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What you need to know about the Green Party platform

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May arrives for the French-language Federal leaders' debate in Gatineau, Quebec on Thursday, Oct. 10, 2019. (Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press via AP)
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May arrives for the French-language Federal leaders' debate in Gatineau, Quebec on Thursday, Oct. 10, 2019. (Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press via AP)

Some called the Greens a single-issue party but Elizabeth May has outlined a number of commitments in the party’s platform, including funding for enhanced health care services and housing benefits.

Here are some highlights from the Green Party platform:

Taxes

  • Establish an arm’s length Federal Tax Commission to analyze the tax system for fairness and accessibility

  • Close “tax loopholes” that benefit the wealthy (the stock option loophole and capital gains loophole)

  • Apply a corporate tax on transnational e-commerce companies doing business in Canada

  • Impose a financial transactions tax of 0.5 per cent in the finance sector

  • Increase the federal corporate tax rate from 15 to 21 per cent

  • Charge a five per cent surtax on commercial bank profits

  • Apply a one per cent tax on net (family) wealth above $20 million

Housing

  • Legislate housing as a legally protected fundamental human right

  • Increase the National Housing Co-investment Fund by $750 million for new builds

  • Increase the Canada Housing Benefit by $750 million for rent assistance for 125,000 households

  • Eliminate the first-time home buyer grant

  • Restore tax incentives for building purpose-built rental housing

Health

  • Expand the single-payer Medicare model to include Pharmacare for everyone as well as free dental care for low-income Canadians

  • Increase funding to community-based organizations to test drugs and make Naloxone kits widely available to treat overdoses

  • Establish a national mental health strategy and a suicide prevention strategy

Climate Change and Environment

  • Hold global warming to no more than 1.5 C global average temperature increase

  • Pass into law a Climate Change Act requiring a 60 per cent cut in climate-changing emissions by 2030 reaching net zero in 2050

  • Establish a cross-party inner cabinet to deal with climate change

  • No new pipelines, or coal, oil or gas drilling or mining

  • Bitumen production phased out between 2030 and 2035

  • Fracking operations will be banned and the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion will be cancelled

  • By 2030, 100 per cent of Canada’s electricity will come from renewable sources

  • Develop a national transportation strategy with a goal of reaching zero-carbon public ground transportation everywhere in Canada by 2040

  • Ban the sale of internal combustion engine passenger vehicles by 2030

  • Exempt new and used electric and zero-emission vehicles from federal sales tax

  • Establish a Canadian Sustainable Generations Fund to make critical investments in trades, apprenticeships and education required for the transition to a green economy

  • Dedicate $5 million per year to develop a food waste strategy

  • Set national targets to reduce the production of solid waste

  • By January 2022, ban the production, distribution and sale of all unnecessary or non-essential petroleum-based single-use plastics

  • By 2021, require all new washing machines sold in Canada to have a removable, cleanable filter to capture micro-fibres

  • Expand marine protected areas from 10 to 30 per cent of Canada’s territorial waters by 2030

Immigration and Refugees

  • Ensure professionals being considered for immigration have the licensing requirements for their professions clearly explained before entry

  • Lead a national discussion to define the term “environmental refugee,” advocate for its inclusion as a refugee category in Canada and accept an appropriate share of the world’s environmental refugees

  • Eliminate the Temporary Foreign Workers Program and address labour shortages by increasing immigration

  • Establish a program to process the estimated 200,000 people living in Canada without official status

  • Terminate Canada’s Safe Third Country Agreement with the U.S.

Governance

  • Increase the powers of the Privacy Commissioner to protect identity and personal data, and to enforce privacy laws

  • Launch a Citizens Assembly on Electoral Reform in March 2020 to replace the first past the post electoral system

  • Lower the voting age to 16