O'toole unveils party's election platform
Vaccination mandates early stumble
Justin Trudeau has not so much wedged Erin O'toole, as wedgied him. The Liberal requirement that domestic travellers and the federal public service be vaccinated has forced O'toole to talk about something on which he'd rather not be drawn.
At first the Conservative leader said that, while he supports vaccination, people should make their own decision. Later, he issued a revised position, stating a Conservative government would require passengers to present a negative test result or take a rapid test. Public servants not vaccinated would need to take a daily rapid test — not an unreasonable stance, given it conforms with current Treasury Board guidelines.
But he should probably have bitten the bullet and made the utilitarian calculation that the Liberal position is the one that offers the greatest good for the greatest number of people.
Opinion polls suggest three quarters of Canadians support mandatory vaccination.
The Conservative leader's problem is that the other quarter is more than likely his voting base. One of his candidates, David Yurdiga, called forced vaccination “tyranny,” and he has many sympathizers in the party.
By equivocating, O'toole's political opponents have licence to distort and misrepresent.
The Conservative leader's focus for the day was the unveiling of his party's election platform — Canada's Recovery Plan — a substantial, in parts inventive, occasionally frivolous, 83-page document.
But no matter how much he talked about Canadians having the right to make their own health-care decisions, or talked up the efficacy of rapid tests, many voters will be left with the impression that the Conservatives oppose vaccinations.
It is unfortunate that O'toole couldn't put the issue to bed. The platform is an impressive piece of work that hits the right notes when it comes to addressing many of the issues that will matter post-pandemic: creating jobs and attracting investment.
The Canada Jobs Surge plan would pay up to 50 per cent of the salary of a new hire for six months, while the Canada Investment Accelerator is a tax credit that would cover five per cent of any capital investment made in 2022 or 2023, with the first $25,000 refundable for small businesses. The Rebuild Main Street tax credit would offer 25 per cent of amounts up to $100,000 that Canadians invest in small businesses, while the Main Street Business Loan would offer up to $200,000 to help businesses in the hospitality, retail and tourism sectors, with a 25 per cent forgiveness rate, depending on a company's revenue losses.
If all that proves to be too eye-glazing, the platform does have a couple of shiny baubles — a GST holiday for a month that would make all purchases in retail stores tax free.
Restaurants would be helped further by a Dine and Discover program that would offer a 50 per cent rebate for food and non-alcoholic drink for dine-in on weekdays for a month.
A friend travelling in Quebec and the East Coast said he was shocked by the number of restaurants capping reservations because of lack of staff. That is a direct result of the Liberals extending the Canada Recovery Benefit, so some of the problems stored up over the past 17 months will solve themselves once the benefit ends later in the fall. But O'toole was right when he said many restaurants are hanging by a thread. Getting people back to work is critical and time-limited government action will help.
The Parliamentary Budget Office put out its economic baseline projection on Monday, which suggests the economy is rebounding sharply, with GDP predicted to pass pre-pandemic levels in the third quarter of the year. However, unemployment is not forecast to fall below pre-pandemic levels until the third quarter of next year.
The PBO estimated a budgetary deficit of $334.7 billion in 2020-21, or 15.2 per cent of GDP, falling to $138.2 billion (5.5 per cent of GDP) in the current year. O'toole said the way to reduce the deficit is to make productive investments to grow the economy.
Like the Liberals, the Conservatives have identified child care as a means of increasing female participation in the workforce.
The Liberal $10-day daycare plan, announced in the last budget, has seen Ottawa agree to transfer billions to the provinces to provide subsidized child care (or not, as in Quebec's case, which got a blank $6 billion cheque). The Conservatives would, if elected, ditch that plan, no doubt to the chagrin of premiers across the country, and replace it with a refundable tax credit that would cover up to 75 per cent of child care costs for lower income families. There are no costing details on any of these proposals — the platform is currently with the PBO for evaluation — but that one is likely to be a whopper.
Other policies have been pre-announced: connecting Canada by high-speed internet by 2025; introducing a climate plan and streamlining a suite of innovation policies, including the “patent box,” a 50 per cent cut in the tax on income earned from patents on innovative products developed here.
There are justice reforms, making it an offence to block key infrastructure, a response to the 2020 rail blockades.
On defence, there is a commitment to “begin the process” of replacing Canada's four aging Victoria-class submarines.
And there are policies designed to convince blue-collar Canadians that this is no longer a party in league with the Beasts of Bay Street — such as a doubling of the Canada Workers Benefit to a maximum of $2,800 and “Super EI,” where workers would receive 75 per cent of salary, rather than 55 per cent, when a province goes into recession. Under a Conservative government, employers hiring gig workers will have to make contributions to a new portable Employee Savings Account, money that would be allowed to grow tax free.
It would also oblige large streaming services to reinvest a “significant proportion” of Canadian-generated revenues in Canadian programming.
But lest anyone get too enthused, there is a reminder that none of the commitments were made under oath. The platform says a future Conservative government would review the mandate of CBC English television and CBC News Network, which is a far cry from the pledge O'toole made as a leadership candidate to cut funding to both by 50 per cent with a view to privatizing them in the first mandate.
Until it has been costed by the PBO, Canada's Recovery Plan remains an extended wish list. But it is a solid document, designed for the most part to provide longterm benefits to the country's productive capacity, rather than boost short-term consumption. It tries to address criticisms that this is a party with a narrow base and narrow instincts — it proposes a national monument to former residential school survivors; promises to ban conversion therapy and seeks to build one million new homes in three years.
But to profit from it, O'toole needs to take back his tight whities and start talking about job surges and investment accelerators, rather than mandatory vaccinations.