It's been another busy week in the NDP leadership race, with policies, events and endorsements galore. So let's jump right in...
- Niki Ashton released both a statement on multiculturalism and a health-care plan, with one familiar idea featuring prominently in the media's coverage in Saskatoon - and will be in Regina for a couple of events today.
- Nathan Cullen met with the Winnipeg Free Press in the midst of a prairie tour of his own.
- Paul Dewar unveiled an endorsement from former Ontario NDP leader Mike Cassidy, with the promise of another major announcement to come.
- Thomas Mulcair picked up what may be one of the more crucial endorsements of the campaign, adding a western MP to his list of supporters in Don Davies. And at the same event yesterday, Mulcair also unveiled his retirement security plan - though the idea of a voluntary top-up to the CPP seems more likely to reinforce concerns about Mulcair fitting awkwardly with the values of core NDP members, particularly since his plan sounds eerily like the one the Libs have pushed for the past few years (only with an extra dose of financial-sector involvement).
- Peggy Nash released a plan to move Canada toward women's equality, including a reinstated long-gun registry with legislated protection for its data.
- And Brian Topp released his democratic reform policy paper (featuring Senate positioning similar to what I've mused about recently), wrote an open letter in the wake of Lise St-Denis' defection, and addressed the Economic Club of Canada before a western swing of his own.
- Finally, to the reporting and punditry. Bill Tieleman offered a roundup of his second tier of candidates. Scott Stinson criticized Topp for not accepting the Cons' anti-tax rhetoric as an inviolable centrist consensus. Joanna Smith took a look at how the leadership campaigns are being funded. And Chantal Hebert's theory that the NDP's Quebec breakthrough was based on a desire for a more ecumenical form of politics figures to feature prominently in Cullen's message from here on in.
Correction, the NDP already supported allowing people to make voluntary contributions to CPP (it was NOT a Liberal plan). The difference between the NDP/Mulcair plan and the Liberal plan is that the NDP/Mulcair plan also includes doubling the maximum CPP benefit as part of the mandatory program. Mulcair's announcement yesterday is a framework to make all that happen.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ndp.ca/platform/give-your-family-a-break#section-1-1
Duly noted that Mulcair does plan to double the mandatory CPP, which is indeed a substantial step up from the Libs' plan. But he puts a far greater amount of emphasis on the voluntary portion than the party did under Layton while introducing a private "selection of investment funds" into a program associated with the CPP - which looks more like a sop to the financial industry than an improvement for citizens.
ReplyDeletePresumably he's putting more emphasis on the voluntary portion of the proposal because that's where he's proposing something new--doubling CPP is already out there.
ReplyDeleteCreating a new public investment vehicle and then telling the financial industry "if you want to compete with this vehicle you have to comply with regulatory requirements to provide a defined/guaranteed benefit pension and insure thise benefits" is quite the opposite of a sop to the financial industry. The current system is a sop to the financial idustry.
Nice share about senate positioning.
ReplyDeleteLeadership questionnaire