May unveils ‘big-ideas’ platform
Greens call for free post-secondary tuition, taxation of legal marijuana
VANCOUVER — Legalizing and taxing marijuana? That would generate $2 billion this fiscal year, increasing to $5.4 billion within five years.
Free post-secondary tuition for domestic students? A cost of $2 billion a year. And introducing a national dental care program for low-income youth younger than 18? That would cost $1.2 billion the first year, dropping to $913 million in five years.
Eliminating direct fossil fuel subsidies would offer a savings of $1.16 billion this year.
Those are some of the highlights of the Green Party of Canada’s budget overview, released Wednes- day in Vancouver by party leader Elizabeth May, MP for Saanich-Gulf Islands.
May, speaking at a packed rally in a meeting room at the Pan Pacific Hotel, said the Green Party is the first to release a fully costed platform during the federal election.
One new initiative involves expanding the country’s national health care system to include dental coverage for 700,000 low-income youths.
“It is very expensive but we costed everything,” she told the crowd. “We know it’s time to bring forward the new ideas, the big ideas.
“Canadians are sick of being treated as though we can be conned.”
In July, May announced plans for a national Pharmacare plan that would give two million Canadians greater access to prescription medications. This would cost $300 million a year, according to the budget overview.
Mario Canseco, of the polling company Insights West, said the party’s focus on marijuana as a potential source of revenue represents a big shift from seeing the recreational drug mainly as a moral issue.
When he first started asking the question in B.C. in 2007, a little more than half supported legalization, Canseco said. Now the numbers are above 70 per cent.
“When you turn marijuana into an issue related to revenue generation and try to treat it the same way as Scotch whisky, people say: ‘Maybe it’s not such a bad thing,’ ” he said.
He said the Green Party’s stand on marijuana shows it is recognizing that it’s more than a “one-issue” party.
“If [the Green Party] continues to be seen as more of a wider party and to talk about economic policy and things other than environmental issues, then they can do a little bit better,” he said.
The budget overview says that if elected, the first year of a Green Party would result in a revenue increase of $34.8 billion and spending increase of $38.9 billion. Over five years, the Greens would reduce the federal debt from $613.9 billion to $583.6 billion, it says.
Other calculations: • Generating $22 billion annually by a carbon fee on producers of greenhouse gases. • Cutting funding for federally supported research into genetically modified organisms would save $300 million a year. • Introducing stable funding for the CBC would cost $285 million a year.