The Role and Development of the Family
The Bloc has released no official statement on its policies concerning the role of the family in society.

The Bloc advocates a reform of employment insurance so that women who lose their jobs towards the end or upon returning from their maternity and parental leave can be protected by benefits

Health Care
The Bloc states that health is a priority for Quebecers, and that:
– decreases and even breaks in services during the summer following the pandemic have confirmed that Quebec’s healthcare problems won’t be solved in one fell swoop, due in particular to the ongoing under-funding of healthcare by the federal government
– Ottawa must do its fair share to ensure that those who suffer have access to quality care, and that Quebec’s nursing staff are given reinforcements and working conditions worthy of their dedication
– the federal government will have to increase health transfers, unconditionally, to cover 35% of health care costs, as Quebec and the provinces are unanimously demanding
– it intends to support home care through tax credits
– it will make an increase in health transfers its main battle-horse following the election

Nutrition
The Bloc states that:
– Quebecers want the food they serve their families to be the freshest and healthiest
-.Health Canada’s decision, reversed following political pressure from the Bloc, to increase the amount of pesticides, notably glyphosate, in certain types of food has angered Quebecers
– it strongly condemns the federal government’s dealings for the multinational pesticide companies, and is suspicious of the decision to postpone the increase in pesticide residues until 2022 as an attempt to hush up the issue before the election

Accordingly, the Bloc advocates:
– an investigation into the links and potential cronyism between Health Canada and pesticide multinationals such as Bayer and Syngenta, reiterating the importance of eliminating pesticides from the neonicotinoid family rather than increasing their use
– investment of $300 million to find an alternative solution and support agricultural producers during the transition
– requirements for GMO labelling, especially in light of the appearance in Quebec grocery stores of transgenic salmon
– implementation of a traceability plan for seafood products from ship to plate, in order to properly inform consumers, encourage local fishing, and combat illegal fishing

Pandemic Response
The Bloc states that:
– the pandemic revealed the shortcomings of the pharmaceutical industry in Canada and Quebec, where we are 100% dependent on foreign countries for our vaccine supplies
– Canada requires a thoughtful, detailed, and workable plan to deal with future pandemics.

To that end, the Bloc advocates:
– that Canada take a leadership role with the World Health Organization (WHO), to establish a concerted strategy for the recognition of vaccines, mixed vaccination and quarantine management, taking into account the development of the pandemic in different countries and the appearance of variants
– establishment of a mechanism for verifying global vaccine evidence, enabling international travel to be managed according to the vaccines recognized by public health authorities
– an active campaign by Canada for the lifting of patents on vaccines, so that all the countries of the world can finally be equipped to fight the pandemic
– development of a strategy for self-sufficient vaccine production, including the creation of the conditions necessary for the development of a world-class industry
– to benefit from recent scientific advances that have led to the emergence of expensive drugs capable of thwarting many rare diseases, requiring the federal government to revise its strategy to lower the cost of such drugs, without compromising patients’ rapid access to them, or the development of vaccine autonomy
– ensuring the federal government’s drug strategy is aligned with Quebec’s strategy for rare diseases

Serious and Long-Term Illnesses
The Bloc states that:
– the Quebec nation protects the vulnerable and spares no effort to help those suffering from serious illnesses such as cancer.  These people and their families often need much more than 15 or even 26 weeks of financial support to regain their health and return to work. at work
– it advocates increases in special health insurance benefits to the 50 weeks needed

Care & Support for the Elderly
The Bloc states that seniors have been the most affected by the pandemic, and the least adequately supported by the federal government
– increasing the monthly pension for all seniors, starting at age 65, remains unavoidable. It rejects any attempt to create two classes of seniors by discriminating against them on the basis of age
– archaic and discriminatory provisions in federal pension law must be abolished. Surviving spouses of pensioners whose marriage or de facto union had a after the age of 60, or after retirement, should not be deprived of the deceased’s pension. The Bloc Québécois will demand the repeal of these discriminatory provisions, which undermine the dignity of women and of seniors who have worked for the federal public service or the armed forces, among others
– it wants seniors to enjoy a retirement worthy of the efforts they have devoted all their lives to the development of their families, their communities and their nation

Education & Young Workers
The Bloc has provided no statement of its policies relating to education and young workers.

Culture, Arts & Tourism

Culture
The Bloc states that:
– Quebec is a proud nation, proud of: (i) its common and official language, French; (ii) its history of resilience, creativity and solidarity, and (iii) its fundamental values of hospitality, sharing and equality, values that make Quebec a land of opportunity for those who live here, those who come here and those who will come here

– it has imposed Quebec on Ottawa, such that the Canadian Parliament has been seized by the priorities and needs of Quebecers as never before
– during its brief mandate, it pushed the House of Commons to make unprecedented advances for Quebec’s identity, including
(i) obtaining official recognition by the House that Quebec is a nation, and that its only official and common language is French
(ii) obtaining a vote in favor of applying the Charter of the French Language, Bill 101, to companies under federal jurisdiction, and
(iii) defeating opponents of Bill 21 on the secular nature of the State who were planning to use federal public funds to take Quebec to court
(iv) defeating a pan-Canadian securities commission and centralization of financial market authorities in Toronto

The Bloc advocates:
– to protect seasonal workers and business such as sugar shacks and festivals that have lost two entire seasons due to the health crisis, changes in federal business assistance programs to ensure that the vitality of all our SME models
– using all its resources to ensure that the federal Official Languages Act no longer applies to private companies in Quebec. Quebec’s Charter of the French Language must apply everywhere on our territory.
– tabling a bill to make sufficient knowledge of French a condition for obtaining citizenship from Quebec
– fighting with the Acadians and Franco-Canadians to ensure that the reform of the Official Languages Act gives top priority to the ability of these communities to live and work in French
– to protect Quebec’s reputation from tarnishment by slanderous attacks when the it asserts Quebecer’s rights, language or societal choices, opposing “Québec bashing” at every opportunity, and refutation of accusations of racism frequently and unfairly levelled at an entire people, based on false premises
– a campaign to promote Quebec’s image in the world. and a diplomatic effort to ensure our nation’s international presence, including assertion of the inalienable right to self-determination of Quebecers, and the positive role Quebec plays in the world

Arts
The Bloc advocates:
– repatriation of all cultural powers and creation of a Quebec agency to replace the CRTC, as Canadians are not much inclined to promote or protect culture, as evidenced by scuttling of Bill C-10, which was designed to provide a better framework for culture in the digital age, and to force the Web giants to do their bit for the development of Quebec art and media
– improving and re-tabling Bill C-10, in particular the Bloc’s essential amendments ensuring the protection of Canadian and Quebec content, the “discoverability” and promotion of Quebec arts and the production of French-language content
– continued efforts to establish taxation of digital giants’ revenues at a rate of 3%, as France already does
– requiring Web multinationals to negotiate with Quebec and Canadian content creators to establish equitable revenue sharing
– ensuring the continuity and predictability of cultural and tourism programs and subsidies, while the sector, its creators, presenters and events, large and small, continue to suffer the consequences of the pandemic-related economic crisis over the next few years
– directing taxes collected from the digital giants to a fund dedicated to the Quebec media, arts and culture

Role and development of the family

The party states that:

– parents are the best and primary caregivers for their own children, and that taxpayer-funded childcare is no substitute
– marriage means exclusively the union of one man and one woman, and is the most basic of human relationships and the foundational building block of society
– the marriage commitment between a husband and a wife provides the most stable environment for the raising of children
– children do best in homes having both a mother and a father
– public education should not include harmful ideologies such as gender fluidity, links between CO2 and climate change, economic socialism, etc.

The party advocates:

– restoring the legal definition of marriage as between one man and one woman and rescinding government support for “same-sex marriage”
– focusing public education on essential career skills such as math, science, literature and history
– strengthening the family unit, reducing divorce and the necessity of one couple maintaining two homes
– restraining state interference in family matters except in cases of obvious and provable child abuse
– restraint of state interference in religious, medical, and moral issues, which are matters of parental jurisdiction
– making stay-at-home parenting more affordable

Healthcare

The party states that:

– Canada’s healthcare system is good but can be improved
– more emphasis should be placed on preventive care and alternative medicine
– Big Pharma must not maintain its monopoly on treatment protocols and access to drugs

The party advocates:

– shortening waiting lists for urgent treatments by credentialing more qualified doctors and defunding elective procedures such as abortion, euthanasia, and “gender reassignment” surgery
– improving design of new hospitals to incorporate modern design features to limit the spread of infectious disease

Support for the Elderly

The party states that the Canada Pension Plan is inadequate for meeting the needs of Canada’s seniors, even when combined with the Old Age pension.

The party advocates introduction of a new Personal Income Security Account, in addition to OAS, to give Canadians control over their own employment pension funds, with contributions to be made by both the employer and employee to each employee’s individual account as is now done for the CPP.

Education & Young Workers

The party acknowledges  that public education is a provincial responsibility, but calls for federal protection of children from harmful ideologies such as gender fluidity, links between CO2 and climate change, economic socialism, etc.

The party advocates:

– focusing public education on essential career skills such as math, science, literature and history
– parental rights to know what children are being taught in school
– restraining state teaching of things that are contrary to the beliefs of their parents

Culture, Arts & Tourism

The party has released no official statement concerning its policies on culture, arts, or tourism.

Role and development of the family
The party states that:
– it believes that the family unit is essential to the well-being of individuals and society, because that is where a child learns values and develops a sense of responsibility
– its goal is nothing less than to make Canada the most family-friendly country in the world

To support families, the party advocates:
– increased funding for child care, to help women enter the workforce by converting the Child Care Expense Deduction into a refundable tax credit covering up to 75% of the cost of child care for lower income families
– paying out the deduction over the course of the year so that families do not have to pay the cost of child care and then get the money back later
– improving Maternity and Parental Leave programs by allowing participating parents to earn up to $1,000 per month to enable them to stay connected to the workforce and ease their return to work
– to help expectant parents with the myriad of first-time costs for cribs, clothes, car seats and a range of other items needed for a family, expanding the Canada Child Benefit by allowing benefits to begin at the 7th month of pregnancy rather than at childbirth
– to support parents traumatized by miscarriage, allowing them to receive three days of paid bereavement leave
– reforming EI parental benefits to ensure that parents who lose a child are not abruptly cut off from their benefits and ensuring that EI parental is extended for at least eight weeks following the death of an infant
– creation of a National Adoption Strategy, including an awareness campaign to promote adoption, and working with the provinces to ensure equal access to adoption for all children, including support for international adoption by working with other countries to align processes; creating an EI benefit for adoptive parents, modelled on EI maternity benefits; and increasing the maximum a parent can claim under the Adoption Expense Tax Credit from $15,000 to $20,000 and making the credit refundable

Child Care
The party states that:
– Canada’s productivity consistently lags our G20 counterparts
– according to the IMF, increasing women’s labour participation in the workforce could increase Canada’s productivity by 4% in the medium term
– experience in Quebec has shown that increasing child care affordability increases the number of women who choose to work outside the home
– to enable women to enter the workforce and increase national productivity, it advocates converting the Child Care Expense deduction into a refundable tax credit covering up to 75% of the cost of child care for lower income families

Health Care
The party states that:
– all Canadians should have reasonable access to timely, quality health care services, regardless of ability to pay
– provinces and territories should be able to include balanced public and private health care options
– the party promotes wellness and disease-prevention programs as a part of health care
– the 20-year patent term achieves a workable balance between encouraging development of new drugs and assuring they are available at affordable prices

The party advocates working with provinces to boost the annual growth rate of the Canada Health Transfer to at least 6%, thereby injecting nearly $60 billion into the healthcare system over ten years

Health Security and Independence; Pandemic Response
In view of government’s responsibility to protect the health of citizens, and to reduce Canada’s health security and reduce reliance on foreign countries like China, the party advocates:
– partnering with pharmaceutical companies to increase production of critical medicines and build domestic vaccine production capacity
– using procurements by government and those receiving government funding to strengthen domestic production of personal protective equipment (PPE)
– overhauling and rebuilding Canada’s National Emergency Stockpile System to ensure the country has the supplies needed to be prepared at all times for future threats

To ensure that Canada is ready to face future pandemics, including the bioterrorism threats, the party advocates rapid action to protect health while avoiding long-term impacts mental health and the economy, including:
– an immediate public inquiry to examine every aspect of the national pandemic response, ensuring that all lessons learned from the crisis are publicly aired, and that learnings can be immediately adopted
– working with allied nations to investigate the origins of COVID-19

To increase national resiliency to pandemics and other threats, the party advocates implementation and annual review and updating of an Emergency Preparedness Plan, comprising:
– ramping up Canadian research and production capacity by making Canada one of the best jurisdictions globally for pharmaceutical research and development and the production of vaccines and medicines
– reviewing regulation to avoid driving pharmaceutical companies away from Canada
– following the UK’s example, implementing a strategy for sector growth a well-thought-out way rather than just handing out money
– negotiating constructively with the pharmaceutical industry to reduce drug prices while providing long-term regulatory certainty
– working with universities, the private sector, provinces, territories, and partner countries to review response plans, including domestic vaccine research, trials development and manufacturing capacity and readiness , with a focus on novel vaccine platforms
– reviewing Health Canada’s regulatory processes and the balance between Canada’s industrial, health, and economic relationships with the global biomanufacturing sector in light of Canada’s poor performance in accessing vaccines during COVID-19
– working with pharmaceutical companies and others to increase domestic stocks and production of critical medicines, ingredients, and PPE in Canada
– reinstating the tariff on imported PPE
– working with infectious disease experts, provinces, and territories to develop evidence-based contact tracing systems for our borders
– developing a national system for sharing data across jurisdictions on pathogen transmission, immunity levels, and vaccination rates with transparent reporting requirements and coordination among jurisdictions
– strengthening Health Canada, by partnering with the private sector and working with provinces to harmonize ICU training to ensure that ICU credentials are transferable among jurisdictions so that that capacity can be bolstered in emergencies

Support for the Elderly
To help the many Canadians who care for parents and to help seniors avoid having to live in Long-Term Care homes, the party advocates:
– a Canada Seniors Care benefit, paying $200 per month per household to any Canadian who is living with and taking care of a parent over the age of 70
– amending the Home Accessibility Tax Credit by increasing the limit from $10,000 per dwelling to $10,000 per person
– action to fix Long-Term Care and help seniors stay in their own homes
– to prevent recurrence of neglect or abandonment such as that seen in Long-Term Care homes during the COVID pandemic, the party advocates amending the Criminal Code provisions on failing to provide the necessities of life to make clear that the operator of a licensed care facility shall be presumed to have a legal duty to the residents of that facility.

Long-Term Care
The party advocates:
-working with the provinces to develop a set of best practices for Long-Term Care homes which, like the National Building Code, would provide guidance for provinces without intruding on their jurisdiction
– working with all those provincial governments who want to commit to long-term care projects and encourage all provinces to incorporate the results into provincial law
– in the meantime, devoting $3 billion of infrastructure funding over the next three years to renovate Long-Term Care Homes in all provinces and territories across Canada, to improve the care that residents receive, and encouraging partnerships with private non-profits that have historically provided a significant amount of Long-Term Care
– helping meet the need for Personal Support Workers by providing priority in immigration programs to those who can work in Long-Term Care, and promoting such careers through immigration and refugee settlement programs

Employment for Working Elders
The party advocates:
– doubling the Canada Workers Benefit up to a maximum of $2,800 for individuals or $5,000 for families and pay it as a quarterly direct deposit rather than a tax refund at year-end, to help seniors who choose to continue working past retirement to give themselves a bit more income

Pensions
To protect elders from cuts to their pensions when the company they work for goes bankrupt, the party advocates:
– changing legislation to ensure that pensioners have priority over corporate elites in bankruptcy or restructuring
– preventing executives from paying themselves bonuses while managing a company going through restructuring if the pension plan is not fully funded
– ending requirements for underfunded pension plans to be converted to annuities, which can lock in losses and reduce worker payouts
– requiring companies to report the funding status of their pension plans more clearly.

Education & Young Workers
The party states that it believes in greater accessibility to education by eliminating as many barriers to post-secondary education as possible.

The party advocates:
– educational transfer payments to provinces based on numbers of enrolled students
– increasing the government’s contribution for the Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP) from 20 to 30 percent, up to $2500 per year
– providing tax incentives and relief for student loans

Culture, Arts & Tourism
The party believes that:
– our culture is what binds Canadians together; that our shared identity stems from the stories we tell through music, television, art, and other media
– cultural industries are a huge economic driver, creating over 765,000 jobs in our economy
– Canada’s multicultural society is a valued reality, while all Canadians should adopt common Canadian values such as equality, democracy, and the rule of law

To help build jobs and infrastructure while connecting Canadians to nature, to each other, and to globally recognized tourism destinations and promoting fitness and mental wellness, the party advocates:
– continued construction of the Trans-Canada Trail, providing $12.5 million per year in funding

Online Media
To support Canadian culture and create a level playing field between Canadian businesses and foreign web giants, the party advocates:
– repealing Bill C-10, which gives too much power to regulators while failing to provide businesses with the clear guidelines they need to operate, and replacing it with legislation that updates the Broadcasting Act to deal with the realities of an increasingly online market and the need to provide businesses with certainty and consumers with choice
– requiring large digital streaming services like Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video to reinvest a significant portion of their Canadian gross revenue into producing original Canadian programming, of which a mandated proportion must be French language programming, and if they fail to comply within a given year, requiring them to pay the difference into the Canadian Media Fund
– exempting content uploaded by Canadians onto social media sites like Facebook, YouTube and Tik Tok from regulation in order to protect free speech
– streamlining and reduce the regulatory burden placed on conventional Canadian broadcasters and cable companies, including CRTC license fees and Canadian Media Fund contribution requirements, with the loss in revenue to be compensated by a portion of the revenue from the new digital services tax
– conducting a full review of the mandate of the CRTC to ensure that it better reflects the needs of Canadians and doesn’t prevent Canadian broadcasters from innovating and adapting to changes in the market
– protecting CBC Radio and CBC North
– reviewing the mandate of CBC English Television, CBC News Network and CBC English online news to assess the viability of refocusing the service on a public interest model like that of PBS in the United States, ensuring that it no longer competes with private Canadian broadcasters and digital providers

Independence of Canadian Media
The party states that loss of digital advertising revenue to American tech giants like Google and Facebook is putting local newspapers out of business, costing Canadian jobs, and undermining the ability to tell local, Canadian stories

To secure a level playing field for Canadian media, ensuring that Canadians are paid fairly for the content they create while encouraging the creation of more Canadian media and culture, the party advocates:
– introducing a digital media royalty framework to ensure that Canadian media outlets are fairly compensated for the sharing of their content by platforms like Google and Facebook, including adapting a made in Canada approach that incorporates the best practices of jurisdictions like Australia and France; providing a robust arbitration process and the creating an intellectual property right for article extracts shared on a social media platform; and ensuring that smaller media outlets are included, and that the government won’t be able to pick and choose who has access to the royalty framework
– introducing a Digital Services Tax representing 3% of gross revenue in Canada to make web giants pay their fair share
– significantly reducing the amount of money spent by the government on advertising with big foreign tech companies like Twitter and instead direct federal ad dollars to Canadian media, including community weeklies, regional media, and ethnic media
– recognizing and correcting the adverse economic impact for creators and publishers from the uncompensated use of their works in a manner consistent with the unanimous recommendations of the Heritage Committee of the House of Commons Report in 2019
– ending the current government’s $600 million media bailout, as media outlets should be supported in ways other than directly receiving tax dollars. Government funding of “approved” media undermines press freedom, a vital part of a free society
– conducing a review of federal book publishing policy to enhance the commercial viability of Canada’s independent publishing sector.

Canadian Heritage
The party states that Canada has a rich heritage as one of the world’s oldest constitutional democracies.  That heritage should be more effectively highlighted and taught to future generations. Unfortunately, many of nation’s public monuments and heritage buildings are in a state of disrepair

To address this issue, the party advocates:
– creation of a new Canadian Heritage Preservation Fund to provide a total of $75 million in grants to municipal governments over the next five years for the repair and restoration of historical monuments, statues, and heritage buildings
– continuing to support efforts to maintain Canada’s national monuments
– ensuring the prompt completion of the Canadian Monument to the Victims of Communism

Official Languages

The party advocates:
– working with the Government of Québec to apply the French Language Charter to federally regulated businesses operating in Québec
– tabling, as a priority, legislation modernizing the Official Languages Act providing increased powers for the Official Languages Commissioner; giving the Treasury Board the authority and responsibility for ensuring the application of the Act across federal departments; creating an Official Languages administrative tribunal to deal with citizen complaints; stronger positive obligations in Part VII of the Act; and creating more robust mechanisms for the consultation of Official Language minorities
– creating a new $30 million per year budgetary envelope to provide federal funding to minority francophone post-secondary institutions such as Université de Moncton, the University of Alberta’s Campus Saint-Jean, and the Ontario French University and participating significantly in their future financing, in collaboration with the provinces
– increased support for francophone primary and elementary education via the Official Languages in Education Program to reflect demographic growth in the minority francophone student population
– increased francophone immigration outside Québec to ensure that the demographic weight of francophone minorities will be maintained
– adopting an official French version of the 1867 British North America Act, for which only the English version currently has official status

Role and development of the family
In its mandate letter to the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development at the beginning of its current term in office, the party instructed the Minister that:
– the Ministry’s immediate priority is to build a Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care system that reduces parent fees, creates more high-quality spaces, recruits and retains skilled educators, and ensures all kids get off to the best possible start
– at the same time, the Ministry was to work with Indigenous partners to implement a culturally appropriate Indigenous Early Learning and Child Care system
– the Ministry was also to focus on implementing the Community Services Recovery Fund to help charities and non-profits adapt and modernize as well as ensure Service Canada provides reliable and accessible services to Canadians, regardless of where they live.

Parental Leave
The party states that:
– 15 to 25 per cent of pregnancies end in miscarriage, and one per cent end in stillbirth. Without time to rest and recover, those who lose a child are at higher risk of developing physical and mental health challenge
– the death or disappearance of a child is a tragic and devastating moment and can leave parents unable to work. Ensuring parents have the support they need to navigate a devastating period in their lives is critical to their emotional, mental, and physical well-being

The party proposes to amend the Canada Labour Code:
– to create a new stand-alone leave for workers in federally regulated sectors who experience a pregnancy loss, and for parents planning to have a child through adoption or surrogacy
– to improve eligibility for leave related to the death or disappearance of a child for workers in federally regulated sectors

Child Care & Family Leave
The party advocates:
– $10 a day child care to make life affordable for families
– laying the foundation for a Canada-wide early learning and childcare system, in order to correct economic losses to women caused by the COVID recession
– allocating $625 million to ensure that a safe and sufficient level of child care is available to support the gradual return to work of parents
– allocating a further $20 million to establish a Federal Secretariat on Early Learning and Child Care
– allocating a further $70 million to sustain the existing federal Indigenous Early Learning and Child Care Secretariat, to support Indigenous participation in development of a Canada-wide child care system
– providing a further $870 million per year for enhance fee subsidies for child care
– providing a further $420 billion in one year to train early childhood educators
– investing a further $75 million to improve quality of Indigenous child care programs through delivery of quality, culturally-relevant care
– providing $1200 per year for each child under the age of six for families with incomes under $120000 per year families receiving Canada Child Benefits an additional $300 per child

Health Care

The party states that:
– while it is a good system, the public health care system is not delivering the high-quality care that Canadians deserve. Patients seeking emergency care have found their emergency rooms overwhelmed. Surgeries have been postponed or cancelled. Both the system and the workers who uphold it are under enormous strain, especially following the pandemic

To help strengthen the health care system, the party states that:
– its 2023 budget delivers an urgent investment of $198.3 billion over the next ten years to strengthen the system
– the 2023 budget also implements steps in its plan to ensure Canadians have access to dental care
– the budget also includes measures to address the shortage of health care professionals in rural and remote communities, to combat the opioid crisis, and to ensure that Canadians can receive sexual and reproductive health care and critical mental health support

The party identifies the following among key accomplishments in health care:
– since 2015, providing $10 billion to provinces and territories to strengthen home care, community care, and long-term care for seniors
– improving access to mental health services, including through $5 billion to provinces and territories to increase community-based mental health and addictions services
– delivering $6.5 billion through Canada Health Transfer top-ups to provinces and territories to address immediate pressures in our public health care system, in addition to annual Canada Health Transfer payments, which amount to $49.4 billion in 2023-24
– launching the Canada Dental Benefit for children under 12, which has already helped more than 240,000
– providing $5.5 billion for primary care and public health on reserve, distinctions-based mental health support, and non-insured health benefits for First Nations and Inuit
– $1.2 billion to support 248 health-related infrastructure projects in First Nation communities
– investing more than $800 million since 2017 through the Canadian Drugs and Substances Strategy to support a compassionate and evidence-based response to the overdose crisis
– launching a Sexual and Reproductive Health Fund to help make sexual and reproductive health information and services—including access to abortion—more accessible for vulnerable populations

The party plans to:
– provide an additional $141.8 billion for healthcare over the over the next ten years, over and above the $45.2 billion provided in 2022-23, in accordance with the Canada Health Transfers escalator which is based on GDP growth
– provide $2 billion in 2022-23 to address urgent pressures in emergency rooms, operating rooms, and pediatric hospitals, building on $6.5 billion in top-ups provided throughout the pandemic
– in accordance with a Canada Health Transfer Five Per Cent Guarantee, provide top-up payments to achieve Health Transfer increases of at least five per cent per year for the next five years. This represents an estimated $17.1 billion over ten years in additional funding through the Canada Health Transfer
– in accordance with Tailored Bilateral Agreements, provide $25 billion over ten years through a new set of bilateral agreements to address individual provincial and territorial health system needs, such as expanding access to family health services, supporting health workers and reducing backlogs, increasing mental health and substance use support, and modernizing health systems
– provide $1.7 billion over five years to support hourly wage increases for personal support workers and related professions
– provide $350 million over ten years in recognition of medical travel and the higher cost of delivering health care in the territories
– $505 million over five years, starting in 2023-24, to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, Canada Health Infoway, and other federal data partners, to work with provinces and territories to develop new health data indicators, support creation of a Centre of Excellence on health worker data, advance digital health tools and an interoperability roadmap, and support provincial and territorial efforts to use data to improve the safety and quality of health care
– to encourage more doctors and nurses to practice in rural and remote communities, allocate $45.9 million over four years, starting in 2024-25, with $11.7 million ongoing, to Employment and Social Development Canada to expand the reach of the Canada Student Loan Forgiveness program to more rural communities, including all communities with populations of 30,000 or fewer. Currently eligible communities with a population over 30,000 will remain eligible until the 2026 Census
– in order to complement investments made previously in the working conditions and wages of personal support workers, allocating up to $50 million over 5 years to develop and test means for strengthening the retirement savings of personal support workers

Dental Care
The party states that:
– dental care is an important component of health, but seeing a dentist can be expensive. A third of Canadians currently do not have dental insurance, and in 2018, more than one in five Canadians reported avoiding dental care because of the cost
– delaying preventative care can have wide-reaching impacts, including costlier treatments, worsening health outcomes, and time away from school and work
– during its current term in office it committed to providing dental care for uninsured Canadians with family income of less than $90,000 annually, starting with children under 12-years-old, and implemented the Canada Dental Benefit, which is now providing eligible parents or guardians with direct, up-front, tax-free payments of up to $1,300 over two years, per child, to cover the cost of dental care for their children, and to date has helped more than 240,000 children receive the dental care they need.

The party proposes to expand coverage to all Canadians who need it, including:
– providing $13.0 billion over five years, starting in 2023-24, and $4.4 billion ongoing to Health Canada to implement the Canadian Dental Care Plan, to provide dental coverage for uninsured Canadians with annual family income of less than $90,000, with no co-pays for those with family incomes under $70,000
– to help those hindered by other factors, such as living in a remote community, or requiring specialized care due to a disability, providing $250 million over three years, and $75 million ongoing to Health Canada to establish an Oral Health Access Fund, to reduce barriers to accessing care, including in rural and remote communities
– providing $23.1 million over two years to Statistics Canada to collect data on oral health and access to dental care in Canada, which will inform the rollout of the Canadian Dental Care Plan

Pharmacare
The party advocates:
– investing at least $170 million in governmental capacity to manufacture vaccines, by establishing a new bio-manufacturing facility at the National Research Council Therapeutics Centre in Montreal
– investing up to $792 million in private bio-manufacturing capacity through the Strategic Innovation Fund
– exploring ways to promote long-term sustainable growth in the bio-manufacturing sector, through the National Research Council and Strategic Innovation fund
– establishing new Canadian Drug Agency to negotiate drug prices on behalf of all Canadians
– developing a national strategy for high-cost drugs for rare diseases, with funding of $500 million per year, beginning in 2022-23

Support for Seniors
It its Mandate Letter to the Minister of Seniors at the beginning of its present term in government, the party instructed the Minister to:
– support and help advance the party’s commitment to increase Old Age Security and the Guaranteed Income Supplement
– support the Minister of Health in improving the quality and availability of long-term care and to take concrete actions to support seniors who want to age at home
– continue to create opportunities for seniors to be more connected, supported, and active members of their communities through implementing the New Horizons for Seniors Program

The party reports that:
– from April to July 2020 it deployed members of the Canadian Armed Forces to support 54 long-term care facilities affected by the pandemic in Ontario and Quebec
– has committed to providing more than $50 million for support of long-term care facilities, including pay raises for home workers and training for additional workers
– it provided Old Age Security top-ups of $300 to seniors, as support during the pandemic
– it provided top-ups of $200 to recipients of Old Age Security payments, to defray costs of staying home and staying safe

The party advocates working with provinces and territories to establish national long-term care standards, including improved conditions for support workers and improve retention

Students & Young Workers

Student Assistance
The party states that:
– more than 750,000 post-secondary students rely on federal assistance each year to help them afford the cost of tuition, housing, and everyday essentials
– to ease the transition from school to working life, it eliminated interest on Canada Student Loans and Canada Apprentice Loans, and made changes to loan repayment assistance so that payments need not be paid by those earning less than $40,000 per year
– to assist during the pandemic, it doubled Canada Student Grants, enabling students to receive up to $6,000 in up-front, non-repayable aid each school year, for three years

To support students beyond the pandemic, the party plans:
– to provide $813.6 million in 2023-24 to enhance student financial assistance for the school year starting August 1, 2023, including increasing Canada Student Grants by 40 per cent—providing up to $4,200 for full-time students; raising the interest-free Canada Student Loan limit from $210 to $300 per week of study; waiving the requirement for mature students, aged 22 years or older, to undergo credit screening in order to qualify for federal student grants and loans for the first time, thereby allowing up to 1,000 additional students to benefit from federal aid in the coming year

Registered Education Savings Plans
To address the rising cost of post-secondary education, the party plans:
– to increase limits on certain RESP withdrawals from $5,000 to $8,000 for full-time students, and from $2,500 to $4,000 for part-time students
– to allow divorced or separated parents to open a joint RESP for their children, which will make it easier and more affordable for parents to save for their children’s education

The party reports that:
– under its leadership the federal government has provided as much as $2 billion to provinces and territories to support a safe return to class and to protect students and staff
– younger workers were the hardest-hit age group as a result of the pandemic, with a drop to historic lows in youth employment
– to support post-secondary students who were unable to obtain summer employment during the summer of 2020, the government provided $2.94 billion in income support
– in addition, the government provided $228 million to graduate and post-doctoral students to support extended research scholarships

Culture, Arts & Tourism

Official Languages
The party states that:
– Canada’s two official languages unite the country, and that English and French are at the heart of Canadian history and identity
– however, the relative size of Francophone minority communities has been declining, even in Quebec, and Canada’s rate of official language bilingualism is static
– during its term in office it has:
* provided $2.7 billion over five years to fund its Action Plan for Official Languages, which includes funding for the training and recruiting of teachers to meet the growing needs of Francophone minority schools and immersion classes
* provided $450 million over five years, starting in 2019-20, to support minority-language education, including at the post-secondary level; second-language learning; and minority-language community and educational spaces
* provided, $21.6 million over five years, starting in 2020-21, to support legislative amendments for increased access to family justice, including divorce, in the official language of one’s choice

To continue its efforts to support both official languages, the party proposes investments of more than $3.8 billion over five years to implement its Action Plan for Official Languages, with  2023-28 to over $3.8 billion over five years in accordance with the four pillars of its Action Plan for Official Languages:
– providing $123.2 million to boost Francophone immigration in Canada, including support for Canadian employers to recruit French-speaking foreign workers, and increased support for these immigrants once they arrive in Canada
– providing $117 million to ensure the prosperity of official language minority communities, including increased support for the non-profit organizations that serve these communities, for the training of bilingual nurses and personal support care workers, and for the promotion of French-language research
– providing $111.4 million to bolster the heart of Canadian identity, including bilingualism in our justice system, for example through the translation of judgments of national interest and support for cultural and educational activities, including the training of early childhood educators in minority-language communities outside Quebec
– providing $22.1 million for a centre of expertise to ensure federal institutions fulfill their duty of leadership, under the Official Languages Act, by enhancing the vitality of official language minority communities, and to support data and research on the number of children who have a right to be educated in the minority language

Minority Language Employment Assistance
To support workers in Official Language Minority Communities, the party proposes to provide $208 million over five years, and $54 million ongoing to Employment and Social Development Canada to expand delivery of employment assistance services such as employment counselling, resume writing, interview techniques, job search skills, and job placement services

Film & Media
The party states that in recent years changing viewing habits have resulted in declining revenues for the Canada Media Fund (a non-profit organization that supports artists, storytellers, and producers in bringing Canadian content to audiences at home and around the world), making it harder for them to support homegrown talent.

The party proposes to provide $40 million over two years to the Department of Canadian Heritage for the Canada Media Fund to make funding more open to traditionally underrepresented voices, and to increase funding for French-language screen content. This approach ensures support for the production of Canadian content while the government continues to review and modernize its support for the Canadian screen sector

 Arts and Heritage
In its mandate letter to the Minister of Canadian Heritage at the beginning of its present term in office, the party instructed the Minister:
– that an immediate focus should be to ensure artists and cultural industries have the supports they need to recover from the impacts of theCOVID-19 pandemic
– to ensure Canada’s laws reflect the evolving digital world, and to introduce legislation to reform the Broadcasting Act to ask web giants to pay their fair share and combat serious forms of harmful online content
– to work with Indigenous partners to create a national monument to honour residential school Survivors
– in order to draw Canadians together and help tell us who we are, to prioritize efforts to promote cultural and creative industries in both official languages, increase funding to empower Indigenous, Black and racialized artists and journalists to tell their own stories and work with Indigenous partners to preserve, promote and revitalize Indigenous languages in Canada

The party proposes to continue to support opportunities for local artists, artisans, and heritage performers through festivals, events, and projects, including Indigenous cultural celebrations and the celebration of 2SLGBTQI+ communities, including providing $14.0 million over two years for the Department of Canadian Heritage for support of the Building Communities Through Arts and Heritage program.

 Tourism
In its mandate letter to the Minister of Tourism at the beginning of its present term in office, the party instructed the Minister:
– that the Ministry’s top priority should be to ensure that Canada remains a tourist destination of choice, supported by Destination Canada and working in partnership with the tourism and hospitality sectors
– to that end, its immediate priority would be to advance recovery measures for the tourism sector, one of the hardest hit by theCOVID-19 pandemic, and to develop a national trails tourism strategy

The party further states in its current budget that:
– with travel resuming in the wake of the COVID pandemic and the tourism industry beginning to recover, there is an opportunity to invest in Canada’s tourism sector and ensure it can continue to be a driver of good jobs and vibrant communities across Canada
– visitors to Canada generate billions of dollars in revenue for the Canadian economy, strengthen our commercial and social ties with other countries, and support Canadian businesses. As air travel continues to recover from the pandemic, it is committed to simplifying and expediting the application process for those seeking to visit Canada, while prioritizing national security
– to promote international tourism, it proposes to expand eligibility for the Electronic Travel Authorization Program to low-risk, trusted travellers from additional visa-required countries—a service which is currently available only in Brazil. This will help make Canada a more attractive destination for trusted travellers, while allowing the government to focus resources where it matters most, such as on screening higher-risk travellers. The cost of this measure is $50.8 million over four years in forgone revenue

It proposes, following consultations with the tourism industry, provincial and territorial counterparts, and Indigenous tourism operators, a new Federal Tourism Growth Strategy to chart a course for growth, investment, and stability in Canada’s tourism sector, including the following key components:
– $108 million over 3 years, on a cash basis, to the Regional Development Agencies to support communities, small businesses, and non-profit organizations in developing local projects and events
– $50 million over 3 years, on a cash basis, to Destination Canada to attract major international conventions, conferences, and events to Canada

Sports and Activities
The party proposes:
– in order to ensure that Canadian sporting institutions are accountable for the treatment of their athletes, to provide $13.8 million over three years to the Department of Canadian Heritage to enhance accountability and support efforts to build a safe and accountable sport system
– to promote physical activity, which can have significant benefits for both physical and mental health, as well as for communities, the environment, and the economy, providing $10 million over two years to the ParticipACTION Let’s Get Moving Initiative.

The party states that less than half of adults, children, and youth met minimum national physical activity guidelines

Role and development of the family

The party states that:

– increased maternal workforce participation is good for economic growth and increases domestic product per capita, as well as individual family income
– accessible and affordable child care helps create jobs and spurs economic growth

The party advocates:

– $10 a day child care to make life affordable for families
– laying the foundation for a Canada-wide early learning and childcare system, in order to correct economic losses to women caused by the COVID recession
– allocating $625 million to ensure that a safe and sufficient level of child care is available to support the gradual return to work of parents
– allocating a further $20 million to establish a Federal Secretariat on Early Learning and Child Care
– allocating a further $70 million to sustain the existing federal Indigenous Early Learning and Child Care Secretariat, to support Indigenous participation in development of a Canada-wide child care system
– providing a further $870 million per year for enhance fee subsidies for child care
– providing a further $420 billion in one year to train early childhood educators
– investing a further $75 million to improve quality of Indigenous child care programs through delivery of quality, culturally-relevant care
– providing $1200 per year for each child under the age of six for families with incomes under $120000 per year families receiving Canada Child Benefits an additional $300 per child

Healthcare

COVID Recovery

The party advocates:

– mandatory vaccines on planes, trains, and in the federal public service
– support for proof-of-vaccination credentials
– safer indoor spaces, like schools and businesses, with better ventilation
– free vaccine boosters, for everyone

The party reports that:

– of the $322 billion spent by the federal government to fight the pandemic by December 2020, $59 billion was used to support critical health care systems, purchase personal protective equipment, and support critical research and vaccine development
– as of December 2020, it has secured the largest number and greatest variety of vaccine doses, per capita, of any country

Of the $322 billion spent by December 2020:

– $284.2 million was spent to improve capacity for shipping, storing, and distributing vaccines
– $4.3 billion was spent for testing and contact tracing
– $1.2 billion was spent for helping provinces and territories prepare health care system & supporting those with mental health and addition challenges
– $4.5 billion was spent for personal protection equipment for the federal government
– $3 billion was spent to provide income for workers unable to work due to COVID -19
– $2 billion was spent to support municipalities
– $4.5 billion was made available for optional fund-matching for critical transit support
– it required all incoming international travellers to quarantine upon arrival, and provided $322 million in 2020-21 to provide quarantine facilities at Canada’s four largest airports
– it provided a further $100 million in 2020-21 to support safe voluntary isolation in municipalities across Canada, for those who cannot safely isolate at home

Health Care

The party advocates:

– support to hire 7,500 doctors and nurses
– better long-term care
– working to hire 50,000 personal support workers (PSWs) and raising their wages to $25 an hour
– publicly accessible mental health care
– action to address the opioid crisis and make it easier for people with problematic substance use to access treatment
– 10 days of paid sick leave for federally regulated workers
– protecting your sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Pharmacare

The party advocates:

– investing at least $170 million in governmental capacity to manufacture vaccines, by establishing a new bio-manufacturing facility at the National Research Council Therapeutics Centre in Montreal
– investing up to $792 million in private bio-manufacturing capacity through the Strategic Innovation Fund
– exploring ways to promote long-term sustainable growth in the bio-manufacturing sector, through the National Research Council and Strategic Innovation fund
– establishing new Canadian Drug Agency to negotiate drug prices on behalf of all Canadians
– developing a national strategy for high-cost drugs for rare diseases, with funding of $500 million per year, beginning in 2022-23

Support for the Elderly

The party reports that:

– from April to July 2020 it deployed members of the Canadian Armed Forces to support 54 long-term care facilities affected by the pandemic in Ontario and Quebec
– has committed to providing more than $50 million for support of long-term care facilities, including pay raises for home workers and training for additional workers
– it provided Old Age Security top-ups of $300 to seniors, as support during the pandemic
– it provided top-ups of $200 to recipients of Old Age Security payments, to defray costs of staying home and staying safe

The party advocates:

– working with provinces and territories to establish national long-term care standards, including improved conditions for support workers and improve retention

Students & Young Workers

The party reports that:

– under its leadership the federal government has provided as much as $2 billion to provinces and territories to support a safe return to class and to protect students and staff
– younger workers were the hardest-hit age group as a result of the pandemic, with a drop to historic lows in youth employment
– to support post-secondary students who were unable to obtain summer employment during the summer of 2020, the government provided $2.94 billion in income support
– in addition, the government provided $228 million to graduate and post-doctoral students to support extended research scholarships

The party advocates:

– to prevent the pandemic from derailing future opportunities for young workers, doubling student summer grant programs and providing funding for new opportunities
– increasing federal summer jobs placements by 40,000 to 120,000 by providing $447.5 million in new investments for 2020-21
– investing an additional $575 million over two years in youth employment and skills training, to providing approximately 45,300 job placements
– eliminating $329.4 million in federal interest on student and apprentice loans for 2021-22

Culture, Arts & Tourism

The party reports that:

– for some businesses, such as tourism and hospitality businesses affected by the pandemic, it is working with private lenders to offer loans on reduced terms
– it has allocated $181.5 million in 2021-2033 to the Department of Canadian Heritage and the Canada Council for the Arts, for their funding programs
– to support local radio and television broadcasters, it advocates waiving of $50 million in 2020-21 licensing fees

Role and development of the family
The party states that it hopes to build a future where families feel more secure and more hopeful in their lives.

Child Care
The party believes that every parent should be able to access quality child care when needed, with a licensed provider who earns a fair wage.

The patty advocates:
– working with other levels of government, Indigenous communities, families, and child care workers to ensure that care is inclusive and responsive to the needs of all Canada’s children
– investing $1 billion dollars in the first year, and more than that annually, along with provinces and territories

Diet & Nutrition
The party states that:
– every child in Canada should have access to nutritious food, and that no one should have to try to learn on an empty stomach
– a recent UNICEF report ranked Canada 37 out of 41 countries in terms of access to nutritious food for children

The party advocates working with provinces, territories, municipalities and Indigenous communities to work towards a national school nutrition program that will give every child access to healthy food and to food literacy skills to make healthy choices for life, including making culturally appropriate food available

Health Care

Pharmacare
The party states that:
– it led the fight to establish universal public health care in Canada. Medicare changed the lives of millions of people – and it is one of our party’s proudest achievements
– still, today millions of families cannot afford to take the medications they need because they have no employer-provided drug coverage. The number of uninsured people forced to skip their medications is growing as more people work on contract, are self-employed, or have jobs that just don’t come with health benefits
– many seniors are putting their health at risk because they don’t have drug coverage and can’t afford to pay out-of-pocket
– Canada is the only wealthy country in the world with a universal health care system that lacks universal prescription insurance coverage. Canada pays the third highest prices for prescription drugs in the world, straining its health care systems across the country, and have to deal with a patchwork of programs and coverage

The party advocates:
– immediately beginning to work with the provinces right away to target an annual federal investment of $10 billion
– developing a national strategy to cover drugs for rare diseases, so that coverage is no longer determined by where you live or what private insurance your family has
– ensuring that pharmaceuticals are financed by a public insurance system that covers everyone, putting an end to costly copayments, deductibles and premiums, and includes negotiating prices with pharmaceutical companies to brings down prices for everyone

Public Care
The party states that:
– universal access to public health care is one of the party’s proudest achievements
– quality medical services are under threat from privatization and cuts
– too often, Canadians are getting different care depending on their province of residence

The party advocates:
– immediate action to prevent the sale of blood products, and to make sure that people can access safe abortion services in all regions
– working with the provinces and territories to tackle wait times and improve access to primary care across the country, including development of secure, accessible virtual healthcare
– identifying coming gaps in health human resources and making a plan to recruit and retain the doctors, nurses and other health professionals Canadians need
– working with the provinces and territories to expand and improve access to palliative care across the country

Modernizing Care
The party states that:
– the Canada Health Act is supposed to fund all medically necessary services that Canadians might need. Many kinds of needed services are covered, however.
– as jobs with extended health benefits become harder to find, fewer people will have access to extended healthcare services
– over the next decade, Canadians need a historic expansion of the services covered under the national health care system.

With respect to dental care, the party:
– states that one in three Canadians has no dental insurance – and almost seven million people don’t visit the dentist every year because they can’t afford to, so that many people go without needed care, until the pain is so severe that they are forced to seek relief in hospital emergency rooms.  Good oral health is a critical component of overall good health, and should be covered by the health care system.
– advocates working together with provincial partners, health professionals and dentists to develop a roadmap to incorporate universal dental care into the public health care system, and immediately deliver dental care coverage for people who don’t have any private insurance

In addition, the party states that:
– more than one in five Canadians struggling with mental health challenges who have expressed a need for counselling weren’t able to get it
– eye check-ups are important for preventing vision loss and identifying other health issues, yet many, particularly children and seniors, don’t get regular eye care, or struggle to pay for glasses
– mental health care should be available at no cost for people who need it.  As a first step, it advocates implementing mental health care for uninsured Canadians, and ensuring that pharmacare covers prescription medication
– mental health coverage should include a national perinatal mental health strategy to support growing families before and after birth
– Canadians struggling with infertility should also have access to the procedures and care they need, no matter which province or territory they live in
– the long-term path to providing public coverage for these services will require strong federal re-investment in our health system, with the knowledge that investing in preventative health services will ultimately save money and give Canadians the care they need to live healthy, full lives

Pandemic Response
The party states that the COVID-19 pandemic exposed serious weaknesses in Canada’s pandemic preparedness and response capacities.

To strengthen national preparedness and response systems so that Canada is never again unprepared and left behind in a global pandemic, the party advocates:
– taking an immediate leadership role in a federal vaccination strategy to ensure all Canadians can be vaccinated
– providing stable, long-term funding for the Public Health Agency of Canada to prepare to provide surge capacity in the event of a crisis
– ensuring that Canada has the manufacturing capacity for vaccines for public health emergences, including establishment of crown corporation charged with domestic vaccine production
– ensuring that Canada maintains an adequate and responsibly managed stockpile of personal protective equipment, with an emphasis on supporting domestic production
– ensuring that the ability of the Chief Public Health Officer to speak freely about public health issues without the fear of political retribution, including protection by law, and requiring the Chief Public Health Officer to report to parliament annually about recommendations to improve public health emergency preparedness
– working with universities and health professionals to ensure that public research on critical health issues continues to flourish
– working to strengthen the Global Public Health Intelligence Network, which provides surveillance and early warnings that are critical for managing international public health

Emergencies
– taking action to regulate natural health products

Opioid Crisis
The party states that:
– seventeen Canadians die every day from opioid-related causes. Tens of thousands of families have lost parents, partners, siblings, and children
– every part of the country has been impacted by these highly addictive and dangerous drugs, from the busiest downtown neighbourhoods to the most remote communities
– too often, impacts are even worse for the most vulnerable and marginalized people
– the federal government is lagging behind the urgent action being taken by provinces like British Columbia

The party advocates:
– declaring a public health emergency and working with all levels of government, health experts and Canadians to end the criminalization and stigma of drug addiction, so that people struggling with addiction can get help without fear of arrest, while getting tough on those who traffic in and profit from illegal drugs
– creating a safe supply of medically regulated alternatives to toxic street drugs, supporting overdose prevention sites and expand access to treatment on demand for people struggling with addiction
– an investigation into the role drug companies may have played in fueling the opioid crisis, and seeking meaningful financial for the public costs of this crisis

Support for the Elderly
The party states that:
– the elderly deserve to live in comfort and safety
– seniors and those suffering disability should be able to remain in their homes with the care they need
– family caregivers deserve more support – and should never have to worry about whether their loved ones are getting good care
– every Canadian, of every age, deserves to live in dignity and be treated with respect by their government and the health care system
– all provinces and territories fund home care services as part of publicly insured healthcare, but there are inconsistent standards between provinces; and with resect to long-term care, understaffing at residential homes is an ongoing and critical problem across the country.  Staffing shortages make for poor quality care, hamper infection control and also leave health care workers at risk of experiencing workplace violence

To provide access to quality home care and long-term care no matter those in need live, the party advocates:
– ending private, for-profit long-term care and bringing long-term care homes under the public umbrella, beginning with the federally-owned long term care company Revera
– working collaboratively with patients, caregivers, and provincial and territorial governments to develop national care standards for home care and long-term care, regulated by the same principles as the Canada Health Act, including providing legally protected access to home care and long-term care services with ensured consistent quality of care across the country
– ensuring that funding is tied to maintenance of desired standards, including a core basket of home care services covered by provincial insurance plans, and setting minimum national care standards
– working with the provinces to develop and support workforce strategies and violence prevention, including making sure that care workers have better wages, stable jobs and health and safety protections

To provide financial security for seniors, the party advocates:
– development of a National Seniors Strategy that will work with the provinces, territories and Indigenous governments to make seniors health care a priority, reduce isolation and tackle seniors’ poverty, including a funded national dementia strategy and an elder abuse prevention plan developed with seniors to put an end to abuse and neglect in our communities
– through a national pharmacare program, providing prescription medicine to all seniors, saving seniors hundreds of dollars every year
– a national dental care plan
– a one-year delay to help seniors at risk of having their GIS benefits suspended for being unable to make the required income statement
– to assist caregivers, making the Canada Caregiver Tax Credit refundable
– creating half a million affordable housing units in the next decade, including accessible housing choices for seniors
– to address isolation, improving seniors’ access to technology and support
– additional funding for community programs that do outreach to seniors to combat isolation
– working with cities to make transit more affordable and convenient, create more community recreation spaces
– supporting innovative housing solutions like intergenerational co-housing

Education & Young Workers

Education
The party states that:
– accessible and publicly-funded education is a great source of opportunity for everyone in society. It can transform lives, opening new horizons and new opportunities for people from every background; is the greatest gift citizens can give one another
– students who have the grades and the drive to study hard should be able to get the education they want – at any age, and in every community, from affordable child care and early years education through to university and college, apprenticeship training, skills development, and retraining programs
– sky-rocketing and student debt are barriers to many students.  Today the average student with debt owes $28,000 at the end of an undergraduate degree, and will end up paying over $10,000 more than a student who is able to graduate without taking on debt

To ensure that every Canadian has access to quality post-secondary education, regardless of their income, the party advocates:
– working with the provinces and territories to cap and reduce tuition fees, and building towards making post-secondary education part of our public education system so kids can go from kindergarten to a career without the barrier of cost
– to make education more affordable immediately, following the lead of provinces that have eliminated interest rates on student loans
– implementing a targeted debt forgiveness program for graduates that will forgive up to $20,000 in student debt
– moving away from loans and permanently doubling non-repayable Canada Student Grants

Civilian Climate Corps
The party proposes creation of a new Civilian Climate Corps to mobilize young people and create new jobs supporting conservation efforts and addressing the threat of climate change by undertaking activities such as helping restore wetlands, and planting the billions of trees that need to be planted in the years ahead

Culture & Arts

Arts
The party believes that arts and culture are at the heart of the Canadian identity, and important in our understanding of one another.

The party advocates support for a a strong, independent Canadian arts and culture industry, including:
– a dedicated re-building package for the performing arts, theatre, festivals and other arts that have been impacted by the pandemic
– ensuring that talent can thrive on both digital and traditional platforms
– the ability of artists to earn a decent living from their art
– ensuring that government has an important role in ensuring that a diversity of Canadian voices tell our stories
– ensuring that Facebook, Netflix, Google, and other web giants pay their share of taxes and contribute to funding Canadian content in both official languages, just as traditional media do
– modernizing the Broadcasting Act fairly in order to create a level playing field between Canadian broadcasters and foreign streaming services, to rebalance negotiating power for Canadian independent producers and the Canadian cultural sector, and to ensure Canadian programming is owned by Canadians
– prioritizing partnerships with Canadian independent producers, including increased funding for Telefilm and enhanced financial support for the Canada Media Fund
– increased funding for CBC and Radio-Canada to help reverse funding cuts under previous governments, as public broadcasting has a remarkable legacy of connecting all points of the nation, and needs to have an even stronger future to ensure that Canadians have access to accurate, relevant information no matter where they live
– in view of special challenges faced by people who make a living in the arts and culture industry, implementing income tax averaging for artists and cultural workers

Official Languages
The party advocates:
– enhancement of the Action Plan for Official Languages to improve access to services in the language of choice, including working with the provinces and territories to improve minority language education, and attract more French-speaking immigrants to communities all across the country
– modernization of the Official Languages Act to strengthen oversight and accountability, expand the scope of language rights and ensure that minority language communities are consulted on decisions that impact them
– ensuring that Canadians can access justice in their language of choice, and that judges on the Supreme Court are bilingual
– adoption of the principal of asymmetry, which recognizes that as a minority official language, French requires particular protection and promotion
– ensuring promotion and revitalization of Indigenous languages, recognizing that honouring Canada’s linguistic heritage must include reconciliation

The party has published no statement regarding its policies on:
– The Role of the Family
– Education & Young Workers

Health Care
The party states that:
– Canada’s public health care system has the worst wait times of any developed country
– Health care costs have been increasing at an unsustainable rate, increasing financial pressures on the budgets of provincial governments
– the situation is likely to get worse with Canada’s aging population
– as seen during the COVID pandemic, the Canadian health care system is too rigid and bureaucratized to quickly adapt to a crisis situation
– although health care is an exclusive provincial jurisdiction, the federal government has insisted that the provinces satisfy a series of conditions set in the Canada Health Act in exchange for transfer payments, which are not tied to health care expenses but simply added to the provinces’ general funds
– these conditions discourage innovation and cause bickering between the federal and provincial governments
– federal health care transfers to the provinces have more than doubled since 2006, from $20 billion to $43 billion in 2021-22
– Canada is the only developed country where the government has a monopoly on medically required care. All other OECD countries have mixed private-public systems and (with the exception of the United States) universal systems that guarantee citizens equal access to treatment
– wait times are shorter in mixed-care systems, and nobody is denied care because of low income

The party advocates:
– repealing the Canada Health Act, and creating the conditions for provincial and territorial governments to set up mixed private-public universal systems like other developed countries, making them fully responsible for health care funding and management, and fully accountable to their citizens for the results
– replacing the Canada Health Transfer cash payments with a permanent transfer of tax points of equivalent value to the provinces and territories, to give them a stable source of revenue; e.g. causing the federal government to give up its GST and let provincial and territorial governments tax that space
– establishing a temporary program to compensate poorer provinces whose revenues from the tax will be lower than the transfer payments they used to receive
– creating conditions for provincial and territorial governments to innovate, and making them fully responsible for health care funding and management

Culture, Arts, & Tourism
The party states that:
– a nation must be based on a sense of belonging, of participating in a common national project, and sharing the same values, and that only when such sentiments are widely shared can the trust and common understanding necessary for a society and institutions to function
– in the past, in which immigrants who came to Canada were gradually integrated into society, keeping some aspects of the culture of their country of origin – becoming Canadian, but with a distinct flavour. This type of multiculturalism enriches our society
– the current stated policy of official multiculturalism encourages immigrants to keep the values and culture they left behind instead of integrating into Canadian society and adopting Canadian values and culture
– the current prime minister has described Canada as the first post-national state, with no core identity
– in a free society, immigrants have the right to cherish and maintain their cultural heritage; however, that does not impose an obligation on the new country to help them preserve it, with government programs and taxpayers’ money
– with two official languages, a multiethnic population including many Indigenous peoples and very different regional cultures, Canada is already diverse
– distinct Canadian values are those of a contemporary Western civilization, including democracy; individual rights and freedoms, including freedom of religious belief and freedom to criticize religion; equality between men and women; the equal treatment of all citizens regardless of ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation; the rule of law; separation of state and religion; tolerance and pluralism; and loyalty to the wider society instead of to one’s clan or tribe

The party advocates:
– in order to keep our country united and ensure social cohesion, focusing on what unites us as Canadians, not what divides us
– repealing the Multiculturalism Act and eliminating all funding to promote multiculturalism, emphasizing instead the integration of immigrants into Canadian society
– substantially lowering the total number of immigrants and refugees Canada accepts every year, from 500,000 to about 100,000
– ensuring that every candidate for immigration undergoes a face-to-face interview and answers a series of specific questions to assess the extent to which they align with Canadian values and societal norms (see Immigration policy)