Interview with Honourable Stéphane Dion

[Greg]

Mapleleafweb is scheduled to do an interview with Honourable Stéphane Dion, Leader of the Official Opposition and Liberal Party of Canada. We are providing members of the MLW discussion forums the opportunity to submit potential questions to Hon. Stéphane Dion.

Your questions can be emailed directly to me, or you can post the questions in this forum thread. To post your questions below, you will need to register or login.

Your questions can be submitted until Thursday, June 12th, after which I will select three (or more) interesting questions and include them in the batch asked to Hon. Stéphane Dion.

The interview will appear in the Interviews section of Mapleleafweb.

Any off-topic or disrespectful postings or questions will be deleted without notice.

[jdobbin]

Mapleleafweb is scheduled to do an interview with Honourable Stéphane Dion, Leader of the Official Opposition and Liberal Party of Canada. We are providing members of the MLW discussion forums the opportunity to submit potential questions to Hon. Stéphane Dion.

Thanks, Greg.

I'll post my questions here:

Mr. Dion, please explain the carbon tax and how it might be carried out as government policy. How does it differ from Conservative and NDP plans? Might it adversely affect lower income Canadians and if so, how will that be dealt with? What sort of income and corporate tax cuts are the Liberals thinking about and how deep will they be if this policy is adopted?

Mr. Dion, how do you propose to turn around Liberal fortunes in Quebec and the West where the Liberals have done poorly these last several years?

Mr. Dion, will the Liberals be bringing back their daycare plan as an election platform?

[Shakeyhands]

Mr Dion, My specific question pertains to economics, the constitution and building a Canadian system that will make us productive at home, competitive in the global marketplace and creates the most likely environment for individual prosperity and sustains Canadian sovereignty and citizenship. Specifically, I would like to know how the Liberal Party of Canada intends to meet these new challenges of the 21st century without reverting back to the post-war big government idealism which has indebted us fiscally and created a self-contained inward looking nation such that we are hampered by decisions of the past and thereby making progressive action very difficult.

[noahbody]

Mr. Dion,

Can you assure voters that, if you became PM, your environmental plan would not include the purchasing of credits from other countries? If not, what is the highest value of credits that you feel would be reasonable to expect? Also, if this is the case, please explain how the purchasing of credits from other countries has any affect on the environment.

[SamStranger]

Mr. Dion: It's been nearly 90 years since the "War Measures Act", and since Prime Minister Borden introduced Income Tax in Canada. Will a Liberal Government ever move in the direction of repealing/abolishing Income Tax altogether, and if not why?

Edited June 3, 2008 by SamStranger

[Remiel]

Mr. Dion, do you not think that the reluctance of the Liberal Party to go to the polls, in the face of constant provocations, could be creating conditions in which it will never be the " right " time to go to the polls?

Mr. Dion, if you take office after the next election, what information that the Conservatives have been withholding will be made available to Canadians again under Freedom of Information? Also, related to this, will you be returning to a more traditional relationship with the Press?

[fellowtraveller]

Mr Dion, what are the intentions of the Liberal Party regarding the level of GST? After being elected, do you intend to keep it the same, increase it, or eliminate it as promised by Mr Chretien in 1993?

[capricorn]

In 1995, estimates of the cost of the Canadian Firearms Program were that it would cost $119 million, but registration fees would bring in $117 million, leaving the total cost to the taxpayers of $2 million. To date, the cost of the gun registry has ballooned to over $2 billion dollars with no end in sight to cost overruns. If elected Prime Minister, what would you do to correct this problem?

(source for the 1995 numbers in my question:

http://canadaonline.about.com/od/guncontro...unregistry.htm)

[Melanie_]

Mr. Dion, Canadians have waited a long time for a workable National Child Care program. When the bilateral agreements were signed between the federal government and the provinces, it seemed that there was a real possibility that the different levels of government could work together to create a system that recognized each provinces’ unique needs within a national framework. The QUAD principles ensured that Quality, Universality, Accessibility, and Developmentally appropriate practices would be the basic underpinnings of a system that could meet the needs of children and families. Would you resurrect that program, and immediately begin working again on a National Child Care system? Would you keep any element of the Conservative attempt to address the child care needs of Canada? What steps would you take to convince the skeptics among the Canadian public that child care is worthy of public dollars?

When the QUAD principles were initially designed, there was a movement to make them the QUAID principles instead, with the “I” standing for Inclusion. At the time, it was decided that the “U” principle, Universality, and the “A” principle, Accessibility, were enough to ensure the inclusion of children with disabilities. How will you ensure that the spirit of that decision is not lost with the passage of time, and children with special needs are fully included in any National Child Care program?

edited to add...

Large, for profit child care chains are beginning to set up shop in Canada. These programs are set up and administered from other countries, and siphon profits back to those countries. There has been growing concern that large, profit driven programs will seek to have regulations loosened or eliminated, in order to make more money (for example, rather than have a 1:8 ratio of adults to children, there could be a 1:10 ratio, allowing a centre to hire fewer staff and house more children). What will you do to ensure that the Quality aspect of the QUAD principles is not compromised by bigbox, institutional, multinational child care chains?

In a few short years ABC has become one of the biggest child care providers in the U.S. and the U.K. in addition to Australia and New Zealand. Between 2004 and 2006, his centres have grown from about 23,000 child care spots to more than 112,000.

Canadian expansion plans are moving quickly, and quietly. Over the past four months, 123 Busy Beavers Learning Centres Inc., based in Oakville, have registered in Ontario, Alberta and B.C. The Canadian firm is a partner of 123 Global, an Australian firm that describes itself as ABC's "growth engine."

The Star

The profit child care model is concerned with creating wealth for the owners of the business, and the needs of the children and the centre are secondary. How will you ensure that Canadian tax dollars are being directed towards creating a quality system of child care, rather than towards lining the pockets of big business?

Critics of ABC Learning say it is making these considerable profits at the expense of Australian taxpayers whose money subsidises the use of childcare with means-tested tax rebates. ABC Learning received $128 million of its revenue from government subsidies in the last financial year.

Wikipedia

Edited June 9, 2008 by Melanie_

[Economic]

Mr Dion,

Would you ever consider encouraging provincial governments to move to the single payer health care system, allowing citizens to be treated in private hospitals but at the publics expense?

How would you govern differently if you were given a minority vs majority government in the next election?

[blueblood]

Mr. Dion,

As Canada is a diverse country, regionally and ethnically; how would you govern a country where interests of some groups directly conflict the interests of other groups? For example what might be good for somebody in Quebec might not do for someone out in Alberta.

Also how would you address the growing urban and rural divide that is happening in Canada, considering a lot of rural areas did not vote Liberal in the last election?

[myata]

Mr Dion,

the recent history shows that despite all claims to the contrary, we do not have necessary checks, laws and standards to prevent participation of this country in the unnecessary, aggressive wars. Under Mr Chretien, Canada narrowly escaped being drawn into the Iraq war which has become a synonim for a war that did not have to happen; even now Canada is being drawn deeper into the internal conflict in Afghanistan, which may be well on its way to becoming another military disaster.

Mr Dion, a war is one of the worst disasters that may happen to any people. It has to be avoided at all cost, to the extent of possible, and the initiators and perpetrators of unnecessary wars should be held accountable before the law. This is the only way to ensure that wars will go into history and won't be the reality we, and our children, will have to live with.

Mr Dion, will your party support a bill that would require a full open public discussion, and a qualified majority of the Parliament, or a national referendum, to authorize participation of Canada in any conflict outside these country's shores and waters, in a role that involves offensive combat operations?

Will your party support a bill that would declare starting a war, other than in self defense, in its own shores and waters, a crime against humanity, and make its initiators and perpetrators liable to criminal prosecution?

[August1991]

Mr. Dion,

What is your opinion of the cases against Macleans magazine currently being judged in the BC and federal Human Rights Tribunals? For example, have you read Mark Steyn's book "America Alone"? Have you read his article in Macleans magazine? In your opinion, do these texts "expose a person to hatred"?

More broadly Mr Dion, in your opinion, in a civilized society, who should judge what constitutes freedom of speech?

-----

Greg, this is a great idea and I thank you for letting us all participate. Please thank Mr. Dion for accepting/having the originality to do this.

Edited June 5, 2008 by August1991

[Borg]

The common man or woman has no desire to decrease their income while you in turn want to increase their tax burden.

When was the last time you stood on the deck of a fishing boat, turned wrenches with a man in the oil fields, cleaned a barn with a farmer, branded a calf with a rancher, sat in a combine in Saskatchewan, sat at the table of a single mom with a couple of kids and ate canned beans and macaroni from the food bank, discussed fixed income earnings with an elderly senior who cannot pay his / her heating bill, handled a drill at the 4500 foot level in a hard rock mine, visited the troops in Afghanistan / Sudan / Lebanon / Sierra Leone / Congo / etc. or pulled an all night shift with a couple of police or fire fighters?

How can you think to speak for those who actully have to work and pay taxes - many risking their lives to do so - and vainly attempt to make ends meet - when you live so far (socially, geographically and economically) from the person who pays your wages?

Borg

Edited June 6, 2008 by Borg

[Charles Anthony]

Would you endorse a graduated tax reform plan eliminating income taxes and employment deductions altogether with the eventual goal of having government revenues replaced by resource rents and emissions/pollution charges?

Would you endorse a simplification of how taxes are collected from the common tax-payer?

[Fortunata]

Mr. Dion, if you became Prime Minister would you form policies around what is good for the majority of Canadians (not the few most prosperous) instead of carrying on the seemingly traditional policies for the benefit of big business (mostly foreign owned) that rape and pillage our country putting very little to nothing back. Canada needs to take it's for sale signs down.

[gc1765]

Mr. Dion,

Many Canadians feel as though they have very little say over government policy, and must choose between the "lesser of evils". That is, they only have the choice of voting for 3 or 4 parties which don't necessarily reflect their views. What would you do to give Canadians more of a voice in government? How will you ensure that your party and your government, should you form government, will listen to the ideas put forth by average Canadians?

[Greg]

This is your last day to submit a question to be considered for the Hon. Stéphane Dion interview!

[White Doors]

Why do you propose fighting for the environment, but all your environmental policies that I have been able to are only about reducing CO2 emissions? CO2 is not toxic and, by itself, does not hurt the environment.

What is your and the liberals party's position on reducing toxins in the earth, water and air and of protecting wild areas of Canada? Do you feel the current hysteria over AGW has overshadowed more traditional environmental concerns?

[Remiel]

Mr. Dion, what do you envision as the place for Canada within the international order?

Mr. Dion, among the political theorists of the 20th and 21st centuries, who would you say has had the most influence on you?

Mr. Dion, what books have you read since becoming the leader of the Liberal Party?

[Greg]

Thanks to everyone who contributed a question for this interview. I was not able to include all the submitted questions, but I'm really really impressed with the high quality of the questions.

Congrats to Jdobbin, White Doors, Remiel, August1991, gc1765, one (or more) of your questions were included in the batched asked to Mr. Dion.

I'll notify everyone when the interview is posted in the Interviews section of MLW.

Again, thanks to everyone who contributed. Stay tuned, I have more interviews with high profile individuals planned in the very near future!