Better Solutions begin with the CHP

Better Solutions for the Economy

• The CHP would put Canada back to work with a nationwide infrastructure stimulus package that would fix our cities, our highways and our bridges. more...

  Jobs stimulate the economy. The CHP would revive the plan that was successfully used in Canada to combat unemployment after the Second World War. The Bank of Canada was ordered to make virtually interest-free loans to provinces, municipalities and cities for infrastructure projects: roads, highways, bridges, rail lines, ports—today we could include hospitals, urban and inter-urban passenger rail lines, water and sewage treatment plants. These facilities improved access to resources and to markets, and the increased economic activity enabled the borrowing agencies to quickly repay the loans -- which were then retired, so that the injection of capital was non inflationary.

  That construction activity touched off the longest-lasting economic boom in Canadian history. And when the loans were repaid, the permanent infrastructure was still there. Today, it’s crumbling, and the only solution that the other Parties offer is taxing you to rebuild it. It’s time for a new infrastructure initiative—one that works and doesn’t rely on increasing your tax burden.

• Eliminate the income tax and implement a ‘Fair Tax’ that would boost the economy and put Canadians in charge of the tax they pay. more...

  What is the Fair Tax?

  The Fair Tax is a comprehensive proposal that replaces all federal income taxes with a progressive national retail sales tax, a prebate to ensure no Canadian pays federal taxes on spending up to the poverty level, and is a dollar-for-dollar federal revenue replacement. It is gaining wide support in the US and is widely recognised by economists to be the most equitable form of taxation. This legislation abolishes all federal personal and corporate income taxes, gift, estate, and capital gains, and replaces them with one simple, visible, federal retail sales tax – administered primarily by existing sales tax authorities. The Fair Tax taxes us only on what we choose to spend on new goods or services, not on what we earn. The Fair Tax is a fair and intelligent solution to the frustration and inequality of our current tax system -- so complex that no one in the country, including the Finance Minister, understands it – and which subjects businesses to extraordinary burdens, just trying to file their returns.

  It’s time for a Better Solution!

  The Fair Tax will create jobs in Canada.  Canada has a massive trade deficit with other nations. A Fair Tax will provide a major boost to the competitiveness of Canadian industry. Canadian businesses will be much less likely to locate their production and head offices in other countries, and foreign companies will have an incentive to locate in Canada. Canadians will be employed building these new plants, and be employed in them.

  The CHP has a fresh approach to stimulating the economy and providing jobs for Canadians and helping them keep their hard-earned income. The CHP is committed to revitalising the Canadian economy with a plan that is simple and transparent.

• Overhaul the broken Canada Pension Plan with a new Personal Income Security Account. more...

  A Personal Income Security Account would provide a portable investment portfolio, vested in the name of each worker, for health, employment and retirement income. This plan was proposed for Canada in 1980 by a Christian politician, Dr. Robert N. Thomson. It was rejected by Parliament, but a few years later it was adopted by Chile. Chilean workers at that time were given the option of continuing on the tax-funded pension plan , or going on the new investment plan. Those who chose the investment plan are now retiring wealthy -- and Chile has become an economic powerhouse in Latin America because of the pools of investment created.

  How will this plan work?

  Beginning with an individual’s first job, they and their employer would contribute to the plan as a source deduction, just as we do now with CPP and EI, and in Ontario, the Health fund.

  Beginning with one’s first job, 10% of an individual’s income would begin to accumulate in their account. Five percent contributed by the employee and 5% by the employer.

  In the event of some unforeseen circumstance like unemployment or illness, the individual would be allowed to withdraw up to 15% per year of what had accrued in the account. After that, government assistance would meet the needs of any individual or family.

  The account would never be completely depleted, but would continue to grow.

  Welfare, disability and healthcare would continue to be government programs. We will always have what we may call “the deserving poor”, and we must care for them with the utmost compassion.

  It is no secret that in Canada we also have serious abuse of our social systems. The undeserving poor, those who would choose to abuse the system and thereby the taxpayer, will be motivated—for example, in the case of unemployment—to find new employment quickly so as to use as little as possible of the allowable 15% of their account. As a party we believe very strongly in individual responsibility and accountability; but not disproportionately to compassion.

  This policy would inculcate an ethic of individual responsibility in the majority of people, reduce payouts as a result, and therefore allow us to care of the truly unfortunate much better.

  The experience in Chile has been an overwhelming success, and voters would do well to seriously consider the CHP’s better solution for the looming CPP crisis.

• The CHP would eliminate the national debt which is currently at $600 billion dollars. more...

  The core of the problem of the National Debt is the failure of all parties—except the CHP—to recognize that deficit spending and government debt is a moral problem: it is the theft of money from our children and grandchildren, to buy votes today.

  The Fraser Institute reports that, “Each Canadian taxpayer owes $150,211 in federal, provincial, and local liabilities….

  “The study, Canadian Government Debt 2008, shows that federal, provincial, and local governments have accumulated $791.2 billion in direct debt and more than $2.4 trillion in total government liabilities. Total liabilities include direct debt and programs that the government has committed to provide such as Old Age Security and Medicare (Canada’s public health care system).”

  The National Debt must be treated like a national “mortgage”. The efforts of the Conservatives under Stephen Harper are not aggressive enough to really tackle the issue. We must budget to pay it off at about $4 billion a month. That would make Canada debt-free in about 20-25 years (depending on interest rates). We are already spending about $3 billion a month on interest payments, so we only need to find another $12 billion a year to implement this CHP program — and we’ve seen how easily the former Liberal government, and now the Conservatives found more than three times that much to fund their campaign promises... continuing to bribe you with your own money and that of your children.

Better Solutions for Life and Family

• The CHP is the only pro-life party in Canada today. From conception, to natural death, every life is precious.
• Promote adoption, not abortion. more...

  When a woman is faced with an unanticipated pregnancy, we should surround her with care, comfort, counsel and the information she needs to make a decision she will not regret later.

  Every baby is a wanted baby, though not necessarily wanted by the natural parents. Many couples are eagerly waiting to adopt children and nurture them in a loving home. Adoption, therefore, must receive primary attention as a desirable alternative to abortion. The duty to give conceived life the opportunity to develop in a secure and loving environment provided by adoptive parents must supersede any legal provision to terminate a pregnancy by abortion.

  With a concerted effort by each citizen, displaying love in action, Canada will become once more a life-affirming and child-loving nation—a model for the rest of the world to follow.

  The CHP believes that this is a Better Solution.

• Protect unborn victims of crime. more...

  One of the Harper government's most cynical offenses against morality was the introduction of a government bill to crush Conservative MP Ken Epp's Bill C-484, the Unborn Victims of Crime Act. In introducing his replacement bill—which Campaign Life Coalition called "gutless"—Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said his bill (almost identical to one introduced a year ago by a pro-abortion Liberal MP) was designed "...in a way that leaves no room for the introduction of fetal rights." Fetal rights should be introduced. Historically, people of African origin were at one time defined as not being "persons"; that was wrong, and the law was changed. Women in Canada, before 1929, were defined as not being "persons"; that was wrong, and the law was changed. The fetus is, at present, arbitrarily defined as not being a "person"; but that is wrong, and it must be changed.

  We can do better—our humanity demands it.

• Defend marriage and the family by calling a Royal Commission to study the issue. more...

  Same Sex Marriage will have an enormous social impact on our nation. Therefore, we believe our parliament should have devoted ample time to examining the facts. Both Liberal and Conservative governments broke their promises to Canadians, as neither authorized any real enquiry into the facts.

  France on the other hand, when faced with this same issue, appointed a Parliamentary Commission to carefully study the social implications of such legislation. The commission dedicated two years of examination and study, after which the report recommended against legalizing same-sex "marriage" and against legalizing same-sex adoption. The report stated: "The purpose of adoption is not to give a child to a family, but to give a family to a child." Decades of sociological research now shows that children do much better with a father and a mother than with two "mothers" or two "fathers".

  In Canada, same-sex "marriage" was forced on an unwilling nation by the Liberal government of Paul Martin after only two weeks of sham "hearings" by a stacked committee; and the Conservative promise to defend the traditional family was cynically abandoned as soon as they were in office.

  The CHP would appoint a Royal Commission, and give it the authority to do a thorough examination of the issue and suspend the legislation that allowed same-sex ‘marriages’ until the enquiry is complete.

• Prevent Euthanasia--The Netherlands experience, where official acquiescence became legalization, and led eventually to thousands of murders each year, shows clearly that we should not follow that path, but must retain the Criminal Code sanctions against “assisted suicide” and other forms of euthanasia.
• Introduce Family-friendly Childcare Allowance—$1,000 a month for families where one parent stays home to raise the children. more...

  CHP policy, overall, reflects the conviction that the married two-parent family is the most important foundation of society. Public policy should reflect a recognition and protection of the important function of a family in training up the next generation of stable and responsible citizens. The CHP Family Friendly Childcare Allowance touches on child care, but in a way totally different from all of the other parties. It would provide $1000 per month to any family where one of the parents chose to stay home and raise their children—until age 18—unlike the current policy of $100 per month for children under 6.

  The Conservatives recently added a $2000 per child tax credit—annually—which will provide about $310 per child in tax relief. Hardly what a family needs to help a parent stay home to raise their children. For real pro-family legislation, you need the CHP’s $12,000 annual childcare allowance.

  The average take-home pay of a woman who works at a second job is under $1000 per month. We want to help her stay home and care for her children if that is what she wants, and surveys continually tell us that this is what she wants.

  Additionally, it will open about 1.5 million existing job spaces -- mostly entry-level jobs, which would especially help to relieve youth unemployment -- and would reduce overall unemployment to between 3 and 5 per cent.

  Now that’s a Better Solution!

Better Solutions for Healthcare

• Overhaul the health care system – wait times are too long.
• Improve delivery of services. more...

  The CHP would allow more private delivery systems. Restricting delivery to public facilities is only a strategy to protect the turf of public service unions. But more private initiative will increase innovation—both saving money and improving service. Even so, public funding must remain -- and be enhanced. The Liberals cut it from 50% to 14%; it has never been restored. It should be restored to 25%.  

  In addition, we should not allow ourselves to be terrified about so-called "two-tiered" health care: virtually every social democratic government in Europe already has two-tiered health care. It simply means letting private competition improve delivery and reduce costs, while retaining a single-payer insurance concept (the way the Canadian system was originally adopted) to ensure universal access.

  Currently, many private healthcare services are already available. If your doctor orders an ultrasound for you, you may be sent to a private clinic, when you are sent for blood work, it is frequently a private clinic. All you do is provide your health card.

  The real issue is universal access, with a single government payer. We are not advocating an American-type insurance system—simply for the Canadian system to work as originally intended.

  Eliminate funding for abortion: it is now the most common surgical procedure in Canada, but rather than curing any illness, it creates new health problems: the newest research confirms that abortion increases the risk of breast cancer, and recent studies in the UK show that in the two years after a pregnancy, the death rate from all causes is twice as high for abortive women as for those who carry their pregnancy to term, and the suicide rate is six times as high. And abortion greatly increases the risk that subsequent pregnancies will result in premature delivery and low birth-weight, both of which create needless additional load on the health care system.

  The Canada Health Act says that to qualify for public funding, a health procedure must

  1. be medically necessary,
  2. be beneficial,
  3. have benefits that outweigh the risks, and
  4. be the result of informed consent. 

  For these reasons, we don’t pay for someone’s nose job or breast implants, because they are considered cosmetic surgery and are not medically necessary. If, however, someone’s nose gets smashed in a car accident, or a woman needs a breast reconstructed after cancer surgery, we fund that, because those procedures meet the four requirements.  

  Abortion, as it is currently practiced in Canada, meets none of the four requirements of the Canada Health Act.   

  Approximately 106,000 abortions are performed in Canada each year.  That represents about 1/3 of all pregnancies.  It’s a staggering amount.  Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that each abortion costs $2000 in terms of operating room time, and the salary costs of all the hospital staff involved.  That’s $210 million dollars. 

  If every procedure takes about 2 hours from start to finish (include preparation and clean-up), that’s 210,000 hours of scarce operating room surgical time.  Imagine what surgical waiting lists would look like with that extra capacity! 

  For all of his protests, NDP Leader, Jack Layton proves the success of a mixed private delivery system. Mr. Layton, who's campaigning as the defender of public health care, had surgery at a private clinic in the 1990s. He had hernia surgery at the Shouldice Hospital, a private facility in the Toronto suburb of Thornhill, while he was serving as a Toronto city councillor.

  Advocates of private delivery in public system argue that patients don't have to notice the difference—just as Mr. Layton said he didn't. He wasn't asked to write a personal cheque. So he can now serve as the poster-boy for private delivery of health care because his own words prove that such a system can work without disrupting patients' access to the medical care they need. (Reference: Saskatoon Star-Phoenix - January 12, 2006)

• Revamp hospital design. more...

  Maclean’s magazine reported on the sick state of Canadian hospitals in its June 11, 2008 article entitled, “Healing sick hospitals”:

  Hospitals may be one of the most dangerous places on earth. An estimated 4,000 Canadians die each year from hospital infections - more than twice the number who succumb to traffic accidents annually. As Nicholas Köhler's investigation into the science of hospital design (page 40) makes plain, while Canadian hospitals should be curing disease, they are often just as efficient at spreading it. It's unacceptable, and yet the problem receives almost no public outcry or policy attention.

  There are no real secrets to good hospital design. While it has become fashionable to claim that hospitals must have soaring atriums, natural wood adornments and indoor gardens to lift patients' spirits - a few years ago the New York Times raved about a hospital in Norway with picture windows in the surgery rooms - this is a distraction. The true design necessities are those that stem the spread of infectious viruses, limit medical mistakes and facilitate good care. Based on the research of California-based think tank the Center for Health Design, the solutions are to be found in such mundane features as single rooms with individual toilets for all patients, ample hand-washing stations, non-porous fixtures, standardized surgical rooms and quieter floor materials. The extra costs of single-room designs are typically recouped in just a few years. "We will never build another hospital with multi-bedded wings," says renowned U.S. hospital architect Derek Parker. "They're expensive, there's no privacy, and they're intrusive."

  It should come as no surprise that the U.S. is leading the charge to build better hospitals. Vigorous competition provides ample motivation to adopt the best methods immediately. Patients can find out which hospitals suffer from poor design and avoid them. In Canada, unfortunately, the scope for patient choice is limited, and the adoption of best practices scattershot.

  While Calgary and Montreal are forging ahead with impressive plans for hospitals focused on single-bed rooms, the rest of the country is still building multi-bed wards that contribute to the spread of disease. In fact, almost all U.S. states have accepted the basic principles of good hospital design as set out by the American Institute of Architects. No province has formally committed to similar guidelines. It's Canada's uncompetitive and doctrinaire approach to medicare that's stifling innovation and investment in hospital design. And patients continue to suffer because of it.

  (http://www.macleans.ca/canada/opinions/article.jsp?content=20080611_84445_84445)

  The CHP would immediately lead the way nationally by encouraging an immediate shift to newer and healthier hospitals using our Infrastructure Renewal Policy to fund these projects. This is another example of the Better Solutions for better health offered to Canadians by the CHP.

• Improve Access to medical technologies. more...

  Canada’s healthcare system is one of the most expensive of developed western countries, yet we lag behind most European countries when it comes to cutting edge medical technology available to Canadians. Our health care system relies heavily on a sizable inventory of older and outdated medical technologies, and also often relies more on less sophisticated forms of technology than might be optimal. These failures to maintain Canada’s healthcare system directly impact the health and treatment of Canadian patients. The CHP would immediately devote funds to upgrade the medical treatment technologies available to Canadians. Reference: http://www.fraserinstitute.org/commerce.web/product_files/ Medical_Technology_in_Canada.pdf

• Promote healthy lifestyle choices. more...

  The CHP would place a much greater emphasis on prevention, through public education programs to make people aware of the health risks of smoking, obesity, substance abuse, sexual promiscuity and perversion, and of Foetal Alcohol Syndrome and Fetal Alcohol Effect, the two most common (and preventable) birth defects.

  The CHP would end Government funding for the ‘Gardasil’ vaccination. Making young girls guinea pigs for Big Pharma is the Tories’ equivalent to the Liberals’ ‘Adscam’ scandal. Only the CHP would protect Canadian children from this kind of medical abuse.

  The CHP would give public health & epidemics a higher public profile, to educate Canadians in safer lifestyle choices. For example, Uganda’s ABC campaign (Abstinence before marriage; Be faithful in marriage; Condoms as a last resort) has been the only successful anti-HIV/AIDS program; the pro-‘gay’ HIV industry opposes it. HIV/AIDS is essentially a behavioural disease, and control requires (a) behavioural change; and (b) normal public health measures (contact tracing; quarantine the infected to protect the uninfected; education). The AIDS Establishment’s focus on medication, if not accompanied by behavioural change, increases the rate of infection by enabling infected persons to live longer (which is good) and to continue to be sexually promiscuous (which is bad).

  The CHP would scrap the odious Bill C-51. There is no benefit for Canadians in handing control over natural health products to the government’s friends in Big Pharma.

Better Solutions for the Environment

• Real protection for our air and water, solutions that encourage good, proactive stewardship practices.
• Promote renewable energy initiatives.

Better Solutions to Defend Your Rights

• Defend against Human Rights Commission attacks on free speech.
• Protect conscience rights.
• Defend democracy and the constitution.
• Legislation to enshrine private property rights which Canadians currently do not have.
• Affirm the right to protect home and family. more...

  The CHP would maintain the current Possession Acquisition Firearms Licence (PAL) for both restricted and non-restricted weapons. This Federal licence insures that the firearm owner is properly trained and indicates which firearm types the bearer is qualified to be in possession of. It also allows police to know who owns a firearms licence. If persons become a danger to society, their firearms licence can be revoked.

  The CHP would do away with the long gun registry which records the serial number of all long guns being purchased or transferred. This very expensive system costs the Canadian tax payers millions of dollars which could be put to better use to fight crime.

  The CHP would provide for the public-use of existing military and the Dept. of Natural Resources (DNR) ranges for rifle and pistol certification programs for civilians. This would develop and encourage firearms ownership, enhance safety and allow people to be aware of their obligations and responsibilities.

  The CHP would instruct the Firearms Centre to issue Type III Authorization to Carry permits to any Restricted Firearm Possession and Acquisition licence holder who asks for one. Having the right to own a weapon is not enough; Canadians should have the right to carry one for self-defence.

  The CHP will maintain the registration of handguns but would restore the right of Canadians, especially women, to own .32 and .25 calibre weapons of barrel lengths shorter than 4.1 inches for the purpose of self-defence.

  The CHP would do away with the requirement for the purchaser to belong a gun club when purchasing a handgun. In its place the CHP would require all training to include live firings (on a range) of both handguns and long guns.