OTTAWA — While the New Democratic Party released its election platform even before Justin Trudeau went to Rideau Hall to begin the campaign formally, it left room for tweaks and additions. Over the weekend, though, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh revealed the costs of the party’s promises.

Here’s what you need to know about the NDP’s plans and how they’d affect the innovation economy.

Support for innovators

The NDP’s industrial plans focus on longstanding pillars of central Canada’s economy, including manufacturing and metals.

The party promises to develop national strategies for agriculture, car-making and the production of low-carbon products. It would also “require the use of Canadian-made steel and aluminum for infrastructure projects” and restore an auto-sector-specific financing program that the Liberals rolled into the Strategic Innovation Fund in the 2017 federal budget. It’s not clear whether the program would be funded in addition to the money already earmarked for the SIF, or whether its funding would be reallocated from the SIF. 

The NDP’s platform costing doesn’t put financial figures to its industrial promises. It sets aside $50 million annually for cleantech innovation starting in the 2022–23 fiscal year, and $260 million over five years for climate R&D.

The platform’s other pledges for innovation-economy firms are broad in scope and light on detail. The NDP promises to “help launch a Canadian startup culture” focused on supporting firms to “commercialize new technologies and scale up, train and retain [a] highly skilled Canadian workforce.” It’s also pledging to create a concierge-type service to help small- and medium-sized businesses deal with regulatory red tape, and better access to export services.

The incumbent Liberals’ March budget renewed or promised funding for several programs that assist firms with commercialization, including sector-specific strategies for AI and quantum. The Conservatives, meanwhile, have promised to refocus federal innovation programs on domestic firms.

Tech firms continue to cite talent shortages as a challenge; ahead of the budget, lobby group the Council of Canadian Innovators called for the federal government to open up immigration pathways, steer recent STEM graduates to domestic companies and back programs that retrain workers for innovation-economy jobs.  

But the party’s income tax plans, if implemented, could also impact startup and scale-up hiring. The NDP is proposing to raise the capital-gains inclusion rate to 75 per cent, up from the current 50 per cent, and to close “tax loopholes like the CEO stock-option deduction.” The party estimates the former change will bring in an additional $44 billion in tax revenue over five years—the second-largest earner in its plan—while the latter will yield a more modest $98 million over the same period.

Regulating Big Tech

The NDP platform positions foreign digital platforms alongside multimillionaires as a source of government revenue. “We will also ensure that internet giants like Facebook, Google and Amazon pay their fair share of taxes, just like every other company—unlike the Liberals, who broke their campaign promise to make these companies play by the rules,” it states.

Foreign digital platforms have been required to collect and remit sales tax since July, and some will be subject to a three per cent digital-services tax starting in January 2022. The Liberals promised both measures during the 2019 federal election, and implemented them via the November 2020 fall economic statement and April 2021 budget, respectively. The NDP did not directly address The Logic’s questions about which promises related to taxing Big Tech the Liberals had broken. “We will see that these companies pay corporate taxes now,” said a statement from Heather McPherson, NDP candidate for Edmonton Strathcona. 

Cancon on the web: The Liberals’ bill to bring streaming services such as Netflix under the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission’s authority stalled in the Senate and died with the election call. The NDP say they would make “Netflix, Facebook, Google and other digital media companies” operate under the same rules as Canadian broadcasters and “take responsibility for what appears on their platforms.” The New Democrats also say they would “rebalance negotiating power” to the benefit of Canadian producers.

Environment and cleantech

The New Democrats’ climate-change goal is ambitious: to cut Canada’s greenhouse-gas emissions by 50 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030. The current official target set by the Liberals is 40 to 45 per cent; the Conservatives say theirs would be 30 per cent.

How they’d do it: The NDP would keep the Liberals’ carbon-pricing system as a starting point, but also eliminate fossil-fuel subsidies, impose carbon budgets on the country as a whole and on specific industrial sectors, and revise federal legislation to require federal financial institutions—including the Bank of Canada and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board—to pursue net-zero carbon emissions as a policy goal.

More zero-emissions vehicles: While keeping the Liberals’ pledge that all new cars be zero-emissions by 2035, the NDP say they’d waive federal sales tax on zero-emissions vehicles and offer incentives of up to $15,000 per family for people buying ZEVs made in Canada. Plus they’d “build out Canada’s charging infrastructure and help people purchasing new or used ZEVs cover the cost of installing a plug-in charger.”

Cleaning up the power grid: An NDP government would plan to make Canada’s electricity generation carbon-neutral by 2030, meaning that every quantum of greenhouse gas emitted would be compensated for by carbon sinks elsewhere. And by 2040, the platform says, Canadian electricity will be zero-emission.

Retrofitting buildings: The New Democrats say all buildings in Canada will need renovations by 2050 to reduce carbon emissions, and the jobs for people doing the work are part of the party’s employment strategy.

Retrofitting the infrastructure bank: The NDP platform says the party would create a new “Climate Bank” to fund renewable energy and low-carbon technology, and support Canadian manufacturers in those sectors. Its separate costing document says this would be an overhauled version of the Canada Infrastructure Bank, its $35 billion in seed money repurposed for specifically green projects.

Infrastructure

The New Democrats object to involving private capital in funding infrastructure, on the grounds that it’s a form of privatization. Federal funding should be to “make a real difference in communities across the country—not to pad the bank accounts of investment firms,” their platform says, which is why they’d revamp the Canada Infrastructure Bank.

Although it talks about the importance of modern, environmentally friendly infrastructure in numerous places, the platform’s only specific commitment is to increase transit funding, with specific attention to electric buses and affordable rail, and to restoring intercity service in rural areas. The New Democrats also would “work with” municipalities that want to make their transit services free to riders.

The funding would move through the federal Canada Community-Building Fund, the new name the Liberals put on what used to be called the gas-tax transfer to municipalities. The NDP would add $2.2 billion this fiscal year, then a further $100 million each year until 2025.

Affordability

Like the Liberals and Conservatives, the NDP sees housing affordability and child-care costs as major problems demanding federal action.

On housing, the New Democrats focus on rentals, promising to create 500,000 new affordable units over 10 years. They’d take GST off new rental units and offer federal property for construction.

Although prices have risen because of too much money chasing too few homes, the NDP also say they’d make it easier for first-time buyers, especially, to spend more, by allowing the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation to insure 30-year mortgages (instead of the current limit of 25) and doubling the tax credit for first-time buyers.

On child care, the NDP plan proposes to spend exactly what the Liberals intend to spend, with a similar goal of creating spaces that cost $10 a day. (The Conservatives would scrap the Liberals’ moves so far, replacing them with a smaller but broader tax credit.)

But the New Democrats’ platform diverges most from the other big parties’ with promises to make life cheaper in multiple other areas as well.

Cellphone and internet service: Like the Conservatives, the NDP say they would extend broadband internet links to every corner of the country by 2025, five years sooner than the Liberals say they can do it. They’d declare broadband internet an essential service, order providers to offer affordable basic wireless and broadband plans (with unlimited data use), cap prices at the global average, and take “the first steps to create a Crown corporation to ensure the delivery of quality, affordable telecom services to every community.”

Their costing document says they’d spend $150 million more a year on rural broadband than the Liberals’ last budget allotted.

Prescription drugs and dental care: Besides housing, though, the New Democrats pledge a universal pharmacare program to take on the costs of prescription medicines and medical devices. They budget $5.2 billion for their plan starting in the 2022–23 fiscal year, $10.7 billion in 2023–24, $11.1 billion in 2024–25 and $11.5 billion in 2025–26. They say this would be negotiated with the provincial governments, so that “you’ll need your health card—not your credit card—at the pharmacy till.” They also pledge to bring dentistry under the umbrella of public health care.

The bottom line

The New Democrats imagine a significantly bigger government than either the Liberals or the Conservatives do, one that redistributes wealth from the “ultra-rich” to the many through significantly expanded public services. They’d impose a wealth tax of one per cent on holdings over $10 million, hike the top individual tax bracket by two points and the corporate tax rate by three points. They’d apply a one-time windfall-profits tax on businesses that made out-of-the-ordinary gains during the pandemic.

Their tax hikes would bring in $30 billion to just over $35 billion more a year, according to their costing documents, but they’d spend $40 billion to almost $45 billion more a year. Nevertheless, with the help of an expanding economy, the NDP say Canada’s debt-to-GDP ratio would shrink from 48 per cent next year to 45.8 per cent by 2025.