To plan effectively and democratically, Canadians need more control at all levels of government than they have in a system based on profit. This will include:

• setting clear, democratically agreed targets for the three green and social indicators, identifying, through consultation and study, how best to achieve them at the relevant level of government or enterprise;
• providing, through legislation or government action incentives for the changes we envisage and alternatives when change is not forthcoming;
• enabling Canadians to hold their governments and corporations to account for their actions and collaborating with environmental and social justice activists to do so;
• increasing government revenues and finances through increased taxation on the rich, incomes of crown entities or by borrowing from Canadians;
• directing sufficient funds into protecting the environment and advancing social goals to ensure the transformations needed;
• working with all types of economic units – public, cooperative, and private – to achieve these objectives;
• taking essential goods and services industries, especially the rail industry, broadband internet and telecommunications, and long-term care facilities, into public ownership;
• appointing a Public Economic Interest Commission to identify other firms that would serve Canadian society better in public hands, beginning with natural monopolies such as transport, communications, energy and resources;
• combining public ownership with economic democracy;
• recognizing that often there are no silver bullets and that we must combine apparently disparate measures into a coherent whole: for instance, both a Carbon Tax or Cap and Trade may have a role to play in reducing emissions;
• remaining open to radical and exciting ideas from Green, Socialist, Justice and other movements, and from abroad; and
• being prepared to recognize that solutions may require trial and error.

Collaborating for new thinking; campaigning for change

Change must start now. We cannot and need not wait to be elected. We will initiate and support campaigns such as those for guaranteed minimum and maximum income, citizen debt audit, work-sharing, Green tax reform, firm environmental caps, ending subsidies to polluters, support for the cooperative economic sector, and curbing wasteful expenditure of advertising.

Practical Green and social measures are being developed by a wide network of innovative Green thinkers across the planet. We will work with them at grassroots, party, and government levels.

Back to Platform