Leadership 2012 - Policy Highlights

With the NDP's leadership convention set to start tomorrow (and assorted hospitality suites already starting up tonight), I won't be able to finish off my initial plan to put together full policy reviews for each of the candidates. But instead, I'll take some time to highlight a few innovative ideas which haven't received a lot of media attention, but stand out as deserving more discussion within the NDP regardless of who wins the leadership.

Judicare, proposed by Niki Ashton:

Ensuring that all Canadians are genuinely equal before the law starting by creating a dedicated federal transfer for “judicare”, modelled on the Canada Health Transfer, that would allow legal aid programs to expand the range of services they provide to Canadians who can’t otherwise afford a lawyer;

No less an authority than the Governor General has pointed out that more needs to be done to facilitate Canadians' access to justice. But rather than limiting that effort solely to the voluntary capacity of bar associations, Ashton's proposal would ensure that part of the task is carried out through public funding.

Arctic University, proposed by Nathan Cullen:

• Work with the Northern colleges to foster an Arctic University to help develop future leaders, and allow Northerners to pursue higher education without leaving their families and communities.

In addition to being a worthwhile idea on its own, the proposal would also serve as an important starting point in considering what the federal government can do to ensure that Canadians falling under its jurisdiction (including on-reserve First Nations as well as territorial residents) receive both meaningful self-determination and a reasonable standard of services, rather than being alternately vilified and forgotten by a federal government determined to do as little as possible.

International Women's Equality, proposed by Paul Dewar:

- Make economic, educational and democratic empowerment for women and girls a core focus of Canada's development policy;

- Promote women's meaningful participation in peace building as a central plank of our international diplomacy, and implement Canada’s National Action Plan on United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security;

For all the efforts that the leadership candidates have rightly made to point out the continued gender gap within Canada, the need for action is even more glaring abroad. And a concerted effort to include women in international development and diplomacy could go a long way toward breaking down barriers to both gender equality and general development.

One-Stop Consumer Protection, proposed by Thomas Mulcair:

The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (Finance)
This proliferation of separate agencies has inevitably made the dissemination of information scattered and difficult for consumers to access. Nowhere is this clearer than in the government’s digital presence. The website for Industry Canada`s Office of Consumer Affairs, for instance, provides extensive content addressing a wide variety of ongoing consumer concerns, but safety recalls on toys must be sought out at Health Canada's website and those seeking information on financial products must do so at the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada's website.
...
Canadians deserve a single point of contact for vital consumer protection information and a single point of responsibility to ensure the interests of consumers will be a priority—not just the interests of well-connected corporations.

With the Service Canada model adopted for so many interactions between the federal government and all kinds of actors, it's stunning that consumer protection - one of the areas of public jurisdiction where there's an especially obvious need for user-friendliness - has instead been both broken into multiple agencies and chronically under-resourced.

Royal Commission on Electoral Reform, proposed by Peggy Nash:

Pursue the implementation of a system of proportional representation by:
• establishing a Royal Commission on Electoral Reform, in collaboration with other parties, within the first six months of forming government to make specific recommendations on which system (or combination of systems) is best suited for Canada as well as the most effective legislative process to implement the changes;

While PR is of course a staple of NDP party policy, Nash's proposal moves well down the road in suggesting how it can actually be implemented: not by following the referendum model that's failed at the provincial level, but instead by engaging in a careful but efficient process to review and adapt our electoral system.