Listen to episode 6 here.
Kate and Tara discuss the highlights of the Ontario NDP platform, including the large social spending commitments like universal dental care and pharmacare and revenue-creating measures like tax hikes for the wealthiest Ontarians and a yearly tax on foreign home owners in the GTA.
Resources:
NDP Platform PDF – www.ontariondp.ca/platform
Highlights:
- universal dental care
- universal pharmacare
- free childcare for households earning under $40,000 annually and an average of $12/day for households earning over $40,000
- free transition drugs for trans individuals
- $16 billion in school repairs
- index the minimum wage to inflation and extend parameters to include all workers, including students and servers
- turn OSAP loans into non-repayable grants
- buy back Hydro One and reduce Hydro bills by 30% immediately
- establish a Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions
- cut children’s mental health waits to a 30-day max with a $590 million investment
- hire 400 more mental health care workers to provide mental health supports in every high school
- raise taxes by 1% on $220,000 incomes
- raise taxes by 2% on over $300,000 incomes
- corporate tax rate raised from 11.5% to 13%
- GTA: annual property tax on foreign owners at 0.5% per year in 2018 and 2% in 2019
- increase taxes on cars more than 90,000