#Elxn44 Roundup

The latest from Canada's federal election campaign.

- D.T. Cochrane reviews the parties' platforms and finds the NDP's to be both the most progressive and the most fiscally responsible. And Martin Lukacs and Ben Cuthbert examine the voting records of the Libs and the Cons - finding a regular pattern of the two voting together to block progressive priorities. 

- John Woodside reports on the Climate Action Tracker's conclusion that the Trudeau Libs' climate policies rate as "highly insufficient" to avert climate breakdown.  

- PressProgress continues to offer plenty of important insight into Erin O'Toole and his party - this time pointing out both O'Toole's eagerness to make common cause with health care privatizers, and Brampton South candidate Ramandeep Brar's belief in an entitlement to silence a former worker who dared to raise issues of wage theft and abusive working conditions. 

- Meanwhile, Haseena Manek writes about Angella MacEwen's work to not only win a seat for herself, but build progressive capacity in Ottawa. 

- Finally, Joe Roberts traces the rise of the PPC to anger among Canadians, while noting the glaring need to ensure that people who recognize a need for change perceive a viable left-wing alternative to the politics of bigotry and hate. 

New column day

Here, on the bleatings from far too many corners that there's no right time to discuss meaningful policy choices - and the federal NDP's push to prove otherwise.

For further reading...
- The NDP's set of campaign commitments is here (PDF). And I'll be looking at some of the specific proposals in more detail over the summer.
- The Cons' sad excuse for a climate plan is receiving duly scathing reviews - even from some of the party's most reliable cheerleaders.
- Finally, one of the few other commentators to note the significance of the NDP's platform is Karl Nerenberg, while Jim Warren was the one to make the stunning claim that the party shouldn't have released anything at all. And the few voices questioning the NDP's policies in substance are ones whose opposition should be welcomed.

On entrenchment

Following up on my earlier post and column, let's start taking a look at some of the more distinctive policy proposals on offer between Saskatchewan's NDP leadership candidates.

Probably the most noteworthy single promise so far is this from Trent Wotherspoon as part of his platform on Crown corporations:

Lock down our Crown Corporations and ensure they’re around for generations to come by putting the requirement for a referendum before any sale into the constitution…

Of course, the previous NDP government took steps to protect the Crowns through legislation, with decidedly mixed results. The Saskatchewan Party was cowed into acceding to the Crown Corporations Public Ownership Act. But it eventually felt entirely comfortable both selling off any public assets that weren’t specifically named, and indirectly attacking or ignoring the legislation itself after acceding to its terms once (PDF).

The major advantage of Wotherspoon’s proposal would then be to avoid allowing a single provincial government to sell off a Crown on its own to the extent a sale fell under the new constitutional definition.

But even if the NDP found a federal government willing to cooperate in passing a constitutional amendment to protect public ownership (which is far from clear with either the Libs or Cons in power, plus a requirement for Senate approval), it would face some logistical difficulties.

In order to lock down all Crowns, a constitutional amendment would need to be extremely specific in limiting all means of disposing of or reducing the public ownership of a clear and expansive list of assets. But there's some point where wording intended to protect against ill-advised sell-offs would also limit the ability to operate Crowns effectively by deciding whether some assets and lines of business might no longer fit within the public interest.

Meanwhile, it's also not clear that any protection would be extended to future Crowns which might be developed absent another set of constitutional amendments. And so any debate over a constitutional amendment, as well as any actual implementation, would likely be backward-looking rather than forward-looking.

Finally, the same process used to apply a constitutional amendment could eventually be used to reverse it - meaning that a single term of right-wing government at both levels could undo it in an instant. (And unlike the legislation still on the books, that process wouldn't necessarily involve any public consultation.)

To be clear, some of Wotherspoon's other proposals do rightly address broader issues and opportunities in the Crown sector. But they rank lower in priority and prominence than the constitutional proposal.

In contrast, Meili's platform plank on Crowns includes substantially more discussion as to where it's possible to expand on the services and industries currently included in the sector. And the future of our common wealth likely lies more in confirming for the public how the province benefits from treating Crowns as a valuable part of our economy and political system - not focusing on process to save them in form.

In sum, while it's well worth discussing how to protect and build Saskatchewan's Crown sector from corporatist politics, it's also worth questioning whether a constitutional amendment is the place to start.

On points of agreement

With both Ryan Meili and Trent Wotherspoon having run leadership campaigns before, both could be expected to have plenty to offer by way of policy. And that’s proven true - though not necessarily in a way that will give NDP members a lot of distinctions to help in sorting out their choice.

To date, both Meili and Wotherspoon have released a number of issue-specific planks, with Meili also offering a general vision statement. And there are far more similarities than differences between the general themes and proposals involved.

Before I start examining the key differences, I'll point out some of the obvious similarities - as well as a few areas where agreements in principle aren't necessarily reflected in the candidates' policy proposals to date.

Among the points in common between the two, they're in agreement on:
- a $15 minimum wage;
- restoring decision-making authority to local school boards;
- eliminating the funding gap for Indigenous students;
- requiring a referendum before privatizing any Crowns, as well as expanding the mandate and geographic reach of existing ones;
- a retrofit program for energy efficiency; 
- a new provincial transportation system to replace STC; and
- a resource royalty review. 

Meanwhile, in a few extremely prominent policy areas, there's a notable difference in the candidates' willingness to commit to specific targets or actions even while they agree on the underlying principles.

For example, while both promise made-in-Saskatchewan climate change policies, only Meili has actually set out targets to be met (a 30% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and 45% in methane emissions by 2030). In contrast, the contents of Wotherspoon's plan are entirely to be determined.

And Meili specifically promises to introduce a universal pharmacare program - while Wotherspoon stays a couple of steps removed by saying only that he'll "work to deliver on pharmacare".

Conversely, Wotherspoon sets out a specific target of a $15 per day child care program. In contrast, Meili promises "the best child care and early childhood education program in Canada", but doesn't offer any detail about what that would include.

And Wotherspoon identifies specific revenue generators, including a new $250,000 income tax bracket and the reversal of tax cuts in the current top bracket. Meanwhile, Meili leaves tax policy to be dealt with in an overall revenue review which includes royalties.

Those differences offer a starting point in identifying both the relative priorities of the candidates, and the areas where they each see more work needing to be done before they're prepared to make firm commitments. And it's worth noting those contrasts before turning to the policy proposals which look to break new ground.

Leadership 2017 Platform Analysis - Jagmeet Singh

Having once expressed my concern that Jagmeet Singh would use his front-runner status as a means to avoid releasing much policy, I'll again note that he's instead offered up a detailed and thoughtful policy agenda.

And while much of what he's presented is relatively similar to the contents of Ashton's platform (and in some cases Caron's), a few elements do stand out:
- using the tax system to fight climate change both through taxes on high-emission vehicles, and incentives and rebates toward positive investments;
- providing for the collection of LGBTQI2S+-specific health data to ensure that care is available to meet patients' needs;
- amending the Working Income Tax Benefit both to be phased out more gradually, and to be paid more frequently;
- eliminating tax write-offs for entertainment and other corporate perks;
- providing specific protection for temporary workers, including the application of labour standards and a right to be made permanent within a cumulative total of six months of work; and
- aiming toward multiple additional benefits in federal infrastructure projects, including emission reduction, fair work and community benefits.

Like Angus and Caron, Singh has restricted his policy proposals to a few areas of particular interest. And that's particularly unfortunate given the level of thought put into the ones he's addressed: it would be a plus to see some detail given to areas like health care where relatively little is on the table other than Ashton's broad plans.

But Singh has provided both a strong indication as to which areas he'd prioritize, and a willingness to defend those choices where they prove controversial. And that can only help voters in deciding where to rank him in a strong group of candidates.

Leadership 2017 Platform Analysis - Guy Caron

If Niki Ashton stands out in having received relatively little attention for her policy development, Guy Caron looks to be on the opposite end of the spectrum.

Having justifiably portrayed himself as the policy wonk candidate and built his campaign largely around a basic income proposal which continues to provoke important discussion, Caron hasn't faced much attention in other policy areas. And so he's been able to avoid answering for what's otherwise been a fairly thin policy agenda.

Aside from the basic income, other points distinct to Caron include:
- specific refugee protections for climate migrants;
- a 7-hour work day for jobs within federal jurisdiction;
- a list of new revenue options including taxes on foreign e-commerce profits and limiting RRSP contributions; and
- Quebec-oriented commitments including the application of Bill 101 language requirements to federally-regulated industries in Quebec along with a bilingualism requirement for Supreme Court judges.

But Caron largely stops at his areas of specific strength: his Quebec policy is his lone effort at outreach to a specific segment of the progressive movement (in stark contrast to the range of proposals developed by Niki Ashton and Jagmeet Singh), and his strict avoidance of matters within provincial jurisdiction leaves him with little room to offer proposals on social programs aside from the basic income.

Now, one can argue that the result is that Caron's overall policy package is internally consistent and easy to judge in terms of his personal priorities. (And lest there be any doubt, Caron has expressed his personal support for additional progressive ideas during the course of the debates, while identifying the impossibility of implementing them solely at the federal level.) But it remains to be seen whether members will want to be bound by Caron's limited scope of operations.

Leadership 2017 Platform Analysis - Niki Ashton

As I've noted previously, Niki Ashton's debate strategy doesn't often seem to involve discussing policy at length. And that's a shame, because she's done more than any other candidate to raise (and propose solutions to) a broad range of issues.

While Ashton has primarily emphasized her proposals for free tuition and social ownership, other parts of her platform which deserve further attention include:
- an immediate path to citizenship for migrant workers and temporary foreign workers, coupled with a plan to ensure that anybody who comes to Canada to live is similarly able to become a citizen;
- a reworking of prisons to improve the education and training available for offenders, while also providing labour protection for prison labourers;
- a jobs plan which explicitly aims toward sustainable full employment; 
- introducing a Financial Activities Tax aimed specifically at banking profits and bonuses, along with a "Robin Hood" tax on transactions which has been more extensively discussed elsewhere;
and
- including preventative dental care in the Canada Health Act (alongside plans for pharmacare and mental health).

Unfortunately, the lack of discussion of those proposals by either Ashton or her competitors has also left little scope to address either their respective priority, or any potential issues with them. And it's not clear that the current shape of the campaign will leave much time for clarification.

But Ashton deserves ample credit for developing a broad set of ideas which merit further discussion within the NDP no matter how members wind up voting in the leadership race. And anybody who hasn't heard as much policy detail as they'd like in the rest of the leadership campaign may want to give Ashton's policies a much closer look.

Leadership 2017 Platform Analysis - Charlie Angus

While most discussion around the NDP's leadership campaign has revolved around the ebb and flow of news cycles, it's always worth a closer look as to what the candidates see as worth highlighting. So I'll be taking a look at the policies on offer from the candidates, starting with Charlie Angus.

While Angus has been vague on some points in the leadership debates, he's offered interesting and distinctive proposals in a few others, including:
- the devolution of Indigenous program delivery to the community level, accompanied by a plan to dismantle the INAC structure which currently oversees it;
- a housing plan which would use existing CMHC surpluses to provide for a right to housing, both through social housing and through credits toward the cost of other forms of construction; and
- a push toward cooperative economic development, including giving workers the legal right of first refusal over a closing business.

Aside from those points, there isn't much in Angus' platform which isn't broadly reflected in the plans of his challengers. And more problematically, Angus' platform leaves more questions than answers both in some of what it promises, and particularly what it omits.

On climate change, Angus' lack of clarity on pipelines is matched by the absence of any specific targets (or plans to meet them). And in a policy area where the supply of ideas and promises has long exceeded the political will to act, the proposal of a national advisory council leaves a worrisome amount of room for further delay. 

Meanwhile, Angus' urban agenda seems to utterly miss the jurisdictional basis of municipal operations, proposing the creation of "neighbourhood corporations" and altered municipal governance models which make no mention of the provincial role in establishing and governing municipalities.

And Angus lacks specific plans in areas ranging from justice and ethics to health care and child care (though pharmacare does show up as a subpoint in his "working class" policy).

At best, those omissions might be explained by Angus' plan for membership-driven policy development. But that too represents a lot more deflection than detail.

As a result, Angus more than any other candidate has left NDP members with little more than a "trust me" when it comes to policy. And while a series of high-profile endorsements coupled with a career's worth of activism and advocacy offers some basis to do so, I'd be much more comfortable if Angus had provided a more clear indication was to which policies he'd pursue if given the chance.

Saskatchewan 2016 - NDP Platform Review

I mentioned here that any attempt to review the Saskatchewan Party's platform ran into the problem that there simply wasn't anything worth analyzing, as two pages of conditional promises were buried under thirty of spin.

In contrast, the NDP's platform (PDF) includes plenty of meaningful ideas. And while the NDP's primary focus may not be where one would hope, there's ample material which could form the foundation of a highly productive term of government.

That said, let's start with the part which may be frustrating for voters seeking primarily to know what the NDP would plan to do: the first section is dedicated to "cutting Sask Party waste" rather than the planned uses for the money saved. That may serve the purpose of giving platform readers a reminder of the case against Brad Wall, but it delays any discussion of the NDP's own priorities until later on.

So what are those priorities once they do emerge? In addition to previous commitments to mental health, First Nations education and emergency services, some of the more noteworthy points include:

• A slightly more progressive income tax system, with an increased personal exemption amount (which seems like a popular policy choice, if seldom my preferred use of fiscal capacity), balanced out by a new tax bracket for people making $175,000 and up;
• Directly creating 2,000 child care spaces (along with a registry to assess need) and 2,500 affordable and social housing units, while also investing in hospitals and long-term care homes;
• Promoting Saskatchewan businesses through procurement policies and "Buy Local" initiatives, while also expanding incubator funding;
• Conditionally eliminating small business taxes only for corporations which have three or more employees to ensure a direct connection to jobs; and
• Adopting a Housing First policy and testing a basic income as part of a comprehensive poverty reduction strategy.

Lest there be any doubt, there's room to be more ambitious or make better use of available resources in a number of areas. The NDP is paralleling the Sask Party's promise to let seniors defer property taxes, holding off on any royalty rate increases even in the course of promising reviews, and making a weaker commitment to increasing the minimum wage than was found in the Alberta NDP's winning platform last year.

But if the NDP's platform may not get Saskatchewan to my ideal destination in a single term, it does suggest an important change in direction toward serving people rather than corporate backers. And that contrast deserves far more attention than the distractions which have dominated the campaign so far.

On unstable platforms

With Saskatchewan's main political parties having released their election platforms, now is the time when I'd planned to put together platform reviews to better examine voters' options.

But a funny thing happened when I went to what was supposed to be the Saskatchewan Party's platform (PDF). It turns out Brad Wall's party isn't offering a platform by any known meaning of the word. And what's most noteworthy in the Saskatchewan Party's promises is the absence of what are supposed to be priorities for Wall's government.

Let's start with the full list of "new commitments" offered by the Saskatchewan Party - which can be found in its entirety at pages 3-4 of the platform. (Seriously.)

That would be sad enough if the content of those two pages actually consisted of promises which could be considered new and/or commitments. But of the 18 bullet points which apparently make up the Wall government's entire platform for the next four years, fully half merely restate or extend plans already announced or in place. And several more are contingent on oil prices increasing - which is of course well beyond the control of any government.

Meanwhile, plenty of other past announcements which received publicly-funded hype are conspicuously left out of the platform. And most notably, even the sad excuse for a poverty reduction strategy which was hastily slapped together before the election appears nowhere - signalling that another term for the Saskatchewan Party can be taken as a mandate to let poverty fester.

Now, the most generous spin one can put on the platform document is that it reflects a stay-the-course philosophy. But does anybody buy that dozens of candidates and hundreds of staffers and volunteers would be putting in the time and effort to put together a campaign for office - with the assistance of millions of corporate dollars - to serve the grand vision of allowing home-baked cookies to be sold at coffee shops?

Somehow I have my doubts. And if not, then what's left out of the Saskatchewan Party's platform looks to be far more important in defining their direction for the province than what's included.

#elxn42 - Election Day Resources

For all the time spent on Canada's federal election, it's now time for voters to have their say. And anybody looking for basic information on where and how to vote should start with Elections Canada or a trusted local campaign.

For anybody wanting to read up on the factors which may help determine how to vote...
- As always, I'll strongly recommend that people vote for what they want, not merely against what they don't. To see which party best matches your vision for Canada, you can find the major parties' platforms at the following links: Conservative - NDP - Liberal - Green. I've reviewed the first three here, here and here respectively. And for a look at how third parties have assessed the platforms, see again my compilation here.
- Meanwhile, those inclined to vote strategically (in the face of the usual warnings) can see among other sources Pacific Gazette, Rabble, Strategic Voting or Vote Together - or look to the projections and predictions from Too Close to Call, Three Hundred Eight, the Globe and Mail's Election Forecast and David Akin's Predictionator with appropriate adjustments for what's happening in your community.  
- And if you want to see everything I've written and linked to about the campaign, feel free to peruse this tag. 

But most importantly, be sure to get out and vote, and encourage those around you to do the same. And hopefully Canada will be on a course for change for the better by this time tomorrow.

On expert opinions

Following up on this week's column, let's highlight exactly how the NDP compares to its major national competitors, the Libs and Cons, in the eyes of the experts and civil society groups who know what matters most in assessing progressive policies.

I'll include all of the analyses I've linked in previous posts including the full list from the Income Security Advisory Centre, as well as a few other prominent progressive organizations and/or rankings which have shown up in the news. But please do let me know of any which should be added for the sake of completeness - and note that while I've omitted a few listed by ISAC to the extent they seem to fall short of differentiating explicitly or implicitly between the parties' platforms, I haven't left any out based on their conclusions.

Since comments on parties' platforms tend to take a few different forms, I'll divide the post into two parts: one dealing with explicit rankings or grades where parties can be compared quantitatively, and ones with commentary where there's some room for qualitative judgment.

Starting with the former, here are the areas where the organizations I've examined have assessed progressive priorities with some effort to quantify or rank them. (Note that there are some sub-topics where the NDP ranks second, but the list is based on adding up or averaging all grades for all topics.)

Climate change: Keith Stewart (Greenpeace)
Environment: David Suzuki Foundation
Health care: College of Family Physicians of Canada
Budget policy: David Macdonald (Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives)
Internet freedom: Open Media
Free expression: Canadian Journalists for Free Expression
First Nations policy: Assembly of First Nations
Housing: FRAPRU, Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario (tie)
General policy: Canadian Association of Social Workers (PDF)
Physician-assisted dying: Dying With Dignity Canada (tie)
[October 19 Update - Added:
Democratic Reform: Democracy Watch (tie)]

As for the number of organizations rating any other party first overall, the total is: zero.

[October 19 Update: We have our first exception, with the NDP ranked narrowly behind the Libs under...
Urban Issues: Council for Canadian Urbanism]

In the latter category which includes both organizations' analysis of platforms and implied preferences based on their summary of platforms in specific areas, we have:

Child care: Lynell Anderson and Iglika Ivanova (Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives), Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada
Climate change: Erin Flanagan (Pembina Institute), ecojustice 
Community health: Canadian Association of Community Health Centres
Employment Insurance: Good Jobs For All Coalition (PDF)
Health care: Canadian Health Coalition, Ontario Health Coalition
Pharmacare: Campaign for National Drug Coverage
Tax fairness: Dennis Howlett (Canadians for Tax Fairness)
[October 18 Update:
Municipal policy: Federation of Canadian Municipalities]
[October 19 Update:
Disability policy: Council of Canadians with Disabilities]
 
And again, the total number of organizations generally finding another party's platform to be more desirable than the NDP's is: nil.

Now, I'm sure there are some organizations whose didn't find their way onto the lists and sources I've looked at. And again, I'll be happy to update this post for any more which deserve to be included.

But the overall theme looks to be abundantly clear: the people working hardest on progressive policy are effectively unanimous in preferring the NDP to any major alternative. And voters wanting to see progressive change - not to mention anybody following the Libs' supposed interest in consultation and evidence-based policy - should look to the people who know the issues best, rather than being swayed by the bloviations of the Libs in claiming to define what is and isn't progressive.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Steven Chase notes that the Cons' promise to let Canadian know the details of the Trans-Pacific Partnership before they vote was broken with unusual speed and publicity. Michael Geist points out that we do know enough about the TPP to be sure it puts our privacy at risk, while Ryan Meili and Sarah Giles discuss how the TPP will tie the hands of our health care system. Andrew Jackson observes that the TPP may also lock Canada into the resource trap preferred by the Cons, rather than allowing us to develop a sustainable economy. And Armine Yalnizyan writes that it also figures to lock in an underclass of temporary workers who can be exploited personally, and used to drive down wages for everybody.

- Bruce Livesey reports that the Canada Revenue Agency is renting multiple offices from a landlord known for its own offshore tax evasion (who bought them during the Cons' earlier wave of public selloffs).

- Meanwhile, Dennis Howlett reviews where Canada's federal parties stand on tax fairness. And the Income Secury Advisory Centre offers a rundown of plenty more platform reviews on important issues.

- Nick Davies frames Stephen Harper as a master manipulator rather than somebody with the slightest interest in the public good. And Amira Elghawaby lists a few of Harper's more galling abuses while reviewing Les Whittington's new book.

- Mohammed Adam makes the case as to why he can't vote for Harper, while Pete McMartin doesn't see how the campaign can centre on any issue other than the imperative to change from continued Harper control. William Thorsell writes the editorial he thinks Canadians should be reading instead of the laughable corporate-ordered ones they're actually seeing. And Michael Harris sees the Cons as going down in flames.

- Karl Nerenberg writes that the Daniel Gagnier scandal - featuring one of Justin Trudeau's campaign co-chairs telling oil barons about how to manipulate a new government before one has even been elected - is only typical of the Libs' relationship to lobbyists. Michael den Tandt takes the view that the Libs' latest scandal signals their likely unwillingness to do much about democratic reform if they have any was to wriggle out of it. 

- Finally, Lana Payne writes that we should take the opportunity to push for a kinder and more caring Canada. And Robin Perelle argues that we should vote for the NDP's commitment to progressive values, rather than the Libs' compassion of convenience:

Though the Liberal and NDP platforms seem remarkably similar now, it’s the Liberal party that initiated cuts to transfer payments to the provinces in the mid-1990s, plunging health care and other pillars of Canada’s social infrastructure into a new era of underfunded decline.

In the Liberal party’s push to renew some of that funding now, it differs from the NDP on one key point: it cut the funding in the first place. The NDP, in contrast, has consistently put forth a vision of Canada that values social services and cares for the most vulnerable members of our society.

“The NDP knows that one of the most important ways to judge the conscience of our country is how we treat our most vulnerable citizens. Our government has to do more. Much more,” the NDP writes in its 2015 platform.

It’s language like this that’s absent from the Liberal platform.
...
This election, I’m ready to give the NDP its chance to form government and to redirect our country along more genuinely compassionate lines.

Who are you voting for?

New column day

Here, making the case that Canadians should vote less based on perceptions of momentum (in terms of both policy and political positioning), and more based on where our parties and leaders actually stand.

For further reading...
- The platform comparisons referenced in the column include Keith Stewart's on climate change, the College of Family Physicians of Canada's on health care, David Macdonald's on budgeting, and OpenMedia's on digital policy.
- Meanwhile, David Macdonald also takes a look at the key messages being presented by each party. 
- Finally, those looking to delve further into the platforms can again read them at the following links: Conservative - NDP - Liberal. Or for condensed versions, see among others the Tyee, Buzzfeed and the National Post, along with my earlier platform reviews.

#elxn42 Platform Review - Liberals

Finally, let's take a look at the Liberals' platform. Leaving aside the question of whether the Libs can plausibly live up to their campaign messaging of simultaneously being more progressive than the NDP, more business-friendly than the Conservatives, more devoted to the revolution than the Marxist-Leninists and more subcutaneous esplanade imbroglio than the Surrealists, what can we observe from their platform that might not be noticed in their mass messaging?

For the most part, the answer is "not much": having created large pools of money for purposes yet to be determined as the core of their platform, the Libs mostly leave matters to future determination. But there are a few points worth noting:

• avoiding the lapsing of some types of funding, including infrastructure funding which would be paid at the end of the fiscal year directly to municipalities (p. 14), and foreign aid and military spending which would not be allowed to lapse (p. 65, 69);
• measures to seek out Canadians who are entitled to services, including proactive voter registration (p. 27-28) and steps by the CRA to advise people of available benefits not being claimed (p. 33);
• setting aside a fixed percentage of program funds to experiment with new approaches (p. 37);
• eliminating a Labour Market Impact Assessment fee for temporary foreign workers hired as caregivers (p. 63); and
• creating a Cabinet committee dedicated solely to Canada's relationship with the U.S. (p. 67 - and note the juxtaposition against the NDP's plan for a committee to address First Nations issues).

More generally, the most striking aspect of the Libs' platform is its inclination to only partially reverse some of the Cons' most controversial actions while in power. (In this respect, the Libs' position on C-51 seems to be fairly consistent with a general pattern of accepting the Cons' decisions subject to only minor tweaking later.)

For example, the Libs plan to keep the Cons' distinction between "designated countries of origin" when it comes to evaluating refugee claims: their reform of that new and highly-dubious policy is limited to appointing a panel to determine which countries to list (p. 65). In contrast, the NDP promises to eliminate the distinction altogether.

Similarly, the Libs pledge to "review" the Cons' attacks on environmental laws (p. 42), but do not make a clear pledge to reverse them as the NDP does. And they promise to "refocus" foreign aid toward African countries and poverty reduction (p. 65), but not to actually increase that aid.

In sum, then, the Libs' platform suggests significant reluctance even to undo the damage the Cons have done. And so voters focused on change rather than triangulation may want to look elsewhere.

[Edit: fixed wording.]

#elxn42 Platform Review - NDP

I've pointed out before that Tom Mulcair's practice - both in pursuing the NDP's leadership and in leading the party - has been to continue largely with the party's existing policy base.

In keeping with that principle, the NDP's platform doesn't contain many surprises for anybody who's kept a reasonably close eye on the party's activity over the past few years. But there are certainly a few points worth highlighting - particularly to the extent they contrast against the plans of the Cons and Libs.

Some of the more noteworthy promises which haven't received much notice so far include the following:

• in addition to delivering the funding and pharmacare program promised throughout the campaign, resuming federal enforcement of the Canada Health Act (p. 1, 33);
• expanding parental leave, including by providing specific leave for a second parent (p. 7);
• not only reforming the temporary foreign worker program, but also ensuring that temporary foreign workers have a path to citizenship (p. 19);
• modifying Employment Insurance eligibility rules to take into account the changing nature of work (p. 20);
• cracking down on both unpaid internships and two-tier employment contracts (p. 26); and
• deferring government appointment powers to board jointly selected by the government and Official Opposition (p. 56).

What's particularly worth noting, however, is the difference between the NDP position and the Libs' in areas where there's broad agreement about the need for action of some kind.

Anybody who watched the debates may be familiar with the distinction in the parties' positions on climate change - with the NDP wanting to commit to a target which can then be the subject of future planning, while the Libs talk about wanting to take action while declining to be pinned down as to what can or should be done. But the same distinction arises in other areas as well, particularly the ones which are likely to be of the most concern to progressive voters.

Both the NDP and the Libs promise some specific actions to combat poverty among children and seniors. But the Libs stop there, while the NDP pairs its immediate steps with an ultimate poverty target of zero and a commitment to establish a council and interim targets along the way (p. 28).

And both the NDP and the Libs promise to work on child care plans. But the NDP has targets as to how many spaces should be created and at what cost (p. 6-7), while the Libs leave for later any decision as to what a "framework" might look like.

To some extent, that distinction fits with one of the Libs' campaign messages: the NDP is indeed willing to ensure that federal money and authority is used to achieve specific outcomes. But it's left to progressive voters to decide whether they prefer a government which knows what it wants to accomplish and orients discussion with the provinces and other parties toward that end - or whether they're prepared to settle for one which doesn't see the need to decide.

[Edit: fixed wording.]

#elxn42 Platform Review - Conservatives

Given the lengths Stephen Harper has gone to in limiting how his party is presented publicly as well as the Cons' general status quo campaign theme, it may come as a surprise that the Cons' platform includes 159 pages - making it nearly twice the length of any other party's. But anybody hoping for the Cons to do more than waste paper in the process is out of luck.

To be clear, there's a trend toward including talking points and contrast messaging in all of the platforms. But the Cons' stands out in distilling Harper politics to its essence - then serving up far more of that than any reasonable voter could possibly want to read.

To start with, the Cons bury minor and/or vague policy declarations within pages upon pages of the same material you've heard ad nauseum from Stephen Harper if you've paid any attention to him during the campaign.

As a key example off the start: the very first section of the platform, covering seven pages of the Cons' platform, could be described as a matter of substantive policy with four words: "balanced budget" and "tax lock". The rest is window dressing and largely-false attacks.

But that's not the last you'll hear of those same talking points. Instead, the subsequent section on the economy does little more than rephrase them under various subheadings, and numerous further sections repeat them again.

Meanwhile, the few promises the Cons do make are largely couched in language about continuing stakeholder consultations - which might seem more appropriate for an opposition party needing to get its bearings in government, but raises the question of why issues worth identifying and acting upon haven't already been discovered during the Cons' 9 years in office.

A particularly stark example here is the promise to "Increase funding to efforts to help women escape the sex trade" (p. 117), which neither mentions any such current or proposed efforts, nor includes any actual costing.

For those looking for promises which haven't yet been subject to much attention, here are a few which might be worst some attention:

• continuing to set arbitrary limits on the number of regulations through expanded "one-for-one" rules and new cuts to those which already exist (p. 24), with no regard for their effect or importance;
• pushing for provincial and territorial education curricula designed to serve "employer and market needs" (p. 30);
• increasing the size of provincially-nominated immigration programs for the purpose of more widely distributing immigration across the country (p. 32);
• increasing and indexing the lifetime capital gains exemptions to create a tax haven for an individual's assets above $500,000 (p. 64);
• establishing an "equivalent-to-spouse" tax credit to create a splitting-type mechanism for single seniors (p. 66) - though note that nothing of the sort is proposed for families; and
• establishing a matching funding mechanism for museum endowments (p. 130).

As for more general themes, a few do stand out.

First, the Cons largely echo George W. Bush's theme of pushing an "ownership society" at every turn - setting a target for 700,000 new homeowners, with numerous policies then aimed at reaching that goal. Needless to say, we should pay close attention to how that worked out for Bush and the U.S. housing bubble.

Second, the Cons dedicate multiple promises to funding PR and marketing campaigns on issues ranging from agricultural promotion (p. 39) branding the lobster industry (p. 42) to challenging environmental questions about forestry practices (p. 44) to boosting pro-Ukraine messaging in Eastern Europe (p. 92). Which seems noteworthy in signalling that the Cons have come to see propaganda as a public policy priority in and of itself.

Finally, it's worth noting that while the Cons' platform contains numerous promises to continue or expand some existing programs, it falls far short of covering current federal government operations. So anybody looking to determine what the Cons plan to cut in the future can likely start with the areas where there's no commitment to continue doing what's being done already.

#elxn42 Platform Reviews - Overview

The combination of a majority government and an extra-long campaign period has left Canada's major political parties with ample time to refine their election platforms. And regardless of what your disingenuous neighbourhood Wildrose MLA might tell you, those platforms represent the best indication as to what policies you can expect each to pursue if given the chance.

All three major parties put in the time and effort to prepare a detailed platform of 80 pages or more. But each also left relatively little time for that platform to be reviewed by the public.

For the most part, we can fully expect each platform to mirror a party's broader election messaging. But in order to see if there's either more or less than meets the eye, I'll take some time today to examine each of the platforms, with a particular focus on:

• any noteworthy themes or patterns within a platform itself; 
• anything particularly important that hasn't been the subject of much public discussion;
• anything that contradicts or conflicts with a party's public messaging; and
• any glaring omissions from a party's platform.

For those interested in doing the same, the platforms are available in PDF as follows: Conservative - NDP - Liberal. And I'll suggest that even people who have already decided or voted may find them worth a look to see how the parties are looking to portray their planned actions in government.