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The Epoch Times has been interviewing candidates in lead up to the Jan. 23 federal elections in Canada, and will continue to meet candidates from all parties as the campaign progresses. While The Epoch Times does not endorse any specific party or candidates, we strive to present the diverse views and stances of this campaign to our readers. This segment is part of our ongoing coverage.
Joe Volpe on Immigration
Minister of Citizenship and Immigration and Liberal candidate Joe Volpe says Canada's immigration policy should shift from receiving to recruiting. Such a policy shift, he told The Epoch Times , would better meet the needs of Canada's labour market.
As an example of the shift, he cites the "In Canada Class" programme, which is "designed to give us greater flexibility to recruit people rather than just receiving." This programme, expected to start in 2007, aims to allow international students a two-year work permit and 20 hours per week of off-campus work.
Regarding the current backlog in family reunification applications, Volpe said the goal is to resolve applications within eight months, but he concedes that this cannot happen right away because there are now 110,000 family-class applicants waiting around the world.
This April, Volpe announced that he would increase the number of immigrants under the "parents" and "grandparents" categories from 6,000 to 18,000 in both 2005 and 2006, and also issue each five-year multiple entry visas, allowing them to visit Canada while their applications are in process. Volpe says 19,000 applications have been processed and 11,000 visas have been issued since April. He forecasts that his schedule will be fulfilled before March, the end of fiscal year 2005.
Volpe attributes the backlog in part to Parliament, which sets immigration limits. "If we accept 250,000 [people] and we say that only 20 percent of them can be family-class," he says, "then the [backlog] will always be increasing. So that is why the multiple-entry visa is important."
Peter Kent on Taxes
Peter Kent is a former news broadcaster with Global Television who is now running as a Conservative candidate in the Toronto riding of St. Paul's.
In an interview with The Epoch Times , Kent took aim at the GST. "At the very beginning when we had this huge deficit problem, the GST was intended to help bring down the deficit and the debt," he says. "But it is now raising so much more money than is required by a cost-conscious central government."
Kent says that a budget surplus represents over taxation and the Conservatives would redirect some of that surplus permanently back to the cities and provinces to fund social programs and services. He says there is still enough surplus to fund cutting the GST to 6 and later 5 percent.
Kent says the biggest tax cuts of the Conservative campaign are still to be announced. He says his party advocates a comprehensive tax cut package that includes corporate tax cuts and capital gains tax cuts. Not all tax cuts are good, he says, and explains that a Conservative government would target tax cuts towards small businesses. "We have always done a small business policy plank, which involves raising the level at which the full tax cuts in—from $300,000 to $400,000 [...] and also to allow the inheritance of some businesses" to be passed on to a certain amount without paying tax.
He also proposes an apprenticeship programme that would aim to reduce employers' taxes and thereby give greater incentive to hire and train.
Kent opposes large government grants to selected companies for research and development. It would be more fair and transparent, he argues, to provide tax cuts to help out all companies instead of giving money directly to selected ones.
Jim Harris on Green Strategy
Green Party Leader Jim Harris arrived for an interview at the Epoch Times Toronto office last week in a hybrid Toyota Prius emblazoned with Green Party logos, a symbol of the environmentally friendly message at the core of the party's platform. Among the environmental safeguards Harris advocates is amending the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to include rights to clean air, water, and soil. This would give Canadians the right to sue the government for illnesses caused by a substandard environment, Harris says, though only if the pollution was generated in Canada.
The Greens have gained popularity in Canada; they earned more than four percent of the popular vote in the 2004 federal election. The party has also expanded its policies in areas other than the environment. Harris says his party is "fiscally responsible" and "believe[s] in balanced budgets."
But Harris says the party does not fit the mould of traditional right- or left-wing parties. "The left-right spectrum isn't a good way to analyze political parties anymore," he said. "They are either parties that are working to guarantee our children's future or those that are working to mortgage their future."
In light of the Green Party's growth, he says it is unfair that he was excluded from the party leaders' debates in Vancouver last week. "It hurts the kind of discussion we're going to have in this election, because we are talking about issues that no other party is talking about," he said. Having gained more than two percent of the vote in the last election, though, the Greens qualified for federal funding. This works out to about $1.75 per vote annually.
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