To help our members make an informed choice on September 20th, we sent a non-partisan survey to Canada's major political parties. We asked the parties where they stand on the issues most important to our members.
We received responses from the Liberal Party of Canada, the Conservative Party of Canada, and the New Democratic Party. The Green Party of Canada and the Bloc Québécois have yet to respond. What follows are the responses as we received them from the parties in the order they were submitted.
1. Will you invest $95 million in NAVIGAR over 4 years, over and above existing training budgets, to ensure Canada’s public service is ready to take on the challenges of tomorrow?
Liberal Party of Canada
We believe in a strong public service where public servants are trained to address the challenges of tomorrow. We will continue to support the Canada School of Public Service to ensure training reflects the current and future skills required of public servants. Our Liberal government also supports the Future Skills Centre through our investments in the Future Skills Program, and we are always open to finding innovative skills development and training solutions.
Conservative Party of Canada
Public servants have been vital to Canada’s response to COVID-19. The aid delivered to all Canadians in their time of need wouldn’t have been possible without the hard work of our dedicated and professional public service.
Canada’s Conservatives recognize how important skills training is for all Canadians, including its public service. We support prioritizing recruitment and retention, including an emphasis on retraining and skills development, for workers. We will seek to attract the best talents to our public service and provide it with the tools and training it needs to serve Canadians well.
New Democratic Party
New Democrats recognize the crucial role that the public service plays in delivering the public programs Canadians depend on and we support Canada’s dedicated and professional public servants. We know that in order to keep delivering high quality public programs quickly, effectively, and fairly, that public servants need to be ready to adapt to new technologies, new situations, and new public emergencies. We will work with the public service unions to ensure that adequate, appropriate, and effective training is in place that meets the needs of public servants and guarantees a strong future for our public programs and services.
2. Will you invest in training, new technologies and regional office audit and investigations staff to help the CRA catch wealthy tax cheats and hold large corporations accountable for what they owe, and end corporate “profit shifting” and “transfer pricing”?
Liberal Party of Canada
We believe in a fair tax system. We recognize the crucial role the Canada Revenue Agency plays in reducing tax avoidance and evasion, this is why in Budget 2016 we invested $444 million in the Canada Revenue Agency to crack down on tax evasion and combat tax avoidance. We are committed to investing new resources for the Canada Revenue Agency to further reduce tax avoidance and evasion by wealthy individuals and large corporations.
Conservative Party of Canada
Canada’s Conservatives will ensure the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) is responsive to the needs of Canadians, delivers quality service and advice, respects small businesses, and focuses its efforts on wealthy tax evaders and big corporations.
New Democratic Party
Canadians know that the public services we all depend on need to be funded sustainably. But for too long, Liberal and Conservative governments have told Canadians to expect less – cutting back on services, handing out special deals for big corporations and big polluters, and giving tax breaks to their wealthiest friends. Instead of lowering costs for Canadian families, they have delivered outrageous giveaways to the richest few, while letting costs grow for everyone else.
We recognize that in order to ensure the fairness of our tax system, wealthy tax cheats shouldn’t just be allowed to get away with it. The CRA needs the tools, resources, and training necessary to keep pace with the complexity of tax avoidance schemes. We’ll invest in the CRA to ensure that they can collect what Canadians are owed. We will also close loopholes including eliminating bearer shares, create a beneficial ownership registry to fight money laundering, and crack down on avoidance techniques like profit shifting. We will also improve transparency on the taxes paid by large corporations to increase trust in our tax system.
3. Will you increase federal public science spending by $800 million in order to restore in-house science spending to fiscal 2010-2011 levels?
Liberal Party of Canada
We recognize the crucial role that federal government science plays in tackling some of the most important challenges of today whether that’s climate change or researching high impact illnesses. This is why we have increased total intramural science and technology investments by more than $600 million since 2014-2015.
A re-elected Liberal government will continue to increase intramural science and technology investments over a four-year mandate to ensure federal government scientists and related employees are able to continue their important work.
Conservative Party of Canada
Canada’s Conservatives recognize the importance of government-funded science and research. The work of scientists is vital to Canada’s future, including protecting Canadians’ health and safety.
New Democratic Party
We believe in independent public science. An NDP-led government will expand the role of the Chief Science Advisor to allow them to better monitor federal science capacity and create a Parliamentary Science Officer position to inform Parliamentarians about scientific evidence. We will also make investments in federal government science, particularly climate science, and review the state of federal science funding across government, ensuring that government science is carried out independently and free from political management and oversight with strong scientific integrity policies.
4. Will you reform the government’s outsourcing practices, reducing spending on contractors to 2011 levels and building an equal and equitable public service?
Liberal Party of Canada
Canada’s professional public service is one of the best in the world and works hard to deliver the programs and services people rely on.
We will commit to reviewing existing training provided by the Canada School of Public Service to ensure existing employees are being trained to limit outsourcing of projects.
Conservative Party of Canada
Public servants play an important role in our society, as was evidenced by the hard work of the public service in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Canada’s Conservatives support a strong public service and respect their role in the development and delivery of policies and programs.
New Democratic Party
New Democrats believe that a dedicated, permanent public service is a strong public service. We will work with the public service unions to reduce the use of outsourcing and temporary help services to foster internal expertise and to strengthen the public service’s strong culture of excellence.
5. Will you not support any possible future legislation similar to Bill C-224, which was defeated in the last Parliament?
Liberal Party of Canada
In March 2021 the Liberals opposed Bill C-224 due to the potential impacts on public service employment levels in Quebec, the delivery of benefits to residents of Quebec, the fight against international tax evasion and the significant implementation cost of this proposal.
Important efforts have been made by the Government of Canada, through the CRA, to reduce the administrative burden on Quebec taxpayers. In fact, the CRA has started discussions with the Province of Quebec to simplify or combine some tax forms and to simplify the income tax return process.
Conservative Party of Canada
We will protect CRA jobs in the regions of Quebec in any negotiation with the Quebec government toward a single income tax return for Quebecers.
New Democratic Party
After hearing from witnesses in committee, New Democrats voted against Bill C-224. Nearly all witnesses stated clearly that C-224 was deeply flawed because it would jeopardize 4,700 good jobs throughout Quebec. New Democrats recognize in principle that simplifying tax forms would make life easier for Quebeckers, who are the only residents in the country who must fill out two separate tax forms, but we don’t believe that this should occur at the expense of workers and we will not support any legislation that ignores the impact on workers.
6. Will you provide public, universal prescription drug coverage (Pharmacare) for all Canadians?
Liberal Party of Canada
A healthy economy is only possible when its people are healthy. Canadians have access to some of the best doctors, nurses, hospitals, and treatments in the world, and all through our publicly funded health care systems. But some Canadians have difficulty affording the medications they need.
The government is taking concrete steps toward the implementation of national, universal pharmacare.
The case for national universal pharmacare is well-established. The government is committed to work with provinces, territories and stakeholders to build on the foundational elements that are already in progress, like the national strategy on high-cost drugs for rare diseases, toward the goal of a universal national program.
In 2018, the Government of Canada established the Advisory Council on the Implementation of National Pharmacare to provide independent advice on how to best implement national universal pharmacare. Based on the advice of the Council, the government is working with provinces, territories and other stakeholders to move forward in establishing the foundational elements of national, universal pharmacare, including:
- A new Canadian Drug Agency that would negotiate drug prices on behalf of all Canadians, thereby lowering costs.
- A national formulary to be developed by the Canadian Drug Agency.
- A national strategy for high-cost drugs for rare diseases, with funding of $500 million per year, ongoing, starting in 2022-23. In the coming weeks, Health Canada will be setting out options for this strategy and will engage with provinces, territories, patients, industry and other interested groups to confirm the path forward.
To maintain momentum, the government will proceed with its announced plan to provide ongoing funding of $500 million for the program for high-cost drugs for rare diseases. The government will also directly engage with willing partners on national universal pharmacare, alongside other important health priorities, that can be advanced at the provincial and territorial level.
The Government of Canada will use early lessons from PEI's efforts to inform its ongoing work to advance national universal pharmacare.
Conservative Party of Canada
Our Canada Recovery Plan has a detailed plan to secure health care. We commit to meeting with the premiers within the first 100 days of forming government to propose a new health agreement with the provinces and territories that boosts the annual growth rate of the Canada Health Transfer to at least six per cent. This will inject nearly $60 billion into provincial health care systems over the next 10 years.
New Democratic Party
New Democrats recognize that life has become more unaffordable for the average Canadian, leaving far too many people unable to afford both food and medications. Unfortunately, the Liberals have just talked about pharmacare for six years without taking action. New Democrats will get to work to make it a reality immediately. We will begin working with the provinces right away to target a late 2022 start date, with an annual federal investment of $10 billion. That means access to necessary medicines in the same way that we have access to medical and hospital care – free at the point of care, financed by a public insurance system that covers everyone. It means that you’ll need your health card – not your credit card – at the pharmacy till. And it puts an end to costly co-payments, deductibles and premiums that cost families hundreds and even thousands a year.