What are the most important issues for you?

[Timetrvlr]

What is important to you? I have identified several issues that are important to me. They are:

Universal Health Care
Jack Layton's NDP has made a firm commitment to preserve and improve the present sytem and has earmarked a lot of money to pay for the upgrades. The Conservatives want to open up the system to private health care and that will destroy it. The Librals are wishy-washy on the issue, I suspect they will open up the system to private health care also. Layton wants to fund the training of more Nurses, Doctors and other health-care providers. Isn't that a more effective means of shortening wait times?

Child Care
The future of our country rests on the shoulders of our children. They must have first class day care and better educational opportunities from pre-school through University. Since Mom and Dad both have to work these days, doesn't it make sense to have government licensed and regulated day care centres in every neighbourhood? These centres would filter out the pedophiles so prevalent in family-style day care and provide pre-school socialization and educational opportunities for everyones kids, especialy those from very poor homes. That's what Layton wants to do and it makes a lot of sense to me. Harper wants to give every family a check and let them fend for themselves. I'm not sure what the Liberal plan is, does anyone know?

Higher Education
Another thing that bothers me is the fact that ordinary working-family kids don't have many opportunities when they graduate from high school. Who can afford the high costs of tuition and books these days, much less the minimal costs of living? What's a kid to do? Either get a job flipping burgers or try to get into trades training of some sort. Even that's expensive. Essentially, we are throwing our young people away after high school; what a waste of young minds! Surely we can afford to spend another four years of education preparing them for the workplace. I agree it shouln't be entirely free but we shouldn't be burdening them with a heavy load of debt at the beginning of their careers. We must make higher education more affordable, not raise tuition fees!

The Environment
We live in a sick world. We dump all our emissions into the atmosphere, landfills, lakes oceans, rivers and then wonder why the smog is so bad, we find turds on our beaches, our lakes are dying and we have multiplicity of health problems. Should we change? I think so, if only to stop 2200 people in Ontario from dying of asthma every year. If we can save a few lakes and slow down global warming, well, that's just a bonus.

So, which party is commited to stopping the environmental damage that our beloved corporations are inflicting on our environment? Both the Conservative and Liberal parties depend heavily on Corporate donations to fill their massive campaign warchests so they owe a great debt to corporations before they are ever elected. The NDP struggles along with mostly private donations from ordinary folks like you and I. Please note that the NDP has a comprehensive Environmental plan that will work and create jobs and create new technologies in the process.

 

[Timetrvlr]

Party of the Middle Ground?
A minority Conservative government led by a tax-slashing Stephen Harper should be counterbalanced by the moderate and people-friendly NDP, leader Jack Layton told a crowd at the Toronto Board of Trade Tuesday morning.

Layton painted his party as one of the middle ground, saying New Democrats are far from the extremes of the Conservatives, who would eliminate social programs, and the Liberals, who are falling apart at the seams.

Layton also repeated his call, first made yesterday, for Liberal voters to just give him one chance, saying Liberal Leader Paul Martin needs a "time out" after years of unfulfilled election promises.

"The Martin Liberals said they would fix the democratic deficit and, instead, they run a tightly-centralized, patronage and command-controlled machine," Layton said.

 

[Jersay]

Defence

However,

Universal Health Care

The Environment

Aboriginal Issues

And maintaining equal rights for all

 

[Hank C]

Issues most important to me are:
=Lower taxes (for both Canadian people, and business to promote greater competition and growth)
=Stronger military (greater clout for Canada abroad)
=Fixing realtionship with the United States
=Better Policing (abolishing the gun registry and putting the money towards more police officers and border security)
=Crime and Justice (stiffer sentences and a possible return to the death penalty for provinces who would like to implement it)
=Less Ottawa and more power for the provinces, which could lead to less alienation.

 

[Timetrvlr]

Okay, I'll bite; tell me the benefits of curtailing social programs in order to build a large military? Is this for Canada's benefit or to carry out US foreign policy, ie. Afghanistan?

 

[I think not]

It turns your otherwise insignificant foreign policy into yielding political power. Australia has more clout than Canada does and is about 1/3 your population and 1/10 your economy, get the picture?

 

[MMMike]

1. The environment
2. The fiscal imbalance between the feds & the provinces
3. Smaller government
4. Democratic deficit

Some that quickly jump to mind...

 

[Jersay]

It turns your otherwise insignificant foreign policy into yielding political power. Australia has more clout than Canada does and is about 1/3 your population and 1/10 your economy, get the picture?

ITN has a point. If you have a bigger military, you don't have to follow American policy, but you will be listened to more on the world stage. I guess it is the philospohy that bigger is better.

 

[Freethinker]

It turns your otherwise insignificant foreign policy into yielding political power. Australia has more clout than Canada does and is about 1/3 your population and 1/10 your economy, get the picture?

Australia has 2/3 of our population and better per capita GDP than we do, so at least 2/3 the econonmy. How has Austrailia demonstrated this clout. Joining the US in Iraq? Is there anything else?

How does this military clout translate into a benefit for Austrailia?

 

[I think not]

It turns your otherwise insignificant foreign policy into yielding political power. Australia has more clout than Canada does and is about 1/3 your population and 1/10 your economy, get the picture?

ITN has a point. If you have a bigger military, you don't have to follow American policy, but you will be listened to more on the world stage. I guess it is the philospohy that bigger is better.

Bingo, I don't agree with it, just stating the facts.

 

[Jersay]

Exactly.

 

[Freethinker]

What is important to you? I have identified several issues that are important to me. They are:

Off the top of my head:

Fiscally responsible. Balanced Budgets, Debt paydown. Any tax cuts aimed progressively at income. Though I would prefer more debt repayment over tax cuts at the moment. I think we can handle it.

Strong protection for the most vulnerable. Children, elderly, disabled. Make sure these programs are on sound financial footing.

Pragmatic approach to medicare. Universal government medicare. But pay for clinics are a reality. I would simply not give them any government money, but they would be free to compete with the universal system. This is pragmatic reality.

Place human and environmental rights ahead of Corporate priviledge. Strong corporate oversite on environmental issues, ethics etc. Corporation don't and never will have a conscience, need strong regulation with teeth to enforce beneficial social behavior.

Socially progressive. Equal rights. Eliminate laws against behaviors that do not harm others. Ie legalize marijuana.

Law and order. My most controversial. Cut the pay out of crime. Move most soft drugs to a non criminal status. Sell them at regulated government outlet similar to Liquor Commision. Harder drugs available under physician care in weaning program.

Begin Elimination of Handguns from society on voluntary basis. True ban on handguns, along with some sort of buy back program to encourage uptake.

Increased border staffing, increased random checks. Increased sentences on gun smuggling along with 1 strike system. Anyone caught in a vehicle crossing the border with a gun on board would automatically be searched for the next 10 years everytime they crossed.

Defence: Largely aimed at better patrolling our own geography than having "military clout" in the world. First priority is to increase our presence in the north to maintain our soveignty.

 

[the caracal kid]

freethinker, i mostly agree with you.

fiscal responsibility is #1. I don't see a need for tax cuts of any kind at this time as the economy is doing fine. Should the economy faulter, then worry about adjustments to stimulate it. We need to pay off the debt.

Socially progressive and pro-active government policies to protect all citizens, but we need to be very pro-active. To date programs have been to reactive. We spend way more money fixing problems after they are well developed rather than working to prevent problems in the first place. I am for a strong social consciousness balanced with a respect for the individual.

Medacare: same. there is a place for private care in canada but it should not be assisted in any way by the governments or public money.

Environment: i am for enshrining protection of the environment within our constitution and requiring said protection as a part of doing business. We have the ability to be bio-sustaining, and it does not harm the economy to do it. We just have to make the changes.

Law and order/border/guns: i am for pro-active rehabilitative efforts first and formost as well as proactive systems to catch potential big criminals while they are small-time criminals. I see punishment as something only an individual can accept onto oneself, and as such think punishment must include teaching. I don't want guns at the borders, but i do want a made-in-canada hitech forces that can monitor our borders along with rapid response specialists. Bans do not work. We need to work to create a society that simply shuns guns rather than trying to take guns away. Education and opportunity is the key here.

Going to my socialist side, i see the opportunity for canada to generate its own solutions and hold the IP rights to those solutions at our univerities. We need to open our universities to our people and develop their potentials which in turn develops canada's potential. In a business model approach, the grad student is funded by the "investor" which is the government which as the investor holds IP rights to the results (shared with the students and universities).

 

[Colpy]

1. Punishing the Liberals for crime, arrogance, and the destruction of our respectable position in the world.

2. Dealing with the democratic deficit. More free votes, the opportunity to elect Senators, looking into the FPTP electoral system, ending the complete centralization of power in the PMO.

3. Rebuilding the military, so Canada can do its part when it needs to.

4. Preventing the theft by government of my personal property, my handguns. As well ending the ridiculous gun registry. Registration inevitably leads to confiscation.

5. Fiscal responsibility, pay down of debt.

No doubt who I'll be voting for.

 

[Semperfi_dani]

RE: What are the most imp

You know, im not sure what my main priority is seeing that all of them are equally important. Hmmm.... I guess if one issue stood out above all else, it would be CRIME.

 

[Hank C]

yes the Australian military is more powerful than Canada....and they only have a population of around 20 million. So rebuilding our military should be one of our priorities, along with staking a strong stand on arctic sovereignty. No Canada is not going to be a superpower, but we need to hold some clout on the world stage, be a power for good. It was shameful when we coulden't fly our equipment over to South Asia after the Tsunami.......borrowing planes from Russia is not something to be proud of!