MONTREAL – Political parties have made a lot of promises over the past six weeks to try to woo voters. Here’s a look at some of the promises made by the Quebec Liberal Party, Coalition Avenir Québec, the Parti Québécois and Québec solidaire when it comes to education, economy, sovereignty, language, health, ethics, taxes, families and Montreal.
EDUCATION
Quebec Liberal Party: Increase university tuition by $254 per year over seven years and improve student aid. Give every elementary public school students $100 to help buy school supplies. Double funding for elementary school homework assistance programs. Invest $50 million over five years for training programs based on the needs of the Plan Nord and outlying regions.
Coalition Avenir Québec: Abolish school boards, extend high school days by one hour, increase teachers’ salaries, reduce the university tuition increase to $200 per year for five years and then indexed to inflation while improving financial aid for students. Eliminate the ethics and religious culture course in elementary school and allow schools to introduce intensive English programs in Grade 5.
Parti Québécois: Abolish the university tuition increase, repeal Bill 78 and hold a summit on university financing. Invest $37 million to hire 600 more professionals to assist teachers in schools and fight the dropout rate, allow kids in poor communities to start kindergarten at age 4 instead of 5 and increase the amount of history taught in high school from 350 to 500 hours per year.
Québec solidaire: Provide free education for all Quebecers by abolishing fees from preschool to university, provide free extracurricular activities in public elementary and high schools, reduce class sizes, hire more professionals to interact directly with students, and gradually transfer funding from private schools to the public system.
ECONOMY/JOBS
Quebec Liberal Party: Create 250,000 new jobs and reduce the unemployment rate to six per cent by 2017. Invest $1 billion to attract foreign investment. Offer incentives to businesses that keep experienced employees. Put 100 per cent of mining, gas and petroleum royalties (after equalization payments) into the Generations Fund to pay down the deficit. Invest $750 million over five years to aid the manufacturing industry. Create a $2-billion, 10-year fund to stimulate research and development – half of the money would come from the private sector. People 21 and under on welfare will get an extra $120 per month if they actively look for employment.
Coalition Avenir Québec: Under the CAQ, the Caisse de dépôt et placement would invest more in Quebec and be involved in keeping corporate headquarters in the province. Create a $5-billion natural resources development fund within the Caisse. Adopt a work-retirement policy to allow older employees to stay at work with reduced hours, use royalties from non-renewable resources to pay off the public debt.
Parti Québécois: Create a Quebec Economic Development Bank. Pursue the Plan Nord. Require companies to transform raw materials in the province instead of exporting them elsewhere to be turned into other products. Introduce a five per cent royalty on all mining operations, increasing to 30 per cent as the mine becomes more profitable.
Québec solidaire: Create a Green Plan with 166,000 new green jobs in fields such as electrification of the transit network, raise the minimum wage to $11.72 for a 40-hour work week, introduce a $12,000 annual minimum salary, ban lockouts and injunctions against picketing, give regions the power to decide whether to allow mining development and increase pension payments to 60 per cent of earnings.
SOVEREIGNTY
Quebec Liberal Party: Federalist party.
Coalition Avenir Québec: Put a 10-year moratorium on a sovereignty referendum, increase Quebec’s autonomy within Canada by expanding Quebec’s responsibilities in language, immigration, culture, telecommunications, environment and energy.
Parti Québécois: Hold a referendum when a PQ government feels it can win it, “repatriate” responsibility for areas such as immigration, food sovereignty and employment insurance.
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Québec solidaire: Advocate for creating a sovereign Quebec by setting up a constituent assembly that would consult Quebecers about Quebec’s political status and its common values, among other things, and develop proposals that would be put to a referendum.
IDENTITY/LANGUAGE
Quebec Liberal Party: Leader Jean Charest said he would discuss extending Bill 101 to federal institutions, then retreated and said it was not a priority. The Liberals would “work with all those who are concerned with our language” in order to promote it, use it and allow it to have importance in daily life, he said.
Coalition Avenir Québec: Introduce a secularism charter, limit the number of immigrants to 45,000 per year for two years to improve assistance for integration and employability of new immigrants. Increase the proportion of new immigrants who already speak French, are willing to settle in the regions and are trained in fields that meet Quebec’s labour market needs. Have the Office québécois de la langue française undertake a “vigorous effort of francization,” add new inspectors at the OQLF, increase resources to teach adult immigrants French and no longer allow “bridging,” where students who attend English private schools are eligible to attend English public schools.
Parti Québécois: Create a charter of secularism forbidding public employees from wearing overt religious symbols, create Quebec citizenship and grant it to everyone living in the province and any newcomers who can prove they know French and know about Quebec. Newcomers who want to run for office would have to speak French. Expand Bill 101 to cover CEGEPs, training schools, adult-education programs and businesses with 11 to 49 employees. Favour new immigrants whose main language is French, no longer allow “bridging” between English private and public schools.
Québec solidaire: Increase the number of members of cultural communities and immigrants in the public service to reflect the population of Quebec, create an ethnic and visible minorities hiring program in companies with more than 50 employees that get government loans, grants or contracts of more than $50,000. Enforce the provincial French-language charter in all workplaces, expand Bill 101 to businesses with more than 10 employees, hire more employees at the Office québécois de la langue française, no longer allow “bridging” between English private and public schools and expand French classes for new immigrants and women.
HEALTH
Quebec Liberal Party: Expand free dental care to children ages 10 to 16 and invest $47 million to treat chronic diseases. Consolidate ambulance services across the province and create a helicopter ambulance service. Create a web portal for comparing medical specialists’ wait times, have nurses co-ordinate care for the chronically ill and renovate long-term residential care centres.
Coalition Avenir Québec: Provide a family doctor for every Quebecer, abolish health and social services agencies and increase funding for home care and support for seniors. The CAQ would start a pilot project in Quebec City to allow doctors, once they have worked a certain number of hours in a public establishment, to charge for private health care. The party would also create specialized clinics for some surgeries.
Parti Québécois: The PQ would spend $59 million to hire new health-care professionals, and $36 million to hire family physicians. It would also create a new program aimed at shifting care for the elderly from institutions to their homes.
Québec solidaire: Would invest $1.1 billion to provide free health care 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Has promised a family doctor for every Quebecer, an expanded home-care program, a midwife for any woman who wants one and reduced emergency room wait times. QS would also create Pharma-Québec, a universal public drug-insurance plan.
CORRUPTION AND ETHICS
Quebec Liberal Party: Would introduce a new law forbidding contractors that have been accused of fraud or a serious crime from bidding on government contracts. Companies with ties to an officer or shareholder who has been accused of a serious crime or fraud will not be allowed to bid on government contracts. Corruption, embezzlement, extortion and conspiracy will be made criminal acts under the provincial anti-corruption law.
Coalition Avenir Québec: Appoint an Integrity Commissioner to enforce ethics rules for politicians, political staff and civil servants, increase the power of the auditor-general, completely revise the rules for allocating public contracts. It would have fixed election dates, limit political party donations to $100 per year and election spending to $4 million per party.
Parti Québécois: Limit individual party donations to $100 per year with no tax credit and introduce fixed election dates. Allow national referendums with the signatures of 15 per cent of the population, except on fiscal questions. Introduce a two-term limit for a premier, and three-term limit for mayors of towns with more than 5,000 people. Municipal and school elections would be held on the same day.
Québec solidaire: Have 60 per cent of representatives in the National Assembly elected by the first-past-the-post system and 40 per cent divided between the regions. Introduce fixed-date elections. Oblige elected officials to hold one public consultation a year. Hold an inquiry into the awarding of government contracts and political party financing in areas not covered by the Charbonneau Commission, such as contracts awarded by Hydro-Québec.
TAXES
Quebec Liberal Party: Create a tax credit of up to $500 for people investing in the Plan Nord, extend the $1,500 tax credit for employees 65 and older to 62-year-olds and offer a $1,000 payroll tax cut to companies employing people over 65. Increase the capital gains exemption to $1 million for Quebec-based farming businesses that are being transferred to a family member.
Coalition Avenir Québec: Cut taxes by $1,000 to middle-class families over five years by abolishing the $200 health care tax, limit increases in school taxes and other measures. Introduce a $1,000 tax credit for families with at least one child toward the purchase of a first home. Simplify tax forms for seniors.
Parti Québécois: Abolish the $200 health-care tax and finance it by adding two new tax brackets for people earning more than $130,000 and $250,000 per year.
Québec solidaire: Introduce a more progressive taxation system that party co-leader Amir Khadir said would lower taxes by about 20 per cent for the bottom 25 per cent of earners while increasing taxation of the top 10 per cent of earners by about one per cent. QS would also increase corporate taxes and use all necessary means to collect money owed to the state.
FAMILIES
Quebec Liberal Party: Index daycare fees to the inflation rate over five years, and grant companies a tax credit to create workplace daycare centres. Increase the refundable tax credit for natural caregivers and support families that buy an intergenerational home or renovate a property to make it intergenerational so seniors can live at home.
Coalition Avenir Québec: Ensure new daycare spots are created in low-income neighbourhoods, make daycare an essential service to prevent strikes and make daycare schedules more flexible. Give parents of children under the age of six a total of five paid days per year of leave.
Parti Québécois: Add 15,000 more daycare spots in order to have a spot for each child in Quebec. Introduce family leave to allow parents to care for their children or other family members who are vulnerable, disabled or elderly. Introduce a $500 tax credit for each child aged 5 to 16 who enrols in sports or arts (for families that earn $130,000 or less).
Québec solidaire: Create 40,000 new daycare spaces, relax the structure of daycares to make them more flexible for families in non-standard jobs, allow daycare centres to offer summer camp and drop-in services and gradually shift funding from private daycares to the public system.
MONTREAL
Quebec Liberal Party: Invest $500 million to renovate métro stations, install electric-vehicle charging stations and help the city of Montreal organize events for its 375th anniversary in 2017.
Coalition Avenir Québec: Reduce the number of city councillors to less than 50 and eliminate borough councillors. Increase funding to Montreal’s four universities and for major cultural events. Look for ways to help the region’s biopharmaceutical industry and encourage foreign investment in Montreal. Provide financial assistance for Montreal’s infrastructure maintenance.
Parti Québécois: Name a minister responsible for Montreal supported by a ministerial committee, invest in public transit and extend the métro to Anjou. Reach an agreement with the city of Montreal on integrated urban revitalization.
Québec solidaire: Halt urban sprawl, invest $1.2 billion in public transit, build 22,500 housing units in Montreal.
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