Election Post #1: Families

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Good Morning!

Here's day one of my election promise of knowledge expansion. Today's post will not be following the outline I proposed yesterday. I've learned that this early in an election, when parties have not made a lot of policy and platform announcements, it's hard to find one issue that all the parties have talked about. I could write something about a coalition, I could write something about the "expiry-date" of seniors, I could even write something about sweaters, eyebrows and mustaches. These aren't issue topics. My goal for this blog is to write about substantial policy items. I want to know the party plans for tackling climate change and environmental issues, education and pensions, the oil sands and national defence. Apparently, the Liberal Party's platform is being rolled out in its entirety this week, and we've seen the Conservative Party and the New Democratic Party announce a few tidbits already.

So here's my plan for today. I'm going to talk about what the parties have already announced:
It's a family sort of thing. All of the parties have framed their policy announcements around how they will help families. Families need tax cuts, families need education, families need help with their personal debt. Here's just a snap-shot of what the parties are doing for families today.

Conservative Party of Canada: Family Tax Cut

Yesterday, the Conservative Party of Canada announced a plan to allow
families to split their income. It's a plan that will allow families with children under 18 to pool the income of both parents for tax purposes. This election promise will not take effect until after the deficit has been eliminated (which the Conservative Government projects to be in the 2015-2016 fiscal year) and will allow $50,000 of household earnings to be shared among spouses.
      Pros: Families with children will, to a certain extent, receive a tax break. The Conservative Party's website has a nifty little backgrounder on the plan that shows that families who are able to split their income for taxes will pay less as a whole.
      Cons: This plan does nothing to help working families with no children, working families with over-age dependents (or those caring for elderly parents), and single people or unmarried couples. As well, it will not become policy until the deficit is eliminated, which could be beyond the 2015-2016 timeline and even beyond the next election.


Liberal Party of Canada: The Learning Passport
This morning, Michael Ignatieff announced his plan for post-secondary education. The Learning Passport will provide $4,000 over four years (tax free) to high-school students who choose to attend a post-secondary institution.
Children from low-income families will receive more funds, up to $6,000 over four years. The funds will be provided through the Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP), granting an account is opened in the student's name. The money will only be available for education purposes (be it tuition, textbooks and the like), and will remain available until all funds are used up (in other words, if you don't use it all in the first round of education, you can use it to upgrade later in life). 
      Pros: It will be easier for families to send their children to post-secondary educational institutes. It will provide about $1 billion in funding to education. The Liberal's would fund the program by cancelling the proposed corporate tax cuts and replacing the current textbook credit and education tax credit currently in operation. According to a report by Miner Management Consultants, 77% of the future work force will need some sort of post-secondary education. Currently, only about 60% of people have post-secondary education, and projections only estimate that number rising to 66% by 2031. There's going to be a skilled-labour shortage if something isn't done. This plan may be a large part of the solution.
      Cons: Depending on how you feel about corporate taxes, the corporate tax cuts would be eliminated. The argument for corporate tax cuts is that they stimulate economic growth by helping companies spend more. The trade off is fewer funds for governments to fund programs like health care and education. 

New Democratic Party of Canada: Cap on Credit Card Rates
This morning, Jack Layton announced that if elected, the NDP would cap credit card rates at five percentage points above prime. This would mean that 25% interest rates would be a novelty of the past. The highest the rate could
currently go is 8% as prime is just 3%. The plan is geared to help working class families who are facing increasing debt loads and are turning to credit cards to pay for their day-to-day expenses like groceries and gas. He also would like to give financial regulators the power to ban excessive fees on credit cards and create a mandatory code of conduct for credit card companies.
      Pros: It would take effect immediately. Layton is comparing it to Harper's income splitting plan (outlined above) in that the NDP would help families now, rather than waiting until government follies are fixed with a balanced budget.
      Cons: It's either too big, or too small... jury's out on that. It's too big in the sense that it seeks to nationally regulate an industry that is global in nature. It's too small in that it does nothing to really reduce current debt, it just slows the accumulation of debt.

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