Announced in Vancouver on September 9th - the full Green Party Platform.
View details here.

Watch the CTV Marci Len one-on-one interview with Elizabeth May here.

Vision Green, the Green Party policy document, describes in detail how the Green Party will work toward re-building the Canada we want.

Elizabeth May unveils

Green Party Platform

We have what Canadians want

We answer your questions

Information on key policy platforms is summarized here:

National Seniors Strategy

The Green Party commits to creating a plan to ensure seniors retain their dignity as they age. The Green Party National Seniors’ Strategy builds upon the previously announced Guaranteed Liveable Income and National Pharmacare Program to include improvements to the national pension plans, a seniors’ housing strategy, and compassionate, respectful end of life care. The strategy will include:

• Guaranteed Livable Income

• National Pharmacare Program

• To help Canadians with their retirement security, the Green Party calls on the federal government to take the lead in building a consensus with the provinces to amend and expand the CPP/QPP

• As part of a Seniors’ Housing Strategy, the Green Party policies will foster age-friendly communities, where active living and well-being are promoted, where seniors have financial security, and where housing and transportation needs are met.

• The Green Party supports a national Aging in Place approach to ensure every Canadian can live in their own home and community safely and comfortably. A hospital bed costs the taxpayer 6 times what a long-term care bed costs and about 20 times what home care costs.

• A national healthcare strategy, needs to include resources to deal with the increase in age-related diseases, particularly dementia and Alzheimer’s. 

• Death with dignity: We need to grasp the nettle of the thorny ethical problem of assisted suicide and the right to die with dignity. The Supreme Court of Canada has put the issue squarely before Parliament, but the Conservatives ignored the urgency.   

Guaranteed Liveable Income

The Green Party is deeply concerned about the widening income gap, and the steadily increasing numbers of people trapped in the low-wage economy – workers, especially our young, who are struggling to survive with part-time, non-standard precarious employment.  

In the last year, part-time jobs accounted for 80% of net job creation. The bottom 40% of those employed has been losing ground since the early 1980s.  And in the last 10 years, this bottom 40% has taken home on average about 12% of all income.  

• The Green Party advocates both root-and-branch tax reform and federal-provincial overhaul of our tax and benefit systems to create, among other things, a Guaranteed Liveable Income (GLI).

• The GLI concept is seen as support as an effective measure to address poverty and improve health. For example, the Canadian Medical Association recently passed a motion in support of a GLI. (More details at Basic Income: Just What the Doctor Ordered.)

• The GLI would replace federal transfers for social assistance (welfare), disability supports, the Old Age Supplement (OAS) and the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) for the elderly, the Canadian Child Tax Benefit (CCTB) and National Child Benefit Supplement (NCB) for parents with children, and the Working Income Tax Benefit for the poor – all of which are  already very GLI-like.  

• The GLI would not impact Employment Insurance (EI), the Canada Pension Plan (CPP), child care subsidies, social housing drug benefits or dental care.

• The basic idea of the GLI would be to replace separate federal and provincial programs with a single, universal, unconditional cash benefit delivered through the tax system. Establishing the base amount would depend on the measure of poverty used.  

• The simplest way to begin the transition to a GLI and to put more income into the  hands of the poorest Canadians, would be for the federal government to make all tax credits refundable

• The introduction of a GLI payment would provide a regular minimum payment to every eligible Canadian adult and child. 

Healthier Healthcare

Universal health care is fundamental to Canadian citizenship — it’s an expression of the values that draw us together. Despite this, health care has become less a national program and more an uneven patchwork of services. National leadership is absent just when the demand for health care and the confusion over the delivery of private care are growing. Stephen Harper has compromised the future of health care. Federal dollars will shrink. Funding will be tied to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of provinces, with poorer provinces receiving less than their more affluent counterparts. 

• The Green Party believes that Ottawa must provide adequate funding and firm national leadership to:

• Guide the effective collaboration needed to strengthen our health care system and to develop national standards for more equitable coverage,
• Implement a federally-led Pharmacare program, and
• Bring practical improvements and innovative reforms to a public service we all depend upon.

Canadians have uneven health care coverage because we have no standards for the minimum quality and range of essential health care services that should be available across the country. These standards are implicit in the Canada Health Act.  We need them to be explicit. The Canada Health Act has five general principles – public administration, comprehensiveness, universality, portability, and accessibility, but the federal government has not been applying them to support greater national consistency, apart from imposing an occasional penalty on individual provinces and territories for extra billing. 

• Pharmacare The Green Party believes in implementing a federally-led Pharmacare program to ensure that all Canadians have access to a universal prescription drug plan by expanding and coordinating the patchwork of public and private schemes that already provide drug insurance to some twenty-two million Canadians. 

• National Pharmacare would also ensure screening of all drugs for safety and effectiveness by requiring that all provinces participate in the Common Drug Review to address drug safety (based on the approach of the University of British Columbia’s Therapeutics Initiative).

• The Canadian Medical Association’s 2015 proposal notes that a pan-Canadian plan would save Canadians $7.3 billion a year in costs, yet it would only cost the public sector an additional $1 billion a year.  

National Housing Strategy 

The Green Party will create and implement a National Housing Plan to provide every Canadian with a place to call home. The Green Party’s plan is to:

• Develop a National Housing Strategy through the Council of Canadian Governments. Canada is the only country in the OECD without a housing strategy. Any coherent plan must include concrete steps for a seniors’ housing plan, a First Nations plan, a plan for social housing, and for affordable market housing;

• Create a Housing First Approach, a one-on-one outreach initiative that houses chronically homeless people and provides immediate support;

• Dedicate funding to the co-operative housing sector to enable more new affordable housing projects to proceed, while extending funding for co-ops whose contracts with the federal government are expiring;

• Retrofit all Canadian homes by 2030 to increase energy efficiency, cut heating and electricity bills, and reduce 80% of building emissions by 2040;

• Implement a Guaranteed Livable Income to help low-income Canadians and youth reach their dream of affording a home;

• Eliminate Stephen Harper’s Immigrant Investor Venture Capital Pilot Program, which currently allows foreign investors to purchase Canadian properties and can drive housing prices up for Canadian families beyond their reach;

• Increase access to social housing for First Nations on and off-reserve, while strengthening enforcement of living and maintenance standards through our proposed Council of Canadian Governments; and,

• Ensure a percentage of all newly built units are reserved for affordable housing.

Support for Veterans 

Stephen Harper’s government has left veterans without the lifetime income security that was previously provided under the Pension Act.

In 2006, the New Veterans Charter (NVC) replaced the Pension Act and changed the lifetime pension to a one-time lumpsum disability payment rather than monthly compensation. Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) categorizes veterans in order to determine their eligibility for benefits and programs. However, under the Conservative government, multiple VAC offices have been closed making it difficult for veterans to access needed services.

The Green Party will work with other parties to:

• Restore needed support to veterans and bring back the Pension Act benefit.

• Ensure that when our veterans return from defending our liberties, they will have the programs and services they deserve.

• Re-open the VAC offices that Stephen Harper closed so that veterans can easily access the services they need. 

• End the Lump Sum Payment for injuries and reinstate the Pension Act benefit to provide monthly compensation for life.

• Support funding the training of service dogs for veterans suffering from PostTraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). 

Green Party Stands up  for Canada Post

The Green Party will provide Canada Post with new revenue tools to keep it profitable and operating at a service level that Canadians expect. The Green Party’s plan is to:

• Restore home delivery service;

• Reverse Stephen Harper’s cuts to service made in 2014;

• Diversify the services Canada Post offers, including insurance sales, banking and commerce services, supplementary pension plans, and expanded services to remote communities. Other countries, including Switzerland, France, and New Zealand, posted increased revenues after diversifying services;

• Restore and maintain service in rural communities;

• Consolidate delivery services to make deliveries simpler for customers, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions; and,

• Oppose the Trans Pacific Partnership’s provisions that end government funding of Crown Corporations.

"“Canada Post is a vital service for Canadians that connects us from coast to coast to coast and encourages small business growth, which is reliant on its distribution networks and low postage rates. Thousands of Canadians – including seniors with mobility issues and Canadians living with disabilities – worry that Stephen Harper’s elimination of home delivery will disproportionately affect them,” said Elizabeth May. “In the next Parliament, Green MPs will diversify services, restore home delivery, and provide environmentally-friendly postage.”

 Action on Climate Change

Working with all other parties in the next minority Parliament, Green MPs will:

• Restore and enhance Canada's environmental laws – in particular, Canada’s Environmental Assessment laws need to be stronger than they were when Bill C-38 repealed them;

• Embed the right to a healthy environment in Canada’s constitution;

• Develop a national energy plan with a commitment to strong climate action through our Council of Canadian Governments;

• Legislate a ban on supertankers on B.C.’s coast;

• Place a moratorium on drilling for oil and gas in the Gulf of St. Lawrence;

• Repeal Bill C-51 and ensure that the RCMP receives scientific briefings to understand the legitimate concerns of citizens who demand climate action; and,

• Work with First Nations to stop forcing them into court challenges over their rights to defend their traditional territory and coastlines and instead allow for investments in sustainable economies based on Indigenous self- determination.

Green Candidates

The Green Party is attracting the best minds of our country to run in 2015. Green MPs vote freely and conscientiously to create policies and laws that protect our values and shape a positive future. Green MPs follow these guiding principles:

• Set the standard for transparency and accountability (we were the first to scan all original receipts and post all expenses on our websites);
• Conduct ourselves respectfully in the House of Commons, through our commitment to never heckle;
• Practice ‘high road’ politics, never using ad hominem attacks, but sticking to issues in debate;
• Work hard, placing the interests of our constituents and of Canada above those of our party;
• Be the only party with a policy of no whipped votes; and
• Strive to find common ground with other parties, working across party lines in the public interest.

Green Party candidates must sign a pledge before they are accepted to run in the 2015 election: