Author: Laurel L. Russwurm

“

We need to recognize that if Indigenous people do not want pipelines to go through their territory, they can’t.

That when environmental regulations and our climate change commitments are not being met, with these pipelines, they cannot go through.

And that social license is critical in this equation as well

”

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NDP MP Niki Ashton. She’s running to be the leader of the New Democratic Party (NDP).

Her video interview starts at ~1:48:00.

(via allthecanadianpolitics)

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allthecanadianpolitics:

allthecanadianpolitics:

ashtonforchange:

Niki Ashton is campaigning on a real democratic-socialist platform of social and economic justice.  Like Bernie Sanders in the U.S. and Jeremy Corbyn in the U.K., Ashton can lead the NDP back to its roots and energize the Canadian left.

Only a real alternative can defeat the Liberals in the next election. If a few thousand of us join the NDP in the next month and vote for Ashton, we can take back the party and win real change in this country. The deadline to join is August 17th. The time to act is now.

The world needs real change. Decades of neoliberalism and austerity have taken away good jobs and real incomes.  An entire generation of young people is worse off than their parents. Meanwhile, the wealthiest one percent are richer and more powerful than they’ve been in 100 years, and unchecked capitalism has devastated our environment.

In the United States and the United Kingdom, movements have risen up to demand real change. The electoral campaigns of Bernie Sanders in the U.S. and Jeremy Corbyn in the U.K. have captured our attention and imagination with economic and social policies that would create real improvement in people’s lives.

Self-described democratic-socialist politicians have almost swept to power, and there is every reason to think we can build that movement here in Canada.  Our ideas about what is possible and imaginable have changed dramatically. After years of neoliberalism and free trade, people are demanding that governments intervene directly in the economy on our behalf, to make the world a better place for us.

The Trudeau Liberals promised change after the Harper years, but they’ve given us more of the same. The same politics of greed that puts the interests of the wealthiest few ahead of the real needs of the many.

The NDP, who should be the voice of working and progressive people, have moved more and more to the centre.  It is a strategy that has left many of us behind, and it is a strategy that has failed time and time again.  We need to take the party back from the pundits and strategists, and return the NDP to its democractic-socialist roots.

To defeat the Trudeau Liberals, the NDP needs to be part of the same movement that is sweeping the U.S. and the U.K., a movement that demands real social and economic justice.

Niki Ashton brings the change we need to the NDP.

Her policies are bold and progressive, and significantly to the left of the mainstream candidates. She challenges the NDP establishment and the Bay Street elite. She taps into the same excitement that energized the Sanders and Corbyn campaigns.

Niki Ashton is the only candidate who can revitalize the NDP and defeat Justin Trudeau in the next election.

You must become an NDP member before August 17th, 2017 to be able to vote in the NDP leadership race.

Become a member here. Annual fees are usually less than $5 (mine was $1).

Sharing this one more time because today is the last day to become an NDP member if you want to support Niki Ashton’s campaign and vote for her as leader this fall.

Join here:

https://action.ndp.ca/page/contribute/2017-membership-en

Niki Ashton releases strongest Canadian federal social democratic tax platform in a generation:

allthecanadianpolitics:

fycanadianpolitics:

Niki Ashton, who has been running for the leadership of the federal NDP on a platform that would see it turn sharply to the left, released her tax policy platform today and it is the best we have seen from a Canadian federal social democratic politician in a very long time.

Bucking the rhetorically left-wing (though in reality not as progressive as it sounds) trend from liberals and social democrats to promise to only increase corporate taxes to one small degree or another or to raise taxes only on the very wealthy, her plan promises to raise progressive income taxes more generally, and not just on the somewhat mythical ‘1%’.

She would start taxing at a rate of 29% at a lower income threshold of $120,000 a year, would create a new and increased tax bracket for those making $150,000 to $202,000 and she would increase all taxes on those making in excess of $202,000 with a fairly substantial increase on those with incomes over $300,000.

In addition she would change the tax laws so that they “treat capital gains the same as wage income for tax purposes” instead of taxing them at only 50% (or, as Jagmeet Singh has proposed, 75%) of the normal rate.

She would bring in “a progressive wealth tax on millionaires and billionaires. This measure would put a tax of 1% on assets of those with a net worth of $1 million, progressively rising to 1.5% for those with a net worth of $10 million or more.” Further, she would introduce an estate tax on all estates worth in excess of $4 million correctly noting that “when multi-millionaires can pass on their entire fortunes, inequality becomes entrenched. Canada is the only country in the G7 that does not have an estate tax.”

These plans are all complimented by plans to raise corporate taxes and bring in measures like a “Robin Hood” tax that would “introduce a Financial Transactions Tax (FTT) of 0.5% on purchases of stocks. This will reduce speculation, increase stability in financial markets and incentivize productive investment.”

While these proposals fall short of the kind of far-reaching and dramatic reappraisal of taxes by the left that Matt Fodor and I called for in our piece It’s still time for an adult conversation about taxes, they still take the truly important step of putting the idea of increased progressive income taxes on the well-off back on the table.

It is essential to understand that it is impossible to be serious about combating income inequality (which is driven by personal wealth discrepancies) or creating the fiscal conditions for a truly social democratic state without taking these steps and beginning to reverse decades of disastrous personal income tax cuts.

With the release of this plan Niki Ashton has made it clear that she not only acknowledges these fundamental truths but that she also realizes how critically important progressive personal income tax policy is to what are often rather hollow slogans from other North American liberals and social democrats about inequality and social justice.

Sharing this one more time because today is the last day to become an NDP member if you want to support Niki Ashton’s campaign and vote for her as leader this fall.

Join here:

https://action.ndp.ca/page/contribute/2017-membership-en

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