However, the outcome of federal elections can do just this. While many see elections as a kind of a playoff season, the debates being the games where there are winners and losers. However, those watching the elections also realize that from the results, there are real winners and real losers and as Canadians, we need to try to make these elections work for everyone, not just for those that stand to gain the most from a party intent on giving you back even more money that you don't need, somehow convincing the public you will still be spending it in your community despite the fact you already have everything you need/ For the purpose of this post, I want to explain to people what is on offer in general for the federal election and what this means for people in Canada, and especially underlining why it is important to cast your vote even if you don't know who to vote for.
First, the unfortunate focus of the federal parties has been on tax credits. Tax credits are fine if you have a strong annual income with money left over at the end of every month. If you use some of this money to pay for your children's participation in sports, you will be able to claim a children's fitness credit, or if you pay upfront for home renovations, you might qualify for a small renovations credit. Tax credits are offered everywhere by the Conservatives, thrown about like candy mostly to their supporters, but at the same time putting on a charade when attempting to address regular Canadians. Unfortunately, many regular Canadians might actually believe that the Conservatives will be handing you a cheque if you fall into an increasing number of categories, while the fact remains that if you are only earning a modest income, you likely cannot pay the upfront costs for children's hockey, home renovations, carpentry tools, etc., so any tax you have to pay will be at its maximum as the Conservatives will not be offering you any cheques or tax reductions just for you being alive. At the same time, if you are a single earner in an upper middle class family earning at least $93,000 a year on your own, while your spouse stays at home with the kids, you can haul up to $50,000 of your own money (on paper) to your non-earning spouse to save on your taxes for a reduction of almost $2,000. This doesn't assist single earners that earn much less than that.
Further, because the Conservatives do not believe anybody needs child care and that all families have somebody who is able and willing to stay at home for many years to look after their own children, usually the woman (so her income can be further cut back and even demolished upon the 50% chance of your marriage ending in a divorce, but oh well...), they do not support funding daycare for any child. At the same time, Conservatives reprimand single parents who are stuck on welfare and unable to work because they have no child care. Their solution is, I suppose, is to find yourself a man who earns a family wage to take care of you. Good luck. About the intact families where one earns money from a job and the other is at home because of disability, the losses are borne entirely by the one working as well as the person who is disabled. This convoluted gift for the wealthy has no benefit whatsoever for caregivers (unless they were able to quit their jobs and look after their loved ones full time, with a tax credit - wow). If you are a single earner and earn less than $44,000 a year, you won't be getting any help from the Liberals either, as their magically constituted middle class earner earns between about $44,700 and $89,401. I can't remember the last time I earned more than even $40,000 for my family, so I guess I am stuck with all the taxes, the clawbacks and other punishments I am to tolerate for being married to a man who is disabled.
The Conservatives have extended the Universal Child Credit Benefit (UCCB) to those adults with children between the ages of seven and eighteen, which is fine, but it is just $60.00, albeit the benefit IS taxable. Many of Trudeau's middle class families will be losing most of it through taxes at the end of the year. I presume the Conservatives' intent for this money is for parents to put it into an RESP or something for their children. Most lower middle and working class families I know do not have the money to put into an RESP. The money from the UCCB, while appreciated, will likely go towards paying the hydro bill, or paying to put food on the table. It is impossible to save when you have no money from which to draw from to put into any kind of savings instrument. At the same time, people are constantly bombarded with talk about how Conservative policies will put "more money in your pocket". I am saying, this would not put any more money in anybody's pocket who needs it ... and for those that do benefit, they are unlikely to spend it in their communities. Like the large companies that have already benefited from Liberal and Conservative largesse for years, this money is likely to be hoarded in savings accounts or even in offshore accounts. How that helps our economy, I am puzzled. It certainly isn't going to go towards hiring even one additional worker.
The Liberals have a few selective benefits, such as an expanded child benefit that will be targeted to lower and middle class families and add up to more money per child on an annual basis. They will also tax earnings from those earning $200,000 or more in a new tax bracket at 33%. Corporate tax rates will remain the same (even though as some pointed out, many wealthy people flow all of their income into a privately held company and draw in accordance to the corporate rate as opposed to their general taxation rate). That means many millionaires will continue to pay less taxes than the rest of us. The NDP wants to close a number of loopholes for high earners and hike corporate taxes. Conservatives, of course, want to scare everybody into believing that all the large companies will leave Canada to lower tax havens. This is not what will move them. The Trans Pacific Partnership deal likely will eventually move Canadian jobs out of the country, but not a single Conservative or even a Liberal will admit that. When confronted, the Conservatives promise to pour billions into the dairy, auto and other sensitive industries to help "transition" them under the TPP; little do they admit that not a single penny will land into the pockets of the workers in these industries, just the overpaid and over entitled executives. Once the TPP takes effect and jobs are lost, those losing their jobs will join the rest of us to compete for the remaining low paid, part-time, unstable jobs that are left, while struggling to make ends meet on less and less money.
The NDP also wants to fund a national childcare scheme, as well as begin talks about home care and a national pharmacare program, although I think the TPP would put a kibosh to that one. Harper will continue to constrain Canada for years to come, even long after he had been booted out of office, which is better sooner than later. A national childcare scheme, while a good idea, might only be good a few years down the road after all the provinces and the federal government adopt it, which leaves people needing child care today still lacking. What I do like about the NDP is that they will stop the income splitting for the families (not the seniors) and will end the extension to $10,000 for the TFSA. An extended TFSA again only benefits wealthy people or at least those that have $10,000 laying around doing nothing that they can plug into one of these accounts. Most of us just hope to get through each month not falling further into debt. Who is willing to speak to us about that?
The NDP is the only major party that plans to fully ratify and implement the International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Canada has signed the agreement, but did nothing beyond that, such as setting up an infrastructure so that legislation, programs and services passed by any Canadian government, federal or provincial, pass Charter muster. This would give us a chance to challenge how disability benefit programs serve to keep people with disabilities in poverty and discourage relationship formation and children staying at home beyond the age of eighteen years. It might even find a way to allow us to file in tort to get our hard earned retirement savings back, especially among us who were forced to drain them and look forward to retiring under the nearest bridge. The amount the government provides for basic OAS/GIS is sub-poverty level and given the fact that most health coverage disappears at that stage. Only the NDP and the Liberals want to increase the GIS and bring retirement age to 65 for those that wish to retire at that time. The Conservatives are probably fooling a lot of seniors into believing they will be receiving an additional $2,000 annually if they are widowed or otherwise living alone. This again is a tax credit, which means if you are receiving any GIS (Guaranteed Income Supplement) as part of your retirement package, you will get nothing. Again, the better off you are in retirement, the better off the Conservatives want to make you. To Hell with the growing number of seniors who are retiring in deep poverty.
In this election, don't let the federal Conservatives tell you health care, services for people with disabilities, etc. is only provincial. If this were true, then what would happen if one of our provinces suddenly decides to opt out of medicare? If health care were provincial, they'd be able to do that with no strings attached, which is what many Conservatives like to see given they have done nothing during their tenure about enforcing the Canada Health Act (which regulates the delivery and public funding of health care, as well as federal transfers). The Conservatives plan to slowly reduce the amount of money they transfer to the provinces, despite the ageing population and increased needs, to the extent some say is as much as $36 billion. If you think you can pay more and more for your needed health care out of pocket, then that is okay for you ... but for the rest of us? Too bad. The provinces don't want to raise taxes any more than the feds do, so why does the feds always say health care is provincial? For exactly that reason! They want to download health care entirely onto the provinces by withdrawing their funding and not enforcing the Canada Health Act. Further, the Conservatives have not held a single meeting with provincial premiers on health care since they got into power, so that is because they intend to get rid of it by attrition.
They say services to people with disabilities are provincial. Canada used to have a Canada Assistance Plan, which regulated welfare payments, which ensured that no province will make deep cuts to the program that would put people's health at risk, that they had a right to retain assets, that they had a right to earn money that would not be deducted, and the right to appeal, among other key requirements, again with penalties for provinces that don't comply. In 1993, the federal Liberals scrapped the Canada Health Act, which essentially opened the door to many provinces cutting welfare rates, passing workfare requirements, etc. This is why we are so far behind in Ontario. A recent article stated that if welfare was retained even at the rate of inflation since Mike Harris came to power, it would be over $962 per person, but it is actually less than $650 per month (in Ontario). Disability rates were frozen under Harris, which is the same as a cut because the price of housing, food, transportation, clothing and other necessary items goes up, while your income stays the same. The Conservatives also deepened the regulations which continue to sit today that smother people from ever escaping poverty, unless they immediately find a good paying job with benefits. We all know where these kinds of jobs had gone. If you have one, be thankful. Many of us will never get there.
They also downgraded environmental, food inspection and health regulations, whereby industry is allowed to hire their own "inspectors" and pass on their own discretion. We all know how well that went with incidents such as Maple Leaf Foods and the listeria crisis and provincially, Walkerton. The Conservatives say it is incompetent staff, but who is setting the standards as to who should be working in these places? Nobody. It continues today. You are a friend of a friend of somebody. That is how you get jobs in most places.
The unfortunate thing is that some people still believe there are "opportunities" out there. If there were, we would not be in the economic crisis we are in. People would not be working two or three part-time jobs or trying to survive on one low income, or moving in with parents or friends and relatives because they cannot afford to pay for a roof over their heads. I would have been able to snag a position between 2000 and 2006 when I sent no less than 800 applications to various jobs for which I qualify, but was denied every single time. An Adzuna study last year deemed the Niagara Region as having only one job vacancy for every one hundred unemployed job seekers. The people telling us about these "opportunities" unfortunately already had theirs and most are enjoying at least a semblance of a retirement, something that is becoming more and more at question for most people.
Elections are important. It is too easy not to vote. However, political parties and campaigns determine their platforms and priorities by the people that vote, not the people that don't vote. The political campaigns know each and every poll in every electoral district. They obtain data from various sources, where they know the age breakdown, ethnic breakdown, average incomes, renter/ owner ratio, etc. for each and every poll. If it turns out and it does, that those in wealthier homeowner-based neighbourhoods, vote at an average of 85% of their registered voters ... while only twenty percent of registered voters in renter dominant, lower income and high youth polls, it should not surprise you why political candidates say nothing about poverty, housing, tuition fees, etc. because they know who votes and who doesn't. I do believe if the lower income neighbourhoods, the young people, students, etc. voted at the same percentage as the wealthier and middle class groups, politicians will be falling all over each other to get the "poverty vote", the "housing vote", the "student vote", etc. Don't believe me?
Ask yourself why Harper has tried to make it harder for many people to exercise their right to vote. Be a rebel and vote anyways! Surprise them all!
