UPDATED – Saturday, March 26, 8:30 am. Canadians are going to the polls on Monday, May 2. Stephen Harper visited Governor General David Johnston on Saturday morning and asked to have Parliament officially dissolved.
The federal Conservative government was defeated on a vote in Parliament on Friday, which set the stage for the federal election.
MPs voted 156-145 in favour of a Liberal motion citing Harper's minority Tories for contempt of Parliament and expressing non-confidence in the government. Harper announced he will visit the Governor General's residence Saturday morning to dissolve the 40th Parliament and start an election campaign. It will be the fourth federal election in seven years.
MP John Weston this week said he wasn’t sure what New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton found lacking in the federal budget brought down by his minority Conservative Party government. Given the overall goal of keeping the economy growing while reducing the deficit, Weston said the budget had just the right blend of fiscal restraint and help for Canada’s most needy.
But Weston, who will be seeking re-election to the job of representing the West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country riding he first won in 2008, reserved his sharpest political barbs for the opposition Liberals — his own, and his Tories’, main opposition in the election.
In particular, he took aim at the fact that Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff had stated his intention to vote against the budget even before he saw it. Layton only did that after the budget came down — apparently without enough of the social supports being sought by him and his NDP caucus.
“The NDP at least indicated a desire to listen and work in the best interests of Canadians,” Weston said on Tuesday, March 22, about three hours after Finance Minister Jim Flaherty brought down his government’s budget. “You can’t say that about the Liberals. The federal parties ought to be working in the best interest of Canadians, not just themselves.
“It’s a great budget that responds to the needs of Canadians at this very specific time in our history and the needs and priorities raised by people in our riding. It’s appalling that the Liberal leader made up his mind before he even saw the budget that he wouldn’t support it. That would be like you writing a book and having someone pan it before he’d even read it.”
Dan Veniez, the Liberal Party nominee in the riding, on Wednesday, March 23 said Ignatieff over the past few months has been consistent in saying that three main things would be required for his party to support the budget: a proper costing of the Tories’ crime bills and purchase of F-35 fighter jets for the Canadian Forces, and scrapping the government’s plan to cut corporate taxes.
“We’ve consistently said that if those three things are not addressed in a satisfactory way in the budget, we’re not going to support it,” he said.
On the corporate tax issue, Veniez said, “We’re in favour of lower taxes, but against the backdrop of the still-shaky recovery that we’re in, some choices have to be made, and those choices need to include where to spread the burden. We say you shouldn’t put undue burden on the middle class and the most vulnerable.”
Veniez said that if an election is called, it will be about trust and competent management of the country. While the Tories have tried to portray themselves as competent managers, if you look at the reality of the past five years, it’s a myth, he said.
“The sticker price for those things that I talked about is $45 billion. I call that dubious spending,” he said.
Speaking about the Tories’ Economic Action Plan, Veniez said, “Do hockey and curling rink roofs and nature trails really do anything to help our long-term productivity, to help people improve their lot? The answer is bloody no.
“It’s about trust. It’s about competence, and it’s about the character of the man who is Prime Minister of Canada. The cumulative impact — and I see it every day in the constituency – is politicians consistently saying one thing and doing another. It’s corrosive, it’s bad for the country. It’s corrupting our democracy.”
NDP nominee Terry Platt said that while she saw some things to like in the budget, there were also a couple of glaring deficiencies — and a couple of well-intentioned measures that didn’t do nearly enough to help those on fixed incomes and those who are struggling because of the skyrocketing costs of fuels to heat their homes.
The New Democrats, said Platt, who works for BC Ferries, wanted to see the government do away with the federal tax on home heating oil, were hoping for reforms to the Canada Pension Plan and wanted to see a much larger increase in support for seniors.
The additional $600 a year for individuals and $840 for couples through the seniors’ Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) “may look nice, but it’s really not very much. How many loaves of bread will it pay for? How many bills is that going to pay? It’s really a disappointment,” Platt said.
Weston touted not only the GIS increase but the continuation of the Eco-Energy Retrofit program — worth $400 million in this budget — the Family Caregiver Tax Credit for those who choose to stay at home to care for a loved one, a tax credit of $3,000 per year to those who put in at least 200 hours per year as volunteer firefighters and the extension of a tax credit for children’s arts training as reasons for seniors and families to support the budget.
“There’s a strong commitment to entrepreneurs and job creation, there’s a hiring credit for small businesses,” he said, referring to a one-time tax credit up to $1,000 for small businesses who hire new employees. “That gets people back to work. Since 2009, we’ve created 480,000 new jobs and this shows our continued commitment to that goal.”
Green Party nominee Brennan Wauters said he, too, saw a few things he liked in the budget. But he said some measures didn’t go far enough.
For example, the Tories are offering $40,000 in student loan forgiveness to doctors and $20,000 to nurses who opt to start their careers in rural communities.
“That benefit should be extended to any person who has a degree in anything to encourage them to establish themselves in rural areas,” Wauters said. “We need to relieve some of that burden and I think the Conservatives have missed an opportunity to help people who can help build rural communities.”
Wauters said he opposes the Harper government’s plan to spend billions on new F-35 fighter jets for the Canadian Forces.
“I think that’s a problem. No. 1, it’s far too expensive and No. 2, it’s not the direction that Canada should be going,” he said.
If an election is called, Weston’s Private Members’ Bill — which would make it a crime to procure the ingredients of the drugs ecstasy and crystal meth with the intent of producing them — could die on the order table. It’s gone through second reading in the Senate, and Weston said he and his staff were trying desperately to get it passed before the writ is dropped.
Wauters running for Green Party
Nominee brings diverse experiences to anticipated federal campaign
Brennan Wauters refers to himself as a “dedicated environmentalist” who has been pursuing the opportunity to run as a candidate for the federal Green Party for the past few months.
Wauters was recently named as the Greens’ nominee in the riding of West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country — though he couldn’t give the exact date that the nomination was made official.
His Green Party biography states, “He has been consistently involved with community and service organizations such as the Federation of BC Youth in Care Network, the Rainforest Action Network, Village Vancouver and the Vancouver Coastal Housing Network.”
Wauters also is an independent filmmaker and currently works as a set designer and technician in the film industry in the Vancouver.
Though this is the first time he has run for office, Wauters isn’t entirely new to politics, having been a director with the Young Liberals of Alberta when he was attending his hometown University of Lethbridge. He said he left that position to take on a posting on an agricultural exchange through the Canada World Youth in Thailand.
Wauters said he’s in the process of moving to the riding — most likely West Vancouver because of his work, but if he were to win the election, he said he would likely move to either Pemberton or Squamish.
“The riding itself is probably the most interesting riding in the province because it has the greatest diversity,” he said. “You have West Vancouver which is suburban and quite affluent — and then there’s the Sea to Sky Corridor, which is much more small-town and rural.”
Though he’s hardly a youngster at age 42, Wauters insisted, “I’m young at heart, let’s put it that way. I think my general demeanour is going to surprise a lot of people. I’m clearly not the archetypical hippie, but I work with those people and I’m pretty fluid with them. I’m certainly not intimidated.”
Waters described himself as a pragmatic environmentalist. During the campaign, he hopes to get to and from as many engagements as possible by bicycle because he believes in minimizing his environmental footprint.
“I feel that the crisis with the environment has escalated to a pretty extreme level. I think there’s a real problem when there’s a disconnect between humans and nature,” he said.
“There’s definitely a pragmatic consideration, though. If we’re running on a platform that’s focussed exclusively on the protection of nature, we’re not going to come anywhere close to gaining power.”
