Look at what the Federal leaders are doing in Week 2 of Election Campaign:
Conservatives
Leader Erin O’Toole wants to protect the pensions of average working Canadians.
O’Toole said the Tories would ensure that pensioners have priority over corporate executives in a bankruptcy or restructuring situation.
“Executives shouldn’t be getting massive bonuses while workers lose out in their retirement. Our plan will also require companies to be more transparent by clearly reporting the funding status of their pension plans.”
“Canadians who have paid into a pension plan should be able to rely on it actually being there when they retire,” noted O’Toole.
“But far too often, we have seen workers, through no fault of their own, forced to take big cuts to their pensions when the company they worked for goes bankrupt. As prime minister, I will stand up for workers and introduce the necessary measures to protect hard-earned pensions.”
Later during the same campaign announcement, O’Toole continued to emphasize his support for universal medicare.
O’Toole said if the Tories are elected he would make record high health transfers to the provinces.
“A prime minister who was serious about health care wouldn’t have called an election during a national health emergency. And now, unbelievably, he’s threatening to cut health care funding and close health care clinics in the middle of a pandemic.”
O’Toole added that the private role in Canada’s health care system has grown since Justin Trudeau became prime minister.
Liberals
Housing was the topic for Justin Trudeau during a campaign stop in Ontario on Tuesday.
The Liberal leader released his party’s three-part housing plan they say will help more Canadians own a home.
“We’ll get you to a down payment with a plan worth tens of thousands of dollars when you buy your first home and the launch of a new rent-to-own program,” Trudeau told reporters.
The Liberals are promising to create a home buyer’s bill of rights to make the process of home buying more transparent.
The plan also included banning blind bidding, establishing a legal right to a home inspection, and banning new foreign ownership for two years.
“You shouldn’t have to move far away from your job or school or family to afford your rent. You shouldn’t lose a bidding war on your home to speculators. It’s time for things to change,” said Trudeau.
The Liberals also committed to building, preserving or repairing 1.4 million homes in four years in an effort to help increase the supply of available homes.
NDP
Ending for-profit long-term care is on the mind of the federal NDP leader.
In Mississauga, Ontario on Tuesday, Jagmeet Singh said his party would work with provinces and territories to ensure long-term care is publicly delivered.
Singh said at the height of the pandemic, people living in for-profit facilities experienced higher infection rates and deaths compared to those in non-profit and public facilities.
“It can’t be that our seniors and our loved ones bear the brunt of this pandemic and then we forget about it,” Singh said.
Singh said “what we have seen has been horrible and we can’t accept it”.
“Right now as it stands, when we fund long-term care some of that money is going into the pockets of shareholders. That is wrong. Canadians don’t want our public money going to make people richer. It should be going to protect and care for our loved ones,” Singh said.
Singh said the Conservatives and Liberals are satisfied with the private delivery of care, the NDP are not and will defend seniors who deserve dignity in their last years of life.
(With Files From Allen Dearing, Brad Perry and Tamara Steele)
