Green Party Leader Elizabeth May sparked the English-language election debate with a strong attack on Stephen Harper's economic and environmental policies.
“You're so out of touch with people when you say they're not worried about losing their jobs and losing their homes,” Ms. May said after Harper suggested Canadians are worried about the stock market drop, not about jobs.
“You're out of touch if you don't know people are fundamentally worried,” she said in a debate that several pundits said she won.
Ms. May said that's especially obvious in her own riding of Central Nova, where the Trenton Works rail car plant has been shut so hundreds of jobs can be shipped to Mexico.
“It's not good enough for people in Nova Scotia to be told their families will be torn apart while dad goes out to the tar sands. We need to create jobs for people in their communities.”
While pointing out that Harper has no economic plan, Ms. May said the Green Party would act to protect Canada's manufacturing, forestry and tourism jobs by taking steps to reduce the value of the Canadian dollar. That includes reversing Harper's focus on the Alberta tar sands, which has driven up the dollar.
The Green Party would freeze foreign takeovers of Canadian corporations, which also drives up the dollar, and invest in long-term, sustainable jobs in Canada, Ms. May said.
She also highlighted the green tax shift, which would tax carbon and toxic pollution and use the revenue to cut income and corporate taxes.
The Organization on Economic Cooperation and Development says that policy is the way to a healthy economy, Ms. May said.
Harper boasted of the jobs created during the past two years, but Ms. May pointed out that the new employment is mainly in low-productivity service jobs.
“You should read the OECD report,” she said. “It would give you good advice, which you seem to have ignored.
“We're experiencing the most profound structural shift in our economy in a generation. We need a vision for our economy that focuses on what we need long term. That means we invest in Canada.”
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| Elizabeth May |
