Platforms & promises: what have the parties pledged?

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Alot has been said over the past few weeks by the political parties vying for votes in Monday’s election.

Here is a compiled a list of promises made by the main five parties, from the Sask. Party’s plan for highways, to the NDP’s plan to hire 300 more teachers, the Liberal’s propsal to raise minimum wage, the PC Party’s initiative on waste heat and the Green Party’s proposal to eliminate tuition.

HEALTH CARE

GREEN PARTY

• Elimination of ambulance fees
• Expanding Medicare

NDP

• Eliminate Lean
• Spending $106 million over four years to hire more front-line workers, including 400 staff to improve home care
• Covering up to eight session of mental health counselling per year for children and youth
• Hiring more mental health workers in northern Saskatchewan
• Hiring 35 nurse practitioners to help treat non-urgent cases in the ER

PC PARTY

• Dismantling of the 14 health regions over four years

LIBERALS

• Oppose Sask. Party’s private fee-for-service MRI scans
• Review of Lean program
• Expand home care services
• Reduce ER wait times
• Support for palliative care

SASK. PARTY

• Funding for families with children under six with autism
• Allow patients to pay for CT scans using a two-for-one system, similar to MRI scans
• Reduce regional health authority costs by $75 million to hire more long-term care staff
• Increase funding for the Canadian National Institute for the Blind
• Expand remote medical robotic technology

EDUCATION

GREEN PARTY

• Eliminate tuition

NDP

• Hiring 300 teachers and 300 educational assistants over four years
• Double the Saskatchewan Advantage Scholarship to $1,000

LIBERALS

• Stabilize provincial funding for universities
• Reduce interest for government student loans
• Per-student funding to school districts based on current-year enrolment
• Provide educators with funds to cover classroom needs

SASK. PARTY

• Graduate Retention Program First-Home Plan allows provincial graduated to use up to $10,000 in GRP credits towards a down payment on their first Saskatchewan home
• Increase the Saskatchewan Advantage Scholarship from $500 to $750

SOCIAL ISSUES

NDP

• Phasing in a $50 per month increase to the Seniors’ Income Plan
• Building 2,500 new affordable housing units
• Restore the rent-to-own option for social housing
• Introducing 2,000 new childcare spaces
• Hiring 50 new child protection workers

PC PARTY

• Increase before and after school programs
• Increase the limit of children in private care homes from five to six children
• Increase available childcare spaces by 10 per cent in the first year

LIBERALS

• Increase permanent immigration levels
• Phase out temporary foreign workers program
• Raise basic personal income tax exemption
• Tax-incentive system introduced to create rental units

SASK. PARTY

• Allow seniors with household incomes under $70,000 to defer the education portion of their property taxes

ECONOMY

GREEN PARTY

• Balanced budget
• A Guaranteed Livable Income to bring incomes to the poverty line

NDP

• Total budget of $14.4 billion in spending with a deficit of $189.4 million, projecting surpluses starting in the 2017-18 fiscal year
• $178 million in cuts during the first year in what the party describes as wasteful spending, with $120 million redirected to other areas in the first year
• Give Saskatchewan residents the lowest-cost utility bundle by 2020
• Eliminate the two per cent small-business tax

PC PARTY

• Pressure the Federal Government to create a more co-operative system between short line railroads and the national rail companies

LIBERALS

• Eliminate public debt, then invest 50 per cent of non-renewable resource revenues into a new sovereign wealth fund
• Raise minimum wage to $13 per hour by July 2017
• Mandate SaskPower to purchase locally-produced renewable energy
• Offer income tax rebate to homeowners, businesses and farms covering 25 per cent of solar and wind power installation
• Develop a pipeline system through the entire province
• establish a northern Saskatchewan rail line

SASK. PARTY

• Run a $259 million deficit in the upcoming budget, but return to surplus for the 2017-18 fiscal year
• Introduce the “patent box” which would give a tax incentive to companies that commercialize patents and intellectual property into new products
• Allow home-based food businesses to sell low-risk food products directly to consumers and retailers

HIGHWAYS

NDP

• Northern Highways Strategy would start with an all-weather road to Wollaston Lake

PC PARTY

• Party endorses a northern route for the Regina Bypass

SASK. PARTY

• Highways 2020 plan will see $2.7 billion invested over the next four years

MISCELLANEOUS

NDP

• Reinstate a Film Employment Tax Credit
• Reduce the number of MLAs in the legislature from 61 to 55
• Eliminate Executive Air
• Eliminate SaskBuilds

PC PARTY

• Restore the Film Employment Tax Credit
• Initiative to utilize waste heat

SASKATCHEWAN LIBERALS

• Reduce the number of MLAs in the legislature from 61 to 48
• Reinstate the Film Employment Tax Credit

SASK. PARTY

• Tax credit worth $330 a year for volunteer firefighters and first responders
• Selling 40 government-owned liquor stores to be converted to private stores, along with establishing 12 new private liquor stores