaign

The first week of the election campaign has wrapped up! The party leaders have been crisscrossing Canada, connecting with Canadians, and announcing their policy ideas.

Here’s some of what the parties have promised so far:

Liberal Party of Canada

  • Extending the Canada Recovery Hiring Program to help more Canadians get back on the job.
  • Launching the Arts and Culture Recovery Program to support Canadian performing arts and cultural venues.
  • Create a plan to support families with $10 per day child care.
  • Create 23,000 new child care spaces.
  • Hire 50,000 new personal support workers.
  • Higher wages for personal support workers.
  • Up to $1500 more to help seniors stay in their homes longer.
  • Improving the quality, affordability, and safety of long-term care homes.
  • Trudeau has criticized the Conservatives for not supporting mandatory vaccination against COVID-19 for federal workers.

Conservative Party of Canada

  • Banning foreign investors from buying homes.
  • Building 1 million new homes in 3 years.
  • Committing to a serious, credible approach to respond to climate change.
  • Invest $325 million over the next 3 years in drug treatment beds and recovery centres.
  • Partner with provinces to ensure Naloxone kits are available for free.
  • Increase the Disability Supplement in the Canada Workers Benefit from $713 to $1500.
  • An additional $80 million per year for the Enabling Accessibility Fund.
  • Pay 25% of the salary of new hires for six months, with a bonus for those who are unemployed for over 6 months.
  • A GST Holiday in December.

New Democratic Party (NDP)

  • Singh supports a vaccine mandate for federal workers and would implement it in a quick manner.
  • Putting a 20 per cent Foreign Buyer’s tax on the sale of homes to individuals who are not Canadian citizens or Permanent Residents.
  • Build 500,000 affordable homes in ten years.
  • Create a $250 million Critical Shortages Fund, which would help train and hire 2,000 nurses.
  • Work to fully implement all outstanding recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report.
  • Providing help of up to $5,000 a year while we tackle wait lists for affordable housing.
  • Build 500,000 affordable homes within ten years.

Bloc Québécois

  • Increase health funding for Quebec.
  • Create a “green equalization” program to reward the provinces that fight effectively against climate change.
  • Make sufficient knowledge of French a condition for obtaining Canadian citizenship in Quebec.
  • To create a Quebec organization to replace the CRTC because “one shouldn’t entrust one’s culture to a neighbouring nation.”
  • To allow Quebec to sign international treaties.
  • To replace the Indian Act with a set of negotiated nation-to-nation treaties.
  • Put forward a tax on wealth and a three per cent tax on digital giants.

Green Party of Canada

  • Annamie Paul spent the week in Toronto, where her goal is to be elected in the riding of Toronto Centre.
  • The Greens have decided to gradually introduce their policy announcements.
  • The Green Party calls for the recall of Parliament to debate the desperate situation in Afghanistan, though constitutional experts say this isn’t possible during an election.
  • Paul believes the government needs to more clearly detail how exactly a vaccine mandate for federal workers would work.
  • The Greens believe the government needs to walk away from the Trans Mountain pipeline.

Stay tuned for more election coverage and analysis (all created by youth), right here on theneighbourhoodpost.com, and on our Instagram @theneighbourhoodpost!