With the Quebec Elections coming on October 3rd, this week’s Riding to Watch is one I’ve lived in more or less my whole life: Notre-Dame-de-Grâce (NDG).
NDG is one of the larger ridings in Montreal and has been a Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ) stronghold for decades. However, as in many other ridings, the PLQ MNA, Kathleen Weil, has decided not to run again, creating an opening for new blood in the seat.
Why is NDG a riding to watch?
Here’s why:
Riding Breakdown
Location and Boundaries: Notre-Dame-de-Grace is comprised of Montreal West and part of the NDG/Côte-des-Neiges borough of Montreal.
Population: 72 520 with 46 268 electors
Language: 48.3% Anglophone, 24.2% Francophone, and 19.5% Allophone
Age: The two largest groups are the 30-39 (15.6%) and 20-29 (14.6%)
Average Income: With 17.7 % of the population in the >$9,999 and $19,999 annual household income range, NDG is one of the poorest districts on the Island of Montreal.
This is a borough to watch because it contains 34.2 percent visible minorities, compared to just 13 percent in all of Quebec. It is one to watch as the PLQ’s Kathleen Weil has been in power since 2008 and is choosing not to run again.
The PLQ’s replacement candidate, Désirée McGraw, was former Federal Prime Minister Paul Martin’s senior policy advisor from 2003 to 2006. She also has lots of experience fighting for environmental causes and is clearly one of the more experienced candidates.
In the 2018 provincial election, Québec solidaire (QS) came in second in NDG. While much of Québec solidaire’s platform, such as opposition to Bill 21 and fighting climate change, is ideologically in line with the values of the people of Notre-Dame-de-Grace, their refusal to oppose the aggressive language law, Bill 96, has left a sour note in the mouths of the district’s majority Anglophone population. It is no help to their cause that their candidate, Élisabeth Labelle is fresh out of university and has little to no political experience.
Photo by Samantha Gold
The Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) candidate is Geneviève Lemay, who has a certificate in Diversity and Inclusion from Cornell University. The party clearly chose her for her bilingualism and education in an attempt to mollify the riding’s Anglophone and ethnically diverse population. She unlikely to win because despite the deep-seated cynicism of much of the riding’s population, Notre-Dame-de-Grace embraces ethnic and linguistic diversity and social justice in a way wholly incompatible with CAQ’s assimilationist xenophobic rhetoric.
The Conservative Party of Quebec (CPQ) candidate is Dr. Roy Eappen, an endocrinologist. Much like his party, he believes the solution to Quebec’s ailing public healthcare system is to lean more heavily on privatization, a solution that would likely create two-tier system in which the super-rich get better quality healthcare than most Quebeckers. Though Eappen himself immigrated to Canada from Kerala, India, he seems to take no issue with his party’s determination to slash immigration to Quebec.
There are two party leaders running for a seat in Notre-Dame-de-Grace. The first is the Green Party of Quebec (PVQ) Leader Alex Tyrrell, who has led the party since 2013. In the 2018 elections Green Party candidate Chad Walcott came in fourth after the Coalition Avenir Québec candidate in the riding. As it stands, the Green Party has yet to win a seat in the National Assembly and is unlikely to do so this time around.
Former Canadian Football League player Balarama Holness is the other party leader running in Notre-Dame-de-Grace. His party is one of his own creation, called Bloc Montreal. His party is all about ensuring that Montreal’s interests are properly represented in the National Assembly and their platforms begin with a recognition that Montreal represents fifty percent of the Quebec population and fifty percent of the province’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
The party opposes Bills 21 (the secularism law) and 96 as being harmful to Montrealers. Though much of the party’s platform is meant for all of Quebec, the perception that they stand for Montreal and only Montreal will likely cost the party in this election.
No word on how this could play out locally for Holness, so NDG remains a riding to watch.
For the first time, younger voters are set to overtake the baby boomers as the largest voting block in Canada, and it’s about time. The planet is dying due climate change, and wages have stagnated since the 1970s resulting in a wealth gap that is partly on generational lines.
While older people enjoy their golf courses and retirement nestegs, Millenials, Gen Xers, and GenYers who will never see the latter are increasingly frustrated and demanding change that helps them, not just their parents.
That said, only recently has there been a real drive to get younger people to vote, recognizing that their votes can finally make a difference. It is with this notion in mind that I write this article.
In this piece I’ll be giving a crash course on the main political parties, but not in the way you’d expect. Instead of discussing their platforms related to the economy and health care, I’m going to discuss the parties based on their plans and track records with regards to issues that concern younger voters: Climate change, LGBTQI2+ rights, and Income Inequality.
This is not to say these issues do not concern some older people. It IS to say that these are the issues that have not been sufficiently addressed for younger voters by politicians in the past.
For the purposes of this article, the main parties I’ll be discussing are the Liberal Party, The Conservative Party, the New Democratic Party (NDP), and The Green Party. Smaller fringe parties like Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party will be addressed in a future article.
Climate Change
The tail end of Montreal’s massive Climate March Friday (photo Jason C. McLean)
First, as Montreal took to the streets yesterday, let’s talk about Climate change.
The incumbent Liberal party’s Climate change platform seems to benefit primarily the wealthy, with much of their programs targeting homeowners – when most young Canadians will never be able to afford to own a home – and corporations. Their platform in this regard includes:
Offering a $40 000 interest-free loan to homeowners and landlords to make their homes more energy efficient, with an additional Net-zero emissions home grant available to make clean living more affordable.
Cut corporate taxes in half for companies that develop products and technologies that produce zero emissions
Protect 25% of Canada’s land and ocean habitats by 2025 and work towards increasing that to 30% by 2030
Set a target of zero emissions by 2050
The New Democratic Party’s Climate Change platform seems far more ambitious than that of the incumbents, with plans focusing on punishing big polluters and investing in local clean projects. Their platform includes:
Declaring a climate emergency
Rolling back tax breaks given by the Liberal government to big polluters as well as abolishing current oil and gas subsidies
Reaching a target of carbon-free electricity by 2030, and 100% non-emitting electricity by 2050
Establishing a Canadian Climate Bank to boost investment in Canadian-made renewable energy technology, community-owned clean energy projects and the transition to renewable energy
The Conservative Party’s climate change policy seems far less comprehensive compared to the other parties, and leader Andrew Scheer’s absence from today’s climate marches is also quite telling. Their policy includes:
Getting rid of the carbon tax (though their website claims they are still committed to meeting obligations under the Paris Agreement)
Launch a green tech patent tax credit for businesses
Offering a green public transit tax credit to alleviate costs of public transportation and incentivize its use
Have Canada sign agreements allowing us to get credit for helping reduce emissions internationally
True to the party’s name, The Green Party has the most comprehensive climate change platform to address the climate emergency. Their platform includes:
Canceling the Trans Mountain Pipeline and other subsidies to fossil fuel industries, as well as denying approval to new pipelines, coal, oil, or gas drilling
Ramp up renewable energy targets, with a target of making a hundred percent of Canada’s electricity from renewable sources by 2030
Work with provincial governments, “ideally in partnership with First Nations” to determine which former oil and gas wells are best-suited to producing geothermal energy in order to turn liabilities into income-generating renewable energy
Ban the sale of internal combustion engine passenger vehicles by 2030
LGBTQ2+ Rights
2019 Montreal Trans Rights March (image Samantha Gold)
Though the Liberal Party has no official 2019 platform regarding LGBTQ rights, they do have an excellent track record when it comes to protecting sexual minorities in Canada. Aside from the symbolism of their leader marching in Pride Parades and raising the Pride flag on Parliament Hill, the government has made some dramatic improvements to LGBTQ rights in Canada.
This includes adding gender identity or expression to the definition of hate crimes in the Canadian Criminal Code, as well passing legislation to permanently destroy the past criminal records of people convicted for consensual sex with same sex partners if such sex would be legal today.
The New Democrats have integrated LGBTQ rights into their platform on fighting hate in Canada. Their list of the different forms of hate to be addressed include homophobia and transphobia, with their platform including better access for victims of hate crimes to services, support, as well as a say in court-related services that may impact their safety.
Their platform also includes establishing a National Working Group to fight online hate, and addressing radicalization though youth-focused community-led initiatives.
Symbolically, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh has been seen at Pride parades and drag shows, tipping generously at the latter.
On LGBTQ rights in Canada, it is the Conservative Party that has by far the most to answer for. Their leader, Andrew Scheer is a self-professed devout Catholic and social conservative who has criticized marriage equality on the record. He is also the only federal leader conspicuously absent from Pride marches.
When questioned about his current position on LGBTQ rights, Scheer has been extremely evasive, giving people just cause to fear that transgender and LGBTQ protections will be rolled back under a Conservative government. Also telling is the lack of a policy platform addressing this issue on the Conservative Party website.
Though the Green Party is being criticized as a greener version of the Conservatives, their LGBTQ platform is quite enlightened. It includes ending discriminatory blood donation bans, banning medically unnecessary surgeries on intersex children, and banning and condemning conversion therapy – which attempts to force a more straight binary form of sexuality and gender expression on LGBTQ people, despite wide disapproval from the medical and psychiatric communities – in all its forms.
Their platform also includes ensuring access to comprehensive sexual health care and gender affirming health care including hormone treatments, blockers, and surgeries.
Income Inequality
(Image via Press Progress)
This is the one that infuriates young people the most because surrounding the issue are criticisms from baby boomers that if we just bought less coffee we wouldn’t be in so much debt when they entered the job market at a time when you could afford a home with one minimum wage job as opposed to the many we need to afford basic expenses. That said, here is what the main parties are doing to tackle the issue.
The Liberal plans seem to benefit primarily middle class families when so many young people cannot even reach a middle class income. Their plans include:
Lowering cell-phone bills by 25%
No taxes on the first $15 000 of income earned
Cut the small business tax rate from 11% to 9%
Creation of a First-Time Home Buyer Incentive that would cut 10% off the purchase price of new homes
The NDP’s plan to tackle income inequality is far more comprehensive and seems to target all Canadians, not just the middle class. Their platform includes:
Universal prescription drug coverage for all Canadians regardless of job, age, health, status, or income
Investing five billion dollars to create five hundred thousand quality affordable housing units to address the affordable housing crisis, and waiving federal GST/HST for the construction of these affordable units
Expand public education “from kindergarten to career”
Free dental coverage for families making under $70 000 a year
The Conservatives plan to address income inequality has some similarities to that of the Liberals in that it centers on cutting taxes and regulations, though the nature of these cuts does not seem to vary depending on the means of individuals. Their plan comprises of:
A universal tax cut for all Canadians
Address the housing crisis by easing building regulations to facilitate the building of new homes
Build pipelines to create jobs
Exempt home heating bills from the GST
The Green Party’s platform recognizes the increasing precariousness of work and the growing gig economy that is exacerbating unstable incomes for younger voters. It also acknowledges the ongoing poverty rates. Their platform comprises of :
Establishing a Guaranteed Liveable Income program to replace current income supports including disability, social assistance, and income assistance with payments set at a liveable level for different regions across Canada
Set the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour
Design and implement a national mental health strategy to address the link between mental health and productivity
Enhance the use of Community Benefits Agreements to increase inclusion economic opportunities for people of color
Over the past twenty years there has been a lot of apathy among young voters who felt like their votes didn’t count. That is all about to change. For the first time in a long time, young Canadians have a chance to have their voices heard within the system, not just on the streets.
The Ministry of Education has revised its criteria for what constitutes an underprivileged school and how much food aid they should get. The Ministry’s food aid program aims to help high schools from underprivileged communities provide subsidized meals and snacks. Although the total budget of $7.7 million remains unchanged, many schools, particularly in outer regions, have seen their allowance plummet or disappear.
The Samares School Board in Lanaudière, for example, went from receiving $190 226 to $7081 in two school years. In the Eastern Quebec, the Chic-Chocs School Board went from $33 090 this year to $5 269 for next year. Chic-Chocs representative Marie-Noëlle Dioncalled the situation deplorable, particularly for three of their schools that will have to do without food aid all together.
The both the entire Outaouais and Laurentides region are now devoid of high schools providing subsidized meals.
The matter was the subject of a heated debate on Wednesday in the National Assembly where Education Minister Sébastien Proulx tried to defend the government’s policies.
“The money for the food aid program was maintained and indexed,” hammered Proulx, “it is meant for our most underprivileged schools, and that has not changed. If the rules have changed in the last few years, it was to correct inequalities in the sense that in some communities there were privileged schools receiving food aid.”
To which the official spokesperson for education of the opposition Alexandre Cloutier replied: “For the entire region of Outaouais, as of next September, there is zero funding! Are you saying there is not one kid who goes to school on an empty stomach in Outaouais?”
André Villeneuve, MNA of Berthier, piled on: “In Lanaudière, it’s four high schools, it’s hundreds of kids who will go to school on en empty stomach!”
Where is the money going?
The Ministry determines the amount of food aid it will give to each school depending on where it ranks on the government’s indexes of deprivation. Those indexes reflect the proportion of students from families who are below the low-income threshold as well as their socio-economic background, which takes into account the level of education of the mother and whether or not the parents are employed.
Minister Proulx said that the calculations have been adjusted to focus on the schools that score 9 or 10 out of 10 on these indexes. At the time of publication, FTB is waiting for specifications from the Ministry about the nature of these adjustments and the number of schools that supposedly benefited from them.
Most of the schools scoring 9s and 10s are presumably in Montreal, where child poverty is particularly glaring. A recent study by Tonino Esposito of Université de Montréal and Catherine Roy of McGill found that sixteen of the 30 neighborhoods with the most underprivileged children in the province are in Montreal. Montréal-Nord is at the very top of the chart.
In any case, many children who were only a year ago considered underprivileged enough to get access to food aid are now considered as fortunate enough to do without it. Professionals and politicians are accusing the government of robbing Peter to pay Paul in education, while they break the bank for lobbies and corporations. Or, As Cloutier put it : “How can a Minister who is swimming in budgetary surplus justify this sort of measure?”
* Featured image: École secondaire de L’Île, Outaouais. From HockeyAcademy
Need a bit extra cash? $1000 or more? No need to quit your day job, or do anything illegal. You can even earn the money while sitting on a couch watching TV. Sounds good? Maybe too good? Perhaps you have already been tempted.
Posters in the metro and ads in local newspapers offer you the chance to earn good money while making the world a better place. Behind these ads are pharmaceutical companies like Algorithme Pharma and GCP Trials, recruiting ‘volunteer’ subjects for their clinical drug studies.
Drugs must be tested on humans somewhere between being tested on animals and getting prescribed to real patients, as part of a process that is worryingly called a Stage 1 clinical trial.
The financial compensation for ‘volunteering’ is generous enough to help you think a bit less about any risks. But even if the thought of becoming a human guinea pig makes a lot of people nervous, that has only created a larger demand for volunteers who are either a little more adventurous or in greater need of money.
It’s fair to say that the drug companies who are promoting this paid volunteering for the benefit of humanity and medical advancement are also targeting people’s need for cash in a tight economy. The compensation ranges from $1000 to $2000, which is paid tax-free. The absolute anonymity given to the volunteers means that they could be forgetful about declaring it to any government agencies.
“I try to think about all the sick people waiting for new advancements in drugs. Someone has to do it, it might as well be me.”
As a veteran of over ten or so of these clinical trials, Peter (not his real name) has taken his chances and earned a substantial amount of cash. Still, he feels like he’s filled an important need by participating in biological research.
“I try to think about all the sick people waiting for new advancements in drugs. Someone has to do it, it might as well be me. But I guess it’s not exactly the sort of thing that everyone wants to do, and I wouldn’t even tell my own mother that I did it,” Peter said.
Brave potential subjects would need to be in perfect health before being selected. That is tested during a “screening appointment.”
E-Magine Art/Flickr CC
“That’s an exhaustive medical exam sold to volunteers as a ‘free check up,'” Peter explained. “If there’s anything wrong with you they’ll find it. And that includes checking for the presence of recreational drugs you’ve been using, which will disqualify you automatically.”
Once subjects are cleared and placed on a study they will be confined to the clinic for about 48 hours and closely monitored. But Peter insists that is hardly a hardship.
“It’s for your own safety and it’s actually relaxing. You can do […] basically nothing. […] Watch TV, videos, or bring your laptop and surf the net. […] Lots of volunteers are students who just catch on their studies.”
“One time, they messed up so badly there was blood everywhere because they kept stabbing my arm and missing my vein with the needle.”
But what might seem like a relaxing holiday has a few inconveniences. For example, there are strict restrictions on anything from bedtimes, access to toilets, and control over what you eat. Also the requirement to stay indoors during the study could be a pain for smokers.
But the possibility of getting a little stir crazy is not the biggest inconvenience, especially to those who don’t like needles or the sight of their own blood.
“You’re being tested mainly on the ability of your body to absorb, and eliminate a drug. So you’ll be stuck about 20-30 times with a needle during the stay extracting a total of about a quarter litre of blood,” Peter said.
“They do it with varying degrees of skill. One time, they messed up so badly there was blood everywhere because they kept stabbing my arm and missing my vein with the needle. I screamed until they stopped and so they taped up the arm. Then they started on the other arm.”
If that makes potential volunteers skittish it’s worth noting that accidents, which involve much more than a little extra blood loss, have been documented. In 2006, a group of six volunteers in London, UK took part in a study contracted to pharmaceutical testing firm Parexel International. Shortly after the dosing, the nurses heard the six subjects screaming that heads were “exploding.” Minutes later after falling victim to fainting and severe bloating, all six were carried away to emergency wards with multiple organ failure.
Ethicists concluded afterwards that the subjects in that trial were not fully informed of the risks and that their need for quick cash had been exploited.
“You can be choosy and avoid the more experimental ones. I always stay away from stuff that affects the heart or the brain.”
Peter says he has witnessed volunteers have bad reactions to drugs in a clinic here in Montreal, but he shrugs off such cases as “rare and part of the risk you take.”
“You get all the available information about the drug you are testing before you sign the papers. So you can be choosy and avoid the more experimental ones. I always stay away from stuff that affects the heart or the brain.”
In the end Peter admits that he has stopped doing trials, which he had been doing at the maximum allowable: two or three trials each year. He developed an infection in the arm that was frequently used for drawing blood during trials. “I asked the study doctor if it is dangerous to do a lot of studies. Of course he said no – but he’s working for them.”
So did Peter really think he was doing something meaningful beyond improving his savings by nearly $10,000 in three years?
“Yes,” he says firmly. “But you also have to realise that the drug companies are in business to make big money […]and part of the reason drugs are so expensive is because that they have to pay people like me.”
This post originally appeared on QuietMike.org, republished with permission from the author
The larger than life, fourteen year populist leader of Venezuela Hugo Chavez passed away after a two year bout with cancer last Tuesday. The man who championed himself as a revolutionary and savior of the poor died at the age of 58.
From Pennies
Chavez and his five siblings grew up on their father’s rural teaching salary. With little money and a growing family he soon went to live with his grandparents to try and ease the financial burden. Chavez grew up in a Venezuela ruled by a list of dictators, converting later into a democracy in which the dominant political parties shared power regardless of how Venezuelans voted.
At 17, Chavez joined the military academy with the hopes of playing baseball. An injury kept him from realizing his baseball dreams, but it set in motion his rise to political office. As Venezuela grew increasingly corrupt, Chavez who witnessed the country’s poverty first hand, couldn’t comprehend that despite the country’s vast oil wealth, most Venezuelans had to fight hard just to get by.
In the early 1990’s, Corruption and austerity measures crippled the government with approval ratings below 20%. So, in 1992, Hugo Chavez led a failed coup that resulted in his surrender; however he was allowed to go on national television to inform his comrades to surrender.
During that one minute of airtime he took responsibility for the coup’s failure, the thing is, he did it in a country where no one took responsibility for anything. He served two years in prison only to be released to try and slow his growing popularity.
To President
In 1998 Chavez ran for office for the first time and won with 56% of the vote. He would go on to win three more presidential elections, the last of which he won last October with 54% of total votes. In his first term of two years he traveled the world and won a referendum to change the constitution, laying the foundation in which he hoped to build the country on.
Throughout it all, Chavez never forgot his roots. When he began his first term in 1999, half the population of Venezuela was below the poverty line. Before his last election victory it had dropped from about 50% down to around 30%. More importantly, extreme poverty fell by over 75%.
During his tenure Chavez made a lot of friends and enemies both at home and abroad. At home the poor loved him. He used his country’s vast oil wealth to introduce social programs that include state-run food markets, new public housing, educational programs and free health clinics (he raised health spending from 1% to 7% of GDP alone).
What Goes Around, Comes Around
While the poor loved him, the rich despised him. Even though his first term could be considered a centrist administration, the start of the second would change that. Led by wealthy business leader Pedro Carmona, Anti-Chavez military officers supported by the business community (Venezuelan Chambers of Commerce), private media and certain political parties tried to oust him in a coup.
The Coup D’état seemed to work at first. They organized protests in the streets and used it as a screen to overthrow the president. They tried to frame Chavez for violence breaking out in the streets claiming he was using the military to crack down on dissent. It was later revealed it was the coup supporters that were largely responsible for the violence. The coup ultimately failed as the population out in the streets demanded Hugo’s return.
Whenever there is a coup in South America you can be sure that the United States had a part to play. Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Grenada, Nicaragua, Panama and El-Salvador could attest to that claim. It’s no surprise the US was the first country to recognize the Carmona government, but after it lasted less than 48 hours, the US backtracked. The failed coup against Chavez marked the last known attempt by the United States to undermine the will of a foreign populace.
From that point on, Chavez began to speak out against American Imperialism and started to govern from a more radical leftist position. In 2003 the state took over 51% of the country’s oil industry (which it was planning before the coup attempt). He built up his military readiness in anticipation of an American invasion. He also made friends with America’s enemies, namely Iran, Syria and Libya (the enemy of my enemy is my friend as they say).
In the End
From the beginning, Chavez set out to help other leftist governments in Central and South America which now make up the bulk of the continent. He founded the Bank of the South with the help of Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia. The bank is to be an alternative to the IMF and World Bank which have screwed over some of these countries in the past. Unlike the IMF, there are no political conditions to receive funds. In 2007 alone, Chavez gave $8.8 billion to help development in other Latin American countries.
Like I said, Chavez did have his faults. Aside from allying himself with sometimes brutal dictators, he was known to be on the anti-Semitic side. In fact, half of all Jews reportedly left the country during his time in office. Inflation soared at times, hurting the poor above all and the homicide rate rose to among the highest in the world peeking in 2010 as the world’s worst.
He was known as “El Comandante” by his admirers. They called him a revolutionary on par with Che Guevara, Simon Bolivar and Fidel Castro.
What you think of the man might depend on where you live and whether you’re rich or poor. In time, history will decide.
“There are elections on September 4th,” I tell Pascal.
“I am not aware,” Pascal responds. “I stopped voting a long time ago. Every politician says he or she will do this and change that. When they get in power, they fatten themselves up.”
Pascal and I just met. On a late August evening, I walk on Atwater Avenue toward Sherbrooke Street with a cup of coffee in my hand, feeling exhausted from my day, when I see a smiling man with short dreadlocks and dirty, worn clothes, coming toward me holding an empty McDonald’s cup.
His smile is charming, even with decaying teeth. I pour the coins I find in my purse into his cup. “Thank you!” he says.
“It’s what I have. I hope this helps. … Where do you sleep?”
“Under a truck. As long as it doesn’t rain, I’m OK.”
I raise my eyebrows.
“Oh, I create a nice mattress and some pillows and it’s like a bed.”
“Where do you shower?”
“I go to my Mom’s or the shelter.”
“Is that good?”
“No. I hate it there. It feels like prison. I go to the shelter as little as possible.”
“How do you eat?”
“I make sure I gather as much money at night and then I have enough for breakfast.”
Pascal is fourty years old. He tells me he is happy to be an SDF – Sans Domicile Fixe – which is why, Pascal says, he did not receive the notification to vote in his province’s upcoming elections. “I don’t have an address so I don’t exist,” he tells me.
In the next years, I want the people elected to govern to focus on Pascal, and the other people I see sleeping on metro benches and sidewalks, and those who come up to your car windshield while you wait at the red light hoping for some coins in exchange for what they may consider a job.
The political leaders are now standing with their political party members telling us what they will do if elected. So let’s look at some highlights.
The leader of Liberal Party of Québec and the Premier of Québec, since 2003, Jean Charest plans to increase student involvement and volunteer work by modifying Québec’s high school programs. Have you heard of just one of the wonderful examples of our youth called Katimavik, Mr. Charest? The funding for this beloved national volunteer program has been eliminated by the Canadian government.
The Coalition Avenir Québec (or CAQ), lead by François Legault, has the slogan “C’est assez, faut que ça change!” “It’s enough, it must change!” Legault proposes that a couple earning a combined salary of up to $100,000 would pay $1,000 less in provincial taxes. The CAQ would provide this tax cut by abolishing school boards and health care agencies, by eliminating 3,000 jobs, and by cutting another 4,000 jobs at Hydro-Québec.
Pauline Marois, leader of the Parti Québécois, focused on secularism and preventing government employees from wearing any religious symbol—except the cross. Is this vital in ensuring the livelihood of Québec?
The only contender in my opinion is Québec Solidaire led by Amir Khadir and Françoise David—the only party led by a man and a woman. In his four years at the national assembly, Khadir, a physician, demonstrates with every issue his integrity and his commitment to his role and to us. Free education, environmental health, and a reliable pension are on the September 2012 agenda.
Reading some of your minds, please bear in mind that “left-leaning,” “right-leaning,” “sovereigntist” are hijackers that divert from what counts.
Don’t be afraid to take a chance on someone new, someone different. Find out personally about their track record and commitment. Listen to their interviews and addresses. Attend debates such as Sunday August 19th’s Débat des chefs in Montreal’s Amère à boire – how pertinent of a name. See if the values of the person and their political party match yours, today.
Please.
On Tuesday September 4th, 2012, or earlier, vote for who you believe will take care of your children, your parents, and your air. The words “economy” “jobs” “economic growth” have lost all meaning when politicians speak. I hope to believe that in 2012, we know that these words mean economic growth for the governing party members and the business partners who help them.
Inclusive and healthy overall growth comes from an inclusive-minded group who understands the needs of everyone. A group that dutifully respects First Nations peoples as an integral part of our society. We all live here, why not acknowledge all of us, and not just some of us by referring to middle class, business sector, and all those words that add nothing.
