Bloc Quebecois (BQ): Family, Parenting and Women’s Issues

This week, I’ll be posting highlights from the platforms of Canada’s five major political parties, focusing on their policies and promises with regards to family, parenting and women’s issues. I am going to try (but do not promise!) to simply report on or summarize what they have promised, rather than providing colour commentary in my posts. However, I am happy to have detailed conversations about the value and feasibility of the proposals in the comments on each post.



Photo Credit: Bloc Quebecois

Bloc Quebecois

The Bloc Quebecois' platform is available on its website. The Bloc Quebecois website (and full platform) is mostly French-only, but there is an English version of the Bloc Quebecois' policy statement.

Most people are familiar with the fact that they want Quebec to separate from Canada. However, they cannot achieve that through the federal House of Commons and while they are represented there, the Bloc Quebecois wants to fight for what it sees as the priorities of Quebeckers. From that perspective, they do have policies on the same types of family, parenting and women's issues as the other parties.

Some of the key promises in the Bloc Quebecois platform relating to families, parents and women are:

Protecting the rights of working families

• Changes to employment insurance, including:
  
  
  
  • Harmonizing the eligibility criteria
  
  
  • Eliminating the 2 week delay before benefits begin
  
  
  • Increasing the benefits from 55% to 60% of the person's salary
  
  
  • Base the benefits calculation on the best 12 weeks of work
  
  
  • Explore the possibility of allowing self-employed workers to opt in to the program
  
  
  • Exempt foreign workers from having to pay into the system since they can't receive benefits
  
  
  • Refund EI contributions of full-time students (up to maximum of $3000)
  
  
  • Etc.
  
  
  
  


• Harmonization of federal and provincial labour laws to ensure Quebeckers in federally regulated jobs enjoy the same rights as Quebeckers protected by the Quebec Labour Code.
  
  
  
  • This includes, for example, ensuring that the parents and spouses of victims of crime who are in federal jobs have the same job protection as those under the Quebec Labour Code if they need to take time off from their job (note: they are also proposing a financial benefit program of up to 52 weeks of paid benefits for the parents or spouses of victims of crime).
  
  
  
  


• Increasing the tax credit for caregivers and expanding eligibility for that tax credit.


• Ensuring Quebec maintains its ability to provide Quebeckers with a social safety net through enhanced equalization, increased post-secondary education transfers and an end to fiscal imbalance.
  
  
  
  • For example, stop trying to impose "national" solutions in the area of family policy, when Quebec has one of the most progressive systems in the world in this area. Instead, allow Quebec to continue to develop its own family policy and transfer the funds that the federal government collects off the backs of Quebec families to Quebec.
  
  
  
  


• Introduction of a program to help older workers and support for progression into retirement (instead of a strict cut-off).

Affordable Housing

• Using the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation surplus to finance the construction, renovation and transformation of affordable housing.


• Ensure that Quebec receives $50 million per year to help address homelessness.

Crime and Safety

• Oppose the proliferation of guns and the abolition of the Gun Registry and make rehabilitation of young offenders and their reintegration into society a priority.

Women's Rights

• Defending women from attacks on their rights, such as the right to control their own bodies -- do not reopen the debate on abortion.


• Instituting federal pay equity.


• Re-establishing the Equal Opportunities for Women Program and the Court Challenges Program.


• End of cuts to funding to women's groups and literacy groups.


• Implementation of an "anonymous curriculum vitae" program for federal and federally regulated jobs that would remove personal details (e.g. first and last name, age, gender, ethnic origin and address) before forwarding the application to the recruiter.


• Support a bill that provides financial incentive to political parties that increase the representation of women in the House of Commons.

Other Issues

• Ensure that immigration policy prioritizes the reunification of families and ensure that immigration applications are dealt with more efficiently.

What do you think of the Bloc Quebecois’ platform? Do their promises sound like a good fit for your family? For Quebec? Possible for the rest of Canada?


Please also check out my Care2 Causes post called Tools to Help You Navigate the Canadian Election and my Bad Moms Club post called If the Political Parties Were Bad Moms. If you want to discuss politics with other moms, also be sure to check out the #momthevote hash tag on twitter and the Mom The Vote facebook page.

Comments

[Perfecting Dad]

You wrote "Most people are familiar with the fact that they want Quebec to separate from Canada. However, they cannot achieve that through the federal House of Commons". I wish to correct that. They could achieve separation through the house of commons and provincial votes. This would be easily doable if the Bloc ran a candidate in every riding across Canada, they would win a majority on the single promise that the day after they take control they would trigger a Quebec separation vote. Although the Quebec population would vote less than 50% to separate, the other provinces would certainly vote greater than 2/3rds in favour of separation and the Bloc could achieve its goal!

[phdinparenting]

I understand that technically it is feasible, but logically I do not think it is. Unless you believe that the rest of Canada is just waiting for an opportunity to kick Quebec out.

[Eric]

If only they weren't the Bloc, I would be more excited about them getting seats. Many Bloc MPs are pretty competent and riding-involved opposition MPs…

I think the most interesting thing in the Bloc platform is the "ease into retirement" promise. I think it would be very interesting if more formal support for "ease out of parental leave" was provided in the Quebec and national parental leave/parental insurance programs.

I'm also really keen to see the Court Challenges program restored — I think its absence tips the scales too far in favour of the powerful when it comes to fixing (and ignoring) broken laws.

[My Election Strategy: Engage P]

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