NDP Platform – Federal Election 2021

As a non-partisan organization, OSPE considers it a civic duty for all Canadians to vote based on a clear understanding and knowledge of the platforms of each political party. In the upcoming weeks, OSPE will extract information from each official party platform on issues impacting the engineering community.

This week OSPE is showcasing the NDP’s 2021 electoral platform. Don’t forget to make sure you are registered to vote on Monday, September 20, 2021 by visiting  https://ereg.elections.ca/CWelcome.aspx.

Energy

  • Introduce smart grid technology, to bolster Canada’s energy security and distribute clean power across the country.
  • Set a target of net carbon-free electricity by 2030, and move to 100% non-emitting electricity by 2040.

Environment

  • Set a target of reducing our emissions by at least 50% from 2005 levels by 2030. To help us reach that goal the NDP would eliminate fossil fuel subsidies, put in place carbon budgets and change the mandate of the Bank of Canada to focus on contributing to net zero.
  • Improve the National Building Code to ensure that by 2025 every new building built in Canada is net-zero.
  • Retrofit all buildings in Canada by 2050
  • Enshrine in law an Environmental Bill of Rights and protect 30% of our land, freshwater and oceans by 2030
  • Create and fund a Climate Accountability Office, to provide independent oversight of federal climate progress.
  • Establish a new Canadian Climate Bank that will help boost investment in renewable energy, energy efficiency and low carbon technology across the country.
  • Immediately ban single-use plastics.
  • Hold companies responsible for the entire lifecycle of their plastic products and packaging, help municipalities improve their waste management and recycling systems, and support improved standards for what products can be labelled as recyclable.
  • Ban the export of plastic waste and help reduce electronic waste by removing unnecessary restrictions preventing people from repairing their devices.
  • Force big oil companies to pay to clean up inactive wells.
  • Create an Office of Environmental Justice to address the disproportionate impacts of pollution and loss of biodiversity on low-income, racialized and other marginalized communities.

Infrastructure

  • Support transit by permanently doubling the Canada Community-Building Fund and the NDP will develop a public inter-city bus program
  • Require the use of Canadian-made steel, aluminum, cement and wood products for infrastructure projects
  • Make sure that every Canadian has access to affordable, reliable high-speed broadband within four years
  • Electrify transit and other municipal fleets by 2030.
  • Support creating high-frequency rail along the Quebec-Windsor corridor, expand rail service options in other regions, and work to restore the Ontario Northlander to support the crucial transportation link for communities and businesses alike in Northern Ontario.
  • Make it easier to get and use a zero-emissions vehicle (ZEV). As Canada moves towards 100% of all new car sales being zero-emissions by 2035, the NDP will make sure that more of these vehicles are built here in Canada.
  • Waive the federal sales tax on ZEV purchases, and grow these incentives up to $15,000 per family for made-in-Canada vehicles.
  • Create a centre of excellence for research and development of ZEVs to move forward related technologies such as hydrogen, batteries, and energy storage solutions.

Indigenous Peoples

  • Support Indigenous food sovereignty, working in partnership with First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities to expand access to healthy food
  • Fully implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action.
  • Establish a National Council for Reconciliation to provide oversight and accountability for this process, reporting regularly to Parliament and Canadians.
  • Replace mere consultation with a standard of free, prior and informed consent for Indigenous communities affected by government policies – including for all decisions affecting constitutionally protected land rights, like energy project reviews.
  • Respect Inuit self-determination by co-developing the federal government’s Arctic Policy Framework through shared governance within the InuitCrown Partnership Committee
  • Fully implement Jordan’s Principle, working with the provinces and territories to end the delays and ensure equitable access to health services and educational supports for Indigenous children from coast to coast to coast.
  • Work with the provinces to establish Indigenous history education programs for all Canadians, based on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action 62 and 63.
  • Create a Northern Infrastructure Fund to fast-track investment and focus on improving much-needed infrastructure like roads and broadband internet for communities in the north.

Housing

  • Create at least 500,000 units of quality, affordable housing in the next ten years
  • In order to kick-start the construction of coops, social and non-profit housing and break the logjam that has prevented these groups from accessing housing funding, the NDP will set up dedicated fast-start funds to streamline the application process.
  • Spur the construction of affordable homes by waiving the federal portion of the GST/HST on the construction of new affordable rental units.
  • Re-introduce 30-year terms to CMHC insured mortgages on entry-level homes for first time home buyers.
  • Double the Home Buyer’s Tax Credit to $1,500.
  • Put in place a 20% Foreign Buyer’s tax on the sale of homes to individuals who aren’t Canadian citizens or permanent residents.

Taxes

  • Introduce a temporary COVID-19 excess profit tax that puts an additional 15% tax on large corporate windfall profits during the pandemic.
  • For the highest income individuals in Canada (those making over $210,000), the NDP will increase the top marginal tax rate by two points to 35 percent.
  • Increase the capital gains inclusion rate to 75 percent.
  • Boost the top marginal tax rate two points, put in place a luxury goods tax on things like yachts and private jets, and ask the very richest multi-millionaires to pay a bit more towards our shared services with a wealth tax.
  • Roll back the Conservatives’ corporate income tax cuts by three percentage points to 2010 levels.
  • Take measures to close loopholes that include eliminating bearer shares, compelling companies to prove the economic reason for their offshore transactions, and improving transparency on the taxes paid by large corporations.

Jobs and Skills Training

  • Make sure that small businesses wage and rent subsidies continue until small businesses are able to fully reopen.
  • Create a new Workers Development and Opportunities Fund to expand training options beyond people who qualify for Employment Insurance (EI).
  • Put in place a living federal minimum wage starting at $15 an hour and rising to $20 an hour, indexed to the cost of living.
  • Ban unpaid internships outside of education programs.

Health Care

  • Create a national pharmacare program that provides universal, public, comprehensive coverage to everyone in Canada.
  • Tackle wait times and improve access to primary care across the country
  • Establish a crown corporation charged with domestic vaccine production so that Canadians are never again at the back of the line.
  • Develop a roadmap to incorporate universal dental care into Canada’s public health care system.
  • Ensure Canadians living with a disability have a guaranteed livable income.
  • Bring in mental health care for uninsured Canadians.
  • End the criminalization and stigma of drug addiction.
  • Support overdose prevention sites and expand access to treatment on demand.

Research and Innovation

  • Convene an auto summit with provincial, municipal, industry and labour leaders to develop a consensus on a National Automotive Strategy to attract and retain jobs and investment.

Diversity and Inclusion

  • Tackle femicide and the NDP will deliver a National Action Plan to end gender-based violence.
  • Prioritize pay equity
  • Address violence against Indigenous women, girls and LGBTQI2S+ people by working with Indigenous peoples to implement all the Calls for Justice of the National Inquiry.
  • Tackle obstacles to women’s political participation by reforming the electoral system and introducing legislation to encourage political parties to run more women candidates.
  • Immediately legislate a ban on conversion therapy in Canada.
  • Establish a clear and permanent path for resettlement of LGBTQI2S+ refugees in Canada.
  • Take on white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups with a national action plan to dismantle far-right extremist organizations.
  • Prioritize the collection of race-based data on health, employment, policing and more with the goal of improving outcomes for racialized communities.

Read the the full NDP Platform: Ready for Better: New Democrats’ Commitments to You.

What do you think of the federal NDP platform? Are these promises attainable?

This Post Has 11 Comments

  1. Kim Roberts

    The average apartment starts at minimum 900. Disability gives you for 450. For shelter .

    1. Whitney Williams

      As Canadians we don’t get angry enough for change to happen. We don’t speak up and we don’t demand better. We should all be angry, as Canadians we should expect better. So why don’t we? No matter how one looks at it we do not receive an amount that sustains us within todays cost of living, but many of us are too weak and too ill to fight it. And our government knows it.
      I hope so deeply that Jagmeet Singh becomes our Prime Minister as i see in him an honorable man who would do right by all people of this country. And if not today then for the sake of us all one day very soon.

  2. Glenn Murray

    More info on climate change plus getting rid of the first past the post election system

  3. Linda Diane Bergeron

    A good place to start to control the housing market is to outlaw real estate hedge funds and pass laws preventing brokers, brokerages and their representatives from using their position in the market to control what sellers accept rather
    than allowing sellers to see all the offers and make their own decisions. Also stop real estate from purchasing properties and renting them if market looks good and after renting them throw them on the market at a profit.

    Also welfare needs to not be given but earned even if it means just improving their rental unit and being good neighbours to others around them. Presently many are very harassing : calling people names, loud and rude behaviour and acting like the world owes them everything. This teaches their children to be the same and while they have the children many other people have few opportunities to have children due to tough work schedules, poor salaries and lack of time to socialize to meet people.
    The political process gives few people a voice so there is really no democracy as good democracy allows everyone a voice and this means easy access to information which we do not have. We need more direct democracy to ensure that everyone has the knowledge to understand and vote for a good society.

  4. Sheila

    I’d like to see the nursing shortage/poor treatment of health care workers addressed as well as encouraging regenerative agriculture to combat climate change.

  5. Jodi

    It’s true rents are out of control and ODSP gives me 1246 a month..my rent increases every single year by about 4%…but I’m maxed with ODSP so now after my rent increasing 18-23 dollars a year for 8 years I pay rent which is $ 1021 a month plus $45-60 for hydro…I utilize the food bank when I can get help…my disabilities are physical and impact my mobilty…this is no life…I’m 56 and found myself looking into medically assisted death. The reality is I’ll end up homeless in a couple years and end up dying on the streets. One less mouth to feed I guess.

  6. Gayle Bowman

    Why has long term care been put on the back burner? It was a terrible mess and has been for some time. I saw a mention that you are going to fix it yet there is not a single mention of how in all of your sites I have looked at so far, My vote is undecided because the things I want to see, like regulations protecting seniors in LTC homes that actually give families some teeth to sue the owners who neglect the people they promised to protect. They are disgusting and should have lost their right to run and profit from these terrible injustices yet they still are operating the very homes they let seniors die in. Im tired of seniors in Ontario and Canada being treated like disposable and inconvenient members of this country. What are you going to do to change that?

  7. Andi Anderson

    is there anything for seniors like increase in old age pensions

  8. Larry Hill

    What are you doing for seniors and vets who are living on poverty incomes. They need a bigger raise on their monthly pensions than what they have been getting………..

  9. Alix

    The needs of renters and buyers are opposed arent they? Home owners want their homes to accumulate value as much as possible. People who cannot afford to buy a home now will want this too if changes to government policy makes it possible for them to own a home- but there will always be people who cannot afford to do so ie. Most Single parent families and families with low income, Welfare recepients, low wage workers, migrant workers, students and PEOPLE WHO ARE CURRENTLY HOMELESS. people with no housing or insecure/decrepit housing should clearly be the priority. Even if not many of these people vote (i wonder why) i think most people have a family member or friend who is. Its nuts to talk about affordability of housing and include both easier mortgages and “affordable” rentals when the CMHCA (canadian mortgage provider) has since is inception been strongly opposed to public housing. If everyone owns a home and expects it to be how they accumulate wealth how will finding a place to rent not be highly competitive ?

Leave a Reply

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.