The election is 10 days away. Advance voting starts today. You know what you need to do. Get out and vote.
After much deliberation, I’ll be voting NDP. I considered voting Green to really reinforce the idea that climate change is the most important issue facing Canada right now. Both the Greens and NDP have great platforms and are aligned on a lot of issues.
The biggest difference is the leader. I’ve been really impressed with Jagmeet Singh. He puts up with a lot of racist crap, but he’s still filled with optimism. I haven’t seen a federal leader with so much personality, conviction, and compassion since Jack Layton. Elizabeth May is a great environmental champion, but I don’t see her having the energy and charisma to bring people onside to tackle the problems we’re facing. Jagmeet Singh can.
Looking beyond the party leaders, I’ve also considered policy and my local candidate. On the policy side, CBC, Macleans, and Gen Squeeze have good summaries of the party platforms. Personally, my top 3 priorities are climate change, housing affordability, and health care.
Climate Change and the Environment
The Greens have the most ambitious plan, the Liberals the most achievable. The NDP is in between on both measures. All three parties have commited to banning single use plastics. Check out CBC for a comprehensive comparison of each parties climate commitments.
Liberal Party
😇 Introduced a federal price on carbon
😡 Bought a pipeline for $4.5 billion
🌲 Plan to plant 2 billion trees
New Democratic Party (NDP)
😀 Expanding the carbon tax to industrial emitters
😍 Ending fossil fuel subsidies
😁 $15 billion for retrofitting buildings
Green Party
😍 Most ambitious carbon targets (60% reduction by 2030)
😁 Halt all new fossil fuel development projects
🌲 Plan to plant 10 billion trees
Conservative Party
🤢 Plan to scrap the carbon tax
People’s Party of Canada (PPC)
🤮Think climate change is a hoax
Housing Affordability
Housing affordability is a hot topic, especially with millennials in Vancouver and Toronto. The federal government has a role to play in building affordable housing and purpose built rental, and ensuring speculation from foreign wealth isn’t distorting our housing markets.
Liberal Party
🙂 1% Foreign Buyers Tax
🙂 100,000 affordable housing units
😒 Useless First-time Home Buyer Incentive (at least in Vancouver)
New Democratic Party (NDP)
😄 15% Foreign Buyers Tax
🙂 500,000 affordable housing units
😖 Reintroducing CMHC-insured 30 year mortgages
Green Party
😐 25,000 affordable housing units
😀 Tax incentives for building purpose-built rental housing
🤔 Get rid of the first-time home buyer grant
Conservative Party
😖 Reintroducing CMHC-insured 30 year mortgages
Health Care
Last election, health care wasn’t that important to me. But now I have an adventurous, asthmatic child and work for a health software company.
Liberal Party
😴 Will continue to study pharmacare
New Democratic Party (NDP)
😍 Universal pharmacare
😀 Basic dental for families earning < $90,000 (first step toward universal dentalcare)
Green Party
😍 Universal pharmacare
🙂 Dental care for families earning < $30,000
Conservative Party
🤥 Promises not to cut any health spending
People’s Party of Canada (PPC)
😲 Give provinces full responsibility for health care
🤪 Cut all federal funding
Local Candidates
In my riding of Vancouver Centre, the NDP candidate Breen Ouellette was endorsed as one of the 35 environmental champions in Canada committed to bringing in a Green New Deal. I highly recommend checkout out this list (and LeadNow’s battleground champions) to see if anyone in your riding has been nominated. It’s a stellar crew.
The NDP has some great candidates in this election, and they reflect the diversity of Canada. 49% are women, 25% are from racialized communities, and 12% are from the LGBTQ community. You can really see the NDP’s commitment to fight inequality and racism comes from the top. Jagmeet Singh has been tremendous this campaign dealing with racist hecklers, responding the the Trudeau blackface incidents, and standing up for first nations access to clean drinking water.
By comparison, the Green Party is unfortunately still very white. Their candidates are 42% women but only 5% are visible minorities.
Strategic Voting
In a close race between the Liberals and Conservatives, you may feel tempted to vote strategically. Don’t. For two reasons.
- The Liberals lied about proportional representation last time. They don’t deserve another strategic vote.
- If we end up in a minority government situation (highly likely), we need as many NDP and Green MPs as possible to push the Liberals to act on important issues like climate change, pharmacare, and electoral reform.
- If you’re debating between the NDP and Greens, I’d recommend choosing the party with the platform that speaks to you or the local candidate you like the best. If you still can’t decide, you can look at polling data and riding level predictions form sites like 338canada.com but beware that riding level predictions are often garbage.
Vancouver Addendum
In Vancouver Centre, it’s an easy choice for me to vote NDP. In some of the other Vancouver ridings there are candidates from other parties that I might vote for.
In Vancouver East it’s a toss-up between Jenny Kwan (NDP), the incumbent MP who’s been a vocal environmental advocate and Bridget Burns (Green), who runs the Vegan Night Market.
In Vancouver Granville, it’s an easy choice to vote for Jody Wilson-Raybould (Independent) – former Liberal Justice minister who was kicked out by Justin Trudeau for standing up for judicial independence in the SNC-Lavalin affair.
In Vancouver Kingsway, it’s a toss-up between the incumbent MP Don Davies (NDP), who’s been a tireless advocate for pharmacare and dental care and Tamara Taggart (Liberal), who has really involved in local politics since retiring from broadcasting, advocating for rental housing and removing lead from school drinking water.
In Vancouver South, I’d be tempted to vote for Harjit Sajjan, the Liberal incumbent. He’s been a good Defence Minister and he’s running against Wai Young (Conservative) who used to represent the riding and is a toxic, anti-cyclist troll.
Canadian Veggie 