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Tuesday, January 17, 2006
3 important issues
health care:
Conservatives
Reforms: Prevent the drift toward two-tier health care. Establish maximum acceptable wait times for essential medical services. Press for faster processing of drug approvals. Support health research and innovation. Ban embryonic research for at least three years and encourage granting agencies to focus on more promising adult (post-natal) stem cell research.
Principles: Add a sixth principle to the Canada Health Act calling for stable and transparent federal funding.
Funding: Provide stable and transparent federal funding that grows when needed.
Liberals
Reforms: Focus on reducing wait times for medical procedures. Continue to follow the 10-year plan agreed to by first ministers in the fall of 2004. The deal includes targets for reducing wait times and plans to study national pharmacare and home care programs. Set aside $75 million to help patients and a family member pay for travel and accommodation if they need to go to another province for health care. Contribute to international efforts to combat infectious diseases. Establish a Canadian Mental Health Commission to better address mental health and illness issues.
Principles: Favour public delivery and financing of health-care services as opposed to private delivery. Funding must be directed only to the public health-care system.
Funding: Attach conditions to funding to ensure any future investment goes only to the public health-care system. Spend $100 million over five years to increase number of family doctors by 1,000. Spend $300 million over five years for cancer research and control.
NDP
Reforms: Hire more doctors and nurses and invest in more training, especially for the latter. Refuse money to doctors also working outside the public health-care system. Expand the coverage of home care for those caring for elderly or disabled relatives and implement the home-care transfer recommended in the Romanow Report and a national pharmacare program to lower the cost of prescription drugs. Shorten the length of patent protection for the makers of expensive new drugs. Ban unhealthy trans fatty acids from prepared and fast foods.
Principles: Stop further privatization. Introduce new rules in legislation and agreements on federal transfers to provinces for health care. Amend the Canada Health Act to eliminate for-profit private delivery of diagnostic services, such as MRIs, and outlaw giving medicare money to private hospitals, such as the ones that have started to take hold in Alberta.
Funding: Spend $200 million a year on training for nurses and health-care providers in health science education programs. Demand greater accountability from provinces and withhold federal health transfers to provinces that don't comply with the Canada Health Act. Increase support for provincial and territorial health initiatives
environment:
Conservatives
Energy: Develop a national alternative energy strategy to increase the use of renewable energy and support innovative research and development.
Protection: Introduce a tax credit for transit passes. Provide long-term funding to clean up federal contaminated sites and offer incentives to encourage the private sector to clean up contaminated sites. Make guidelines mandatory for ships on managing ballast water to prevent the introduction of invasive species.
Kyoto Protocol: Review all environment and energy initiatives, including Kyoto. The party has described the accord as fatally flawed.
Liberals
Energy: Offer financial incentives to encourage renewable energy power producers, individuals and industry to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Allow renewable energy producers to receive emission reduction credits and sell these to the Climate Fund Agency or other industries.
Protection: Implement a $1 billion, 10-year plan to clean up the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River basin and other threatened waterways. Develop domestic "offset credits" for farmers who adopt low- or zero-till practices. Created the Green Municipal Fund for municipalities to build environmentally sustainable infrastructure. Develop more stringent guidelines on water quality. Continue public awareness campaign to stop idling.
Kyoto Protocol: Find ways to accelerate progress to Kyoto targets. Invest $10 billion in the next seven years to achieve those targets. Encourage partnership with businesses and citizens to encourage emissions reduction. Give tax incentives for efficient and renewable energy production.
NDP
Energy: Set a target of 10,000 megawatts of wind power by 2010, with base financial support of 1.5 cents per kilowatt hour. Install 100,000 solar rooftops, with a federal grant of 30 per cent of the cost and loans for the remainder. Provide financial incentives for other renewable energy sources and to local co-operative and renewable power production. Phase out subsidies for non-renewable energy production and consumption and provide no new federal funding for nuclear power.
Protection: Create "green" jobs through a program that would fix municipal water and sewage systems and prevent them from polluting their environments. Establish national standards for air and drinking water and ban bulk water exports. Make polluters pay for the cost of cleaning up toxic sites. Overhaul the Canadian Environmental Protection Act to replace focus on voluntary pollution prevention with mandatory anti-pollution standards. Encourage farming and fishing practices that are environmentally friendly. Require mandatory labeling of genetically modified organisms. Complete the system of national parks, protect ancient forests, improve endangered species protection, set up a national conservation fund and deal with Great Lakes protection issues.
Kyoto Protocol: Meet Kyoto Protocol targets by 2010 by designing laws and regulations that lead to lower industry and community emissions, and creating a Climate Change Exchange to auction off emission credits and make it good business for corporations to pollute less. Use proceeds from the auction to replace coal power plants with hydro plants. Create new environmental jobs for workers displaced as Kyoto Protocol targets are met, and bring in a Clean Air Fund to create environmental industry jobs in local communities. Retrofit more buildings to consume less energy, with projects funded by a revolving loan fund with funds coming from and profits going to the Canada Pension Plan. Put every federal policy through a "greenscreen" to judge its environmental soundness or risk. Push for more environmentally friendly ways of transporting people and goods.
foreign affairs:
Conservatives
Human Rights: No stated policy found.
Developing Nations: Aid should be delivered, where possible, through Canadian agencies. Give the Canadian International Development Agency authority to monitor all development assistance money. Introduce legislation that would provide legal framework for development assistance money.
Trade: Vigorously pursue the reduction of international trade barriers and tariffs. Find new markets for Canadian through trade ties with emerging markets.
Liberals
Human Rights: Support the idea for a United Nations Human Rights Council. Establish a Global Centre for Pluralism in Canada, in partnership with the Aga Khan Foundation.
Developing Nations: Grant debt forgiveness to progressive developing nations. Increase international assistance by $3.4 billion with the intention of doubling assistance by 2010-2011 from its 2001-2002 level. Develop the Stabilization and Reconstruction Task Force to build human security and assist peacekeeping in Africa.
Trade: Support services to business that enhance the abilities of Canadian companies to compete and prosper in the global economy.
NDP
Human Rights: Push for binding rules in trade agreements to protect human rights, labour standards, cultural diversity and the environment.
Developing Nations: Canada must honour its commitment to devote 0.7 per cent of GDP to foreign aid. Forgive debts owed by developing nations.
Trade: Push for binding rules in trade agreements to protect human rights, labour standards, cultural diversity and the environment. Trade agreements should be approved by parliament.
http://www.cbc.ca/canadavotes/leadersparties/issues.html
how are you voting?
health care:
Conservatives
Reforms: Prevent the drift toward two-tier health care. Establish maximum acceptable wait times for essential medical services. Press for faster processing of drug approvals. Support health research and innovation. Ban embryonic research for at least three years and encourage granting agencies to focus on more promising adult (post-natal) stem cell research.
Principles: Add a sixth principle to the Canada Health Act calling for stable and transparent federal funding.
Funding: Provide stable and transparent federal funding that grows when needed.
Liberals
Reforms: Focus on reducing wait times for medical procedures. Continue to follow the 10-year plan agreed to by first ministers in the fall of 2004. The deal includes targets for reducing wait times and plans to study national pharmacare and home care programs. Set aside $75 million to help patients and a family member pay for travel and accommodation if they need to go to another province for health care. Contribute to international efforts to combat infectious diseases. Establish a Canadian Mental Health Commission to better address mental health and illness issues.
Principles: Favour public delivery and financing of health-care services as opposed to private delivery. Funding must be directed only to the public health-care system.
Funding: Attach conditions to funding to ensure any future investment goes only to the public health-care system. Spend $100 million over five years to increase number of family doctors by 1,000. Spend $300 million over five years for cancer research and control.
NDP
Reforms: Hire more doctors and nurses and invest in more training, especially for the latter. Refuse money to doctors also working outside the public health-care system. Expand the coverage of home care for those caring for elderly or disabled relatives and implement the home-care transfer recommended in the Romanow Report and a national pharmacare program to lower the cost of prescription drugs. Shorten the length of patent protection for the makers of expensive new drugs. Ban unhealthy trans fatty acids from prepared and fast foods.
Principles: Stop further privatization. Introduce new rules in legislation and agreements on federal transfers to provinces for health care. Amend the Canada Health Act to eliminate for-profit private delivery of diagnostic services, such as MRIs, and outlaw giving medicare money to private hospitals, such as the ones that have started to take hold in Alberta.
Funding: Spend $200 million a year on training for nurses and health-care providers in health science education programs. Demand greater accountability from provinces and withhold federal health transfers to provinces that don't comply with the Canada Health Act. Increase support for provincial and territorial health initiatives
environment:
Conservatives
Energy: Develop a national alternative energy strategy to increase the use of renewable energy and support innovative research and development.
Protection: Introduce a tax credit for transit passes. Provide long-term funding to clean up federal contaminated sites and offer incentives to encourage the private sector to clean up contaminated sites. Make guidelines mandatory for ships on managing ballast water to prevent the introduction of invasive species.
Kyoto Protocol: Review all environment and energy initiatives, including Kyoto. The party has described the accord as fatally flawed.
Liberals
Energy: Offer financial incentives to encourage renewable energy power producers, individuals and industry to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Allow renewable energy producers to receive emission reduction credits and sell these to the Climate Fund Agency or other industries.
Protection: Implement a $1 billion, 10-year plan to clean up the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River basin and other threatened waterways. Develop domestic "offset credits" for farmers who adopt low- or zero-till practices. Created the Green Municipal Fund for municipalities to build environmentally sustainable infrastructure. Develop more stringent guidelines on water quality. Continue public awareness campaign to stop idling.
Kyoto Protocol: Find ways to accelerate progress to Kyoto targets. Invest $10 billion in the next seven years to achieve those targets. Encourage partnership with businesses and citizens to encourage emissions reduction. Give tax incentives for efficient and renewable energy production.
NDP
Energy: Set a target of 10,000 megawatts of wind power by 2010, with base financial support of 1.5 cents per kilowatt hour. Install 100,000 solar rooftops, with a federal grant of 30 per cent of the cost and loans for the remainder. Provide financial incentives for other renewable energy sources and to local co-operative and renewable power production. Phase out subsidies for non-renewable energy production and consumption and provide no new federal funding for nuclear power.
Protection: Create "green" jobs through a program that would fix municipal water and sewage systems and prevent them from polluting their environments. Establish national standards for air and drinking water and ban bulk water exports. Make polluters pay for the cost of cleaning up toxic sites. Overhaul the Canadian Environmental Protection Act to replace focus on voluntary pollution prevention with mandatory anti-pollution standards. Encourage farming and fishing practices that are environmentally friendly. Require mandatory labeling of genetically modified organisms. Complete the system of national parks, protect ancient forests, improve endangered species protection, set up a national conservation fund and deal with Great Lakes protection issues.
Kyoto Protocol: Meet Kyoto Protocol targets by 2010 by designing laws and regulations that lead to lower industry and community emissions, and creating a Climate Change Exchange to auction off emission credits and make it good business for corporations to pollute less. Use proceeds from the auction to replace coal power plants with hydro plants. Create new environmental jobs for workers displaced as Kyoto Protocol targets are met, and bring in a Clean Air Fund to create environmental industry jobs in local communities. Retrofit more buildings to consume less energy, with projects funded by a revolving loan fund with funds coming from and profits going to the Canada Pension Plan. Put every federal policy through a "greenscreen" to judge its environmental soundness or risk. Push for more environmentally friendly ways of transporting people and goods.
foreign affairs:
Conservatives
Human Rights: No stated policy found.
Developing Nations: Aid should be delivered, where possible, through Canadian agencies. Give the Canadian International Development Agency authority to monitor all development assistance money. Introduce legislation that would provide legal framework for development assistance money.
Trade: Vigorously pursue the reduction of international trade barriers and tariffs. Find new markets for Canadian through trade ties with emerging markets.
Liberals
Human Rights: Support the idea for a United Nations Human Rights Council. Establish a Global Centre for Pluralism in Canada, in partnership with the Aga Khan Foundation.
Developing Nations: Grant debt forgiveness to progressive developing nations. Increase international assistance by $3.4 billion with the intention of doubling assistance by 2010-2011 from its 2001-2002 level. Develop the Stabilization and Reconstruction Task Force to build human security and assist peacekeeping in Africa.
Trade: Support services to business that enhance the abilities of Canadian companies to compete and prosper in the global economy.
NDP
Human Rights: Push for binding rules in trade agreements to protect human rights, labour standards, cultural diversity and the environment.
Developing Nations: Canada must honour its commitment to devote 0.7 per cent of GDP to foreign aid. Forgive debts owed by developing nations.
Trade: Push for binding rules in trade agreements to protect human rights, labour standards, cultural diversity and the environment. Trade agreements should be approved by parliament.
http://www.cbc.ca/canadavotes/leadersparties/issues.html
how are you voting?
// posted by naomi @ 1:35 p.m. 
Comments:
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I'm voting NDP. Although I'm tempted to vote green and in another riding I might vote liberal.
Although, now that the conservatives have reared their ugly head, I'm realizing how much I've actually liked the liberals over the past 3 or 4 years. Allowing gay marriage, not going into Iraq, managing the economy better than perhaps any government ever before, at least kind of trying to keep up with Kyoto etc...
How about you?
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Although, now that the conservatives have reared their ugly head, I'm realizing how much I've actually liked the liberals over the past 3 or 4 years. Allowing gay marriage, not going into Iraq, managing the economy better than perhaps any government ever before, at least kind of trying to keep up with Kyoto etc...
How about you?
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