The Liberal Platform is detailed, costed and very impressive.
The Platform does not require an increase in the GST, personal income tax or small business tax rates. The details of what the Platform will cost and where the money will come from are set out in a schedule.
Two items especially caught my eye: the family care plan and the strengthening of pensions.
The family care plan allows Canadians who are employed to get EI benefits so as to take time off work to care for ill family members. For the self-employed or those without a job a Family Care Tax Benefit will help people who provide essential care to a family member. For those with ageing parents this family care plan is of great interest.
Pension reform is also a focus of the Platform. Among other things the Platform proposes a stranded pension agency to protect people with employer pensions where the employer goes bankrupt. More generally the Platform proposes a gradual increase in CPP and other reforms including protection for disability benefits if the insurer goes bankrupt.
These are two practical proposals. I think they can be done -- it's time for both.
4 comments:
So how do you think the latest "Green Shift" will play in Ontario given McGuinty's screw ups? Or the bankruptcy of the US carbon trading market? You have to know that the Conservatives are just T-ing up the commercials on THAT part of the Liberal platform.
Wow. national day care. What a fresh, new idea.
The platform, sadly, is brutally flawed as it assumes static levels of income from corporations and high-income earners.
Global Income is fluid in the modern economy and most economists acknowledge that Ignatieff's proposed plan to offset $8.2 billion in spending by increased taxes will not result in the revenue assumed.
In other words, the deficit will no doubt increase, or, as with past Liberal governments, budgets will be balanced in the backdoor by cuts to health care and other federal funding programs.
Well, I'm still expecting them to steal my pension. So I think the Liberals could probably make some mileage on this.
They should also make mileage on repealing the Tory corporate tax cuts
But thus far, Liberal advertising has been very weak. Ignatieff is doing well in public appearances, but the party is getting hammered on the local news show, as there's nothing airing to counteract the Tory shills.
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