On September 20, Canada goes to the polls to elect the next government of Canada. The Mission Record contacted all five candidates in the Mission-Matsqui-Fraser Canyon riding and asked them to answer the following three questions:
1. Dire warnings about the future of the planet continue to be made by environmental scientists. Canada currently ranks 58th in the world in the Climate Change Performance Index – and is far behind its obligations set in the Paris Accords.
What is your position on these obligations? How do you feel your party’s platform is best equipped to address climate change?
2. Young Canadians often view home ownership as a pipe dream. According to monthly data released by the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board, the average July sale price of a property increased over 20 per cent since July prices last year. The national parties have made promises to help ease the cost of housing, what solutions does your party offer that the others don’t?
3. Economic priorities – and where to funnel federal monies – often provides the clearest picture of what divides Canada’s national parties. Where should Canada be focused when it comes to the economy? What are your biggest fears about the current, or alternative, economic trajectories, should another party win the election?
Read the answers below:
Tyler Niles
PPC
1. Given the uncertainties over the scientific basis of global warming, and the certainties about the huge costs of measures designed to fight it, there is no compelling reason to jeopardize our prosperity with more government interventions.
The PPC plans to withdraw from the Paris accord and abandon unrealistic GHG emissions targets. Stop sending billions of dollars to developing countries to help them reduce their emissions and abolish the carbon tax, leaving it up to provincial governments to adopt emissions reduction programs if they choose to.
2. The PPC offers a multifaceted approach to help with housing, by gradually reducing corporate income tax rates from 15% to 10% we’ll free up almost 9.5 billion dollars allowing businesses to increase salaries, by gradually phasing out the personal capital gains tax you’ll be able to save more, and by reducing our refugee and immigration intakes we can better control the demand for housing.
In this way we can ease the cost of housing on Canadians making home ownership a more achievable goal for everyone.
3. Canada should be focused on lowering taxes for businesses while encouraging saving and investment in our economy to increase economic productivity. We can achieve this be lowering our federal debt and gradually reducing capital gains tax, corporate income tax, and by eliminating all corporate subsides.
My biggest fears about our current and potential economic trajectories are the huge increases in debt we face along with the steadily rising rate of inflation and the rate at which we’re printing money. We need to get Canadians back to work and back to getting paycheques not stimulus cheques.
