Christine Innes, Liberal Party
The Varsity: What do you think students’ priorities are this election?
Christine Innes: I think first and foremost it is about the access and accessibility. We do need to clearly make it [post secondary education] much more affordable. We’re talking about direct scholarships; direct bursaries; we’re talking about a guarantee of $5000 dollars student loan regardless of family income. I think the other issue also relates to the opportunities that we’re hopefully creating as students graduate.
TV: You have promised more funding for expansion of public transit. Are there specific plans within the TTC and Toronto that you support?
CI: Well, concurrent with our commitment on the funding, there is a panel GTA wide panel, looking at transit solutions. So, the federal government, I don’t believe, should be in there creating another layer of what we do with that, they’re doing the expert consultations, they’re doing the analysis of what are the best ways, the best investments within the system, so we’re talking about stepping up to the plate in a very very meaningful way to support that process in an important way, and what’s support? Funding.
TV: The Carbon Plan is an integral part of the Liberal platform, but you make no mention of it on your website. Do not you support it?
CI: I absolutely support it. It’s simply the fact that we believe as Canadians [we have] an obligation to tax that which is bad for us, that’s pollution, pure and simple. And we should reward behavior that is good for us, it’s employment income, investment income, productivity, job creation, so those should all have lower taxes.
TV: Mayor Miller has advocated that 1 cent of the GST be given to cities. Your party has promised money to cities but would you support Miller’s Demand?
CI: Well here’s the problem: Stephen Harper already took 2 cents from the GST. What Liberals have already done, and will further enhance, is in the last Liberal government we dedicated a substantial percentage of the gas tax to cities.
TV: A lot of students bike to school but there aren’t a lot of bicycle lanes around campus or Toronto. How will you make Toronto and Trinity-Spadina more bicycle friendly?
CI: Let’s remember that bike lanes, technically a municipality determines that they’re there. I would be a strong advocate in our infrastructure funding, that we’re talking about, that as we’re moving ahead we should include funding as we rebuild our city [for] better accommodation for bikes.
Olivia Chow, New Democratic Party
The Varsity: What makes the NDP particularly well-suited to deal with student concerns?
Olivia Chow: Well, the Liberals’ track record has not been very good. They have cut $2-billion during the Paul Martin – Chrétien years in the mid-nineties, so you see the tuition fees tripled through this time. You notice the Liberals did not talk about – or the Conservatives – a Post-Secondary Education Act. The only party that does that is the NDP.
TV: Would you support or encourage provincial tuition freezes?
OC: Oh, absolutely. When Paul Martin needed support [in 2005], Jack Layton said: “Give the students $1-billion to lower tuition fees.” And Paul Martin had to agree with that funding for post-secondary education. Now, Stephen Harper changed it to just grants to universities, and universities are using it for their infrastructure rather than for students. And that’s not the approach we want.
TV: In terms of climate change, the Liberals are proposing a carbon tax while the NDP supports a cap-and-trade system for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Why is the cap-and-trade system better?
OC: The cap-and-trade sets a target. We will then take this money that we get from the polluters and have it work for the solutions and fund the solutions – whether it’s public transit, green technologies, solar panels, all of those important investments. The key difference is the NDP cap-and-trade is proven. It’s worked in Europe. They have met their Kyoto targets.
Secondly, it goes after the polluters only. They should pay and fund the alternative first. If you don’t have an alternative… let’s say you’re driving a car. If there’s no public transit, what are you going to do? Paying more doesn’t do anything, right? So we want to be able to provide the alternative and the solution for ordinary Canadians first before taxing you.
TV: The Harper government introduced a tax credit for transit passes. Did that go far enough?
OC: It’s a little, very, very small thing. But a lot of the people that really need it don’t pay taxes anyway. So, why not just fund public transit? I’d rather see your Metropass prices much lower. Long overdue. I’d rather see that than a tax credit.
TV: The NDP promises more funding for public transit, affordable housing, post-secondary education, etc. How do we pay for this new spending?
OC: The big corporations that are still making huge amounts of money… we’re looking at no longer reducing their taxes anymore, we’re keeping them the way it was when they last filed their income tax returns. So we think that’s adequate – we’re not increasing it, but we’re certainly not reducing it – and that money we want to invest in people and the environment.
Stephen Lafrenie, Green Party
The Varsity: What made you decide to run for public office?
Stephen LaFrenie: I spent ten years doing international volunteer work in Jamaica and Haiti. Watching what the Liberal government did to Haiti, they have to answer for helping the coup d’état to take place and propping up a dictatorship, and I decided I couldn’t be neutral anymore.
TV: The Green Party proposes to provide fifty percent student loan payment relief.
SL: Yes, upon graduation. Gradually the objective is to control tuition fee hikes. We also want to change the way we build society with a fair minimum wage, an affordable national housing plan, which then contribute directly to making it easier to attend post-secondary education.
Essentially, if the government is now telling you that in order for you to survive in the twenty-first century you need at least a BA or some form of Master’s, then like it is incumbent upon us to provide primary education, I believe the government is responsible for supplying post-secondary education.
TV: You promote a $50 per tonne carbon tax immediately. Do you feel this can really be done without destabilizing the economy, as Harper warns would happen?
SL: Yeah, it’s categorically false what Mr. Harper is saying because Sweden and other jurisdictions have proven it to be completely false. They have very strong economies and they introduced a $150 a tonne carbon tax back in 1991. We can make a shift to a green economy without a collapse, but it’s not going to be easy. The other parties are only going halfway because they’re afraid, they’re afraid to actually tell Canadians the truth.
TV: What would you say to someone who might feel that a vote for the Green Party is a waste of a vote, because Trinity-Spadina traditionally goes to the NDP or Liberals?
SL: There’s no such thing as a wasted vote, but there is wasted opportunity. Over 600,000 people voted for the Greens in the last election and that propelled us onto the national stage.
You’ve got to stop the Liberal-Conservative alliance, you’ve got to stop that coalition from governing. [The NDP] can’t talk to you unless they can frame you as a victim of something, and then pose themselves as the rescuer. The Green Party doesn’t believe that you’re a victim, we believe that the system is broken and that there’s legitimate ways of collectively repairing it.
