TAX THE WEALTHY
Increase annual revenues by $3 billion – roll back the tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations given in 2001 by the Campbell Liberals (now BC Unity led by Kevin Falcon). Abolish income tax on earnings under $50,000.
CLIMATE JUSTICE, NOT CARBON BOMBS
Make BC a leader for climate justice. Cut hydrocarbon emissions now! Prioritize renewable energy and conservation. Cancel taxpayer subsidies to the LNG industry. Implement just transition – retrain fossil fuel sector workers for other jobs at union wages. Free public transit for all. Create an accessible province-wide bus transit system.
RIGHTS AND JOBS FOR WORKERS
Security for workers affected by layoffs, including 100% recall rights and wage protection. Protect and expand union rights to picket during labour disputes. Full Labour standards protection for domestic, agricultural and migrant workers. Raise BC minimum wage to $23, fully adjusted to annual inflation rates. Make BC a liveable income employer. Expand sectoral bargaining to all industries. Allow the right to strike around political demands.
PUBLIC OWNERSHIP, NOT P3S
Put resources under public ownership and democratic control. End P3 public infrastructure projects.
JUSTICE FOR INDIGENOUS PEOPLES
Support the “Land Back” demand. Ensure Indigenous inherent title to all traditional, stolen and unceded territories. No resource extraction and infrastructure projects on indigenous lands without full consultation and approval. Stop violating Bill 41, the “Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act.” Indigenize the B.C. education curriculum, to foster solidarity and collaboration with Indigenous resistance struggles, and to promote inclusivity, cooperation, and justice.
RAISE THE RATES!
Raise social assistance and disability rates by 100%.
DEFUND THE POLICE & MILITARY
Reduce police spending, and remove the provincial authority to order municipalities to increase policing budgets. Disband the BC government’s RCMP “Critical Response Unit” (“Community-Industry Response Group” C-IRG), which monitors environmental groups, and Indigenous land defenders and water protectors. End injunctions and charges against environmentalists. Demand a 75% cut in federal military spending and NATO membership. Shift naval procurement to construction of made-in-BC ferries and other civilian needs. Transfer military funds to renewable energy, housing, health care, and schools.
BETTER PUBLIC EDUCATION
Increase public education spending by $1000 per student to reach the Canadian average. End funding and provincial tax breaks for private and religious schools. Provide the funding and equipment to help protect the health & safety of all students, staff and teachers during infectious disease outbreaks. Fully implement SOGI-123 (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) policies in all school districts, and private and religious schools.
PROTECT AND EXPAND PUBLIC HEALTHCARE
Demand action by federal and provincial governments to fully provide pharmacare, optical and dental care, and mental health and addiction rehabilitation. Stop the erosion of public healthcare through P3 private contracting. Prioritize the expansion of hospital beds, reduction of surgery wait times, training of family physicians and nursing staff, remove barriers to hire international doctors and medical workers, and improved conditions in long-term care homes. Give paramedics regular pay, not “standby pay”. End the NDP government’s moves to expand for-profit virtual care and long-term care and to subcontract healthcare services.
HOUSING IS A HUMAN RIGHT, NOT A PROFIT OPPORTUNITY!
Capitalist society treats housing as a commodity for personal and corporate enrichment, not a fundamental human right. The inevitable result is more expensive rents and housing costs. We demand: end housing speculation! Legislation to limit rents to 20% of a family’s income, and establish vacancy controls which tie rents to the unit. Build 100,000 units of new renovated social and low-income public housing. Support expansion of modular housing. Stop “renovictions” and “demovictions”, ban all evictions. Abolish “sweeps” against unhoused people who use public lands and streets for their emergency housing needs.
ELECTORAL REFORM
Replace “first past the post” with Mixed Member proportional representation, and set MLA salaries at the average wage of a BC worker. Implement a ward system to elect city councils in major cities.
GENDER EQUALITY AND JUSTICE
Restore funding to women’s centres and programs, provide safe spaces to people escaping misogyny and domestic violence. Trans rights are human rights – take swift legal and political action against those who threaten the 2S/LGBTQ+ community. End the criminalization of sex workers, support repeal of the “Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act” passed by the Harper Tories in 2014.
UNIVERSAL, AFFORDABLE, HIGH QUALITY CHILD CARE
Make a genuine long-term commitment to the universal, affordable, high quality child care system desperately needed by working class families. Implement an Early Childhood Educator (ECE) Wage Grid paying at least $30-$40/hr. Expand school-age spaces and facilities in elementary schools in partnership with public, non-profit and Indigenous groups. Stabilize and expand existing $10-a-Day programs with long-term budgets based on an equitable funding formula.
FOOD SECURITY
End removals from the Agricultural Land Reserve, encourage food production in urban areas.
SAVE LIVES – END THE OPIOID CRISIS
End the “war on drugs”. Act on recommendations by the Provincial Health Officer and the BC Coroners Service to decriminalize illicit drugs and expand the provincial Safer Supply program. Repeal the NDP’s fear-mongering legislation criminalizing drug use in public spaces. Use evidence-based harm reduction approaches to save lives, and to reduce the social and health costs of the opioid crisis. Create a permanent, safe, legal and regulated supply of drugs, provide safe and secure housing for all, and expand timely access to mental health services and long term recovery support programs.
SOLIDARITY WITH PALESTINE
It is not a crime to express solidarity with the Palestinian freedom struggle, or to criticize the genocidal record of Zionism. Support the international Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions campaign against Israeli apartheid and genocide. Include a component on the Nakba in BC school curriculum.
SOCIALISM IS THE FUTURE!
The profit-driven capitalist system is killing the planet. We call for socialism – a world without poverty and war, where working people democratically own and control the economy.