Our Future

[Pellaken]

http://erg.environics.net/news/default.asp?aID=531

" True, in the 1990s, Canada witnessed the election of governments dedicated to an agenda of fiscal prudence: Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin in 1993, Mike Harris and his Conservatives in Ontario in 1995, and recently, Jean Charest's Liberals in Quebec. But the appeal of these governments was due to their promises to restore fiscal integrity to public spending and actually preserve the social welfare state by making it financially sustainable."

"Tommy Douglas's CCF, which seized power in Saskatchewan in 1944 to become Canada's first socialist government, rightly prided itself on balancing its budgets while blazing the trail to a universal system of public health insurance."

" But in the 1970s and 1980s Canadian governments of all parties departed from the Canadian norm by spending more money on public programs than was justified by their tax revenues, ultimately pushing the public debt to 64 per cent of GDP in 1993. Canada was threatened with Third World status as some of our governments faced difficulty floating their debt on the international money markets and were forced to pay unusually high interest rates for sovereign debt.

Now, after a decade of cutbacks in public spending to restore the fiscal balance, our polling is showing increasing concern over the neglect of the public services people so cherished. "

This is where we, as the NDP, should be

This is where our founder, Tommy Douglas was.

This is where I am economically.

[Neal.F.]

Tommy Douglas, like MJ Coldwell and JS Woodsworth of the CCF before him, was a social conservative.

Is that where you think the NDP should be? Would Svend and Libby allow it?

[Pellaken]

social issues should be seperate from economic ones.

Tommy had the right ideas when it came to the economey... but social progression is only natural.