Toronto Centre All Candidates Meeting 2021

By Daiem Mohammad
(Daiem is a youth journalist with the FOCUS MEDIA ARTS CENTRE)

Regardless of who wins, it’s sure to be a hard-fought battle for any of the candidates. Here’s a collection of platforms and promises made by each major candidate.

On Monday, September 13th, 2021, a Virtual Toronto Centre All-Candidates Meeting was held featuring candidates, Brian Chang of the NDP, Annamie Paul of the Green Party, Marci Ien of the Liberal Party and Ryan Lester of the Conservative Party. The All-Candidates Meeting was hosted by The Community Civic Engagement Collaborative, a non-partisan collective of residents and organizations residing or serving the Regent Park, Moss Park, St. James Town and Cork Town Neighbourhoods. In addition to Zoom, the meeting was live streamed by Regent Park TV.

The Green Party

The Green Party of Canada presented a broad plan on Climate Change that includes getting Canada to net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions, protecting forests, and scaling up renewable energy. Other promises made include canceling all new pipeline projects.  The Green Party also supports a national affordable housing strategy that includes a national moratorium on evictions.

The New Democratic Party

Prior to the official calling of the election, Jagmeet Singh penned an open letter to PM Trudeau, calling a potential fall election “selfish”. His criticisms fell on deaf ears, as the election was called, and Singh is now thrust into an extremely short campaign, likely only being called to secure the Liberals a majority.
    
The NDP continues on calls that Singh has been making for months now, on taxing the rich. Jagmeet said that, if elected, he would impose a 1% tax on households with assets that exceed $10 Million, and an “Excess Profit Tax”, which would implement a 15% tax on large corporations whose profits shot up amidst the pandemic. They estimate that the Excess Profit Tax would bring in $8 Billion in federal revenue.

But what do they plan to do with the money received from taxing the rich? The NDP is committing to social services, including national child care, Pharmacare, dental care (all within the first term), fully paid sick leave, continuing pandemic aid programs, a “small business recovery package” and making post-secondary education part of the public school system.
    
On top of that, they are looking to boost the federal minimum wage, and over the next decade, creating over 500,000 units of affordable housing.
    
Working with marginalized communities is also clearly at the forefront, with the NDP committing to developing a “national action plan for reconciliation” with Indigenous Peoples, and also working with the LGBTQ2S+ community and addressing systemic racism.
    
On the issue of climate, they hope to start a committee that would reduce climate emissions by 50% by 2030.

The Conservative Party
 
The Conservative platform, helmed by new leader Erin O’Toole, is fascinating at a glance. Despite his party affiliations, O’Toole has been criticized by many other conservatives for a handful of surprisingly centrist values. O’Toole has spoken out in favor of legalized abortion and is pro-choice. He’s also spoken on his support of LGBTQ2S+ rights. Additionally, he is a believer in climate change and has promised to act, if elected.

O’Toole, rather than implement a national child care program, would instead let money flow directly to parents to cover costs, on top of that, he hopes to invest even more money into our healthcare program, and wants to help create a million jobs in the country.

Rather than tax the rich and invest in services, the Conservatives are looking to create national programs and plans for Canadians. The Canada Jobs Surge Plan would pay up to 50% of the salaries of new hires. The Canada Investment Accelerator would provide a 5% tax credit for any capital investment in 2022 and 2023. The Rebuild main street tax credit would provide a 25% tax credit on amounts up to 100,000 that Canadians make into small businesses, he would also include loans for small business owners in the retail, hospitality, and tourism sectors.

Additionally, O’Toole is looking to eliminate GST for a month, sometime this fall. The goal would be to help business owners in this sector.

O’Toole has also said that he is in support of including an option for Canadians to use privatized healthcare. He has said that he would like to see more “innovation” in the private healthcare sectors. He’s said that he supports the current healthcare system, but would not stand in the way of Premiers if they chose too create that system.

As far as climate, the Conservatives are in support of a reworked version of the existing carbon pricing system. With findings in the UN’s most recent climate report being described as “code red for humanity”, we can only hope that the Conservative’s plan works out.

The Liberal Party

The Liberal party is in an interesting place, Trudeau’s initial campaigns were full of hope land promises to marginalized communities, but through the years it seems his terms as sitting Prime Minister have been marred with controversy. From the brownface, to his involvement with the We Foundation, it seems he couldn’t catch a break.

Trudeau’s calls for action on climate change, Indigenous truth and reconciliation issues and support for Black Lives Matter were loud - who could forget about when he took a knee alongside protesters - but much of his action on social justice seemed to fall to the wayside or at the very least in its early days of implementation. His calls for action on climate change was criticized for his support and investment in the Keystone XL Pipeline. Many indigenous leaders also felt that his commitment to reconciliation and their communities were performative.

Despite the large amount of criticism, the Liberals have made some strong commitments. The first among them is a National Childcare Strategy.  Both the Liberals and NDP have proposed a $10-a-day national child-care plan that could save some parents up to tens of thousands of dollars. Another commitment they have made is that they would extend the Canada Recovery Hiring Program to March 31, 2022. Additionally, they would support the tourism industry with up to 75% wage and rent support to help them through the winter months, and extend COVID related insurance coverage for media production stoppages, which would support 150,000 jobs.

A Look at the Landscape

Trudeau was the one who called the election, but why? Trudeau claims that an early election call was necessary to obtain a covid pandemic recovery mandate from the electorate. The other leaders criticized the election call as a ploy for the Liberals to capture a majority government.  If it is a ploy, will Trudeau’s gamble pay off? Early polls say it’s a tight race, between the Conservatives and the Liberals.

If we assumed this was just an attempt at a majority government, and the Liberals lose, what will be the legacy of Trudeau’s time in office?  Will the social changes around Truth and Reconciliation that the liberals began implementing be abandoned by a new government? Will Erin O’Toole’s policies really help Canadians secure jobs or just a ploy to capture votes? Will Singh’s NDP finally win and if so, will they be able to implement policies that make the rich pay or will they be thwarted by the elites? Will Green Party Leader Anna Mae Paul’s bold climate change be enough to win her a seat in Toronto Centre and hold on the leadership of the Green Party. We can only wait until September 20th to find out.