Enter NDP: election platform aims to show why it’s a better alternative for Ontario than the Conservatives

By John Bkila (NewsHooked) | Wednesday, April 18, 2018 at 07:00

 

So, the Ontario NDP finally decided to remind us all it still exists.

Leader Andrea Horwath unveiled the party’s 97-page platform — titled Change for the Better — ahead of the June 7 election.

The strategic move separates the NDP from Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals, which released its spend-to-get-votes budget, pleasing some and angering others with its projected $6.7-billion deficit in the first year.

And from the Ontario PC’s, led by rookie Doug Ford, who has taken every chance to slam the Liberals, but not really offering much specifics on how his party will change things for the better.

I have to hand to Horwath, she’s not just saying why she thinks the other political parties are bad for the province — her party’s laid out platform gives the specifics many voters starving for a third, viable option are looking for.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s still some fear-mongering going on — the NDP leader says after 15 years of Liberals, Ontarians need a change, but not to gamble on Ford; who will cut billions of dollars from hospitals, schools, transit and child care “hurting the very people who need help.” (I mean that’s probably true.)

Horwath says her party will be more fiscally-responsible than Wynne and her Liberals, stressing a provincial government under her direction would run a $3.3-billion deficit in 2018-19 — but echoing the Liberals that the books won’t be balanced for five years.

But hey, former parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page has given the NDP’s fiscal plan a ‘thumbs up’, calling it “reasonable,” according to a story by the Toronto Star.

So, that’s saying something, right?

The platform also states a higher corporate tax rate (from 11.5 per cent to 13 per cent); closing “big business loopholes”; increasing personal income tax by one percentage point for earners of more than $220,000 annually and two percentage points for those bringing in more than $300,000; and putting a three per cent luxury surcharge on cars and SUVs costing more than $90,000.

Other features of the NDP’s platform include:

• publicly-funded dental care for one-third of Ontario residents without workplace coverage;
• free pharmacare program for all age groups, but only for 125 prescription drugs;
• increased hospital spending by 5.3 per cent annually;
• buy back the majority stake in Hydro One that Wynne sold off using dividends from its shares to bankroll that;
• a plan to end time-of-use pricing, which it says could cut hydro bills by 30 per cent;
• end Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) testing to save $40 million that could be reinvested in the classroom.

I mean, the NDP isn’t straying from its spend-to-benefit-the-majority-of-Ontarians mentality, and it’s not hiding the fact it plans to increase taxes and put us into a deficit to do so, but it was absolutely refreshing to see a political party that has kept relatively quiet until now, come out of the shadows and give voters something to think about.

I know I definitely will be.

 

 

Featured top photo is a derivative of “Ready, set, go” by William Stitt on Unsplash

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