Jagmeet Singh and the NDP’s Economic Platform is All Nationalization

In an attempt to communicate themselves as a viable alternative to the federal Liberals, the NDP has gone further into far-left socialism, at no surprise to Canadians. 

As Canadians across the country become fed-up with Justin Trudeau’s left-wing economic and social record, many have looked to the NDP as an alternative, only to find even more radical socialist views which appear to only be becoming more fringe as an election looms on in the distance.

The NDP tabled a motion Monday that calls on the government to nationalize all long-term care homes and prohibit private options for such services and presented this change as a potential election promise for 2021. 

NDP leader Jagmeet Singh said he would spend $5 billion in tax payer’s dollars to fund instating universal standards for long-term care homes. He attacked the entire private care home industry and alienated the population that works in it saying Monday, “We know that for-profit means less care. It means fewer hours of care. It means less quality food.”

Singh also stated that he would target the company Revera first, a company that employs over 50,000 workers in over 500 senior care homes, threatening to further nationalize their assets. 

Seniors Minister Deb Schulte of the federal Liberal party is in opposition to this motion, and cited provincial jurisdiction over health care, and stated that the federal government does not have the authority to do what the NDP is promising. 

The federal Liberals, while sharing the NDP’s tendencies for attempting to consolidate power up to the executive branch at the very least recognized that they couldn’t get away with openly doing as such and stated Monday afternoon that they would establish national standards for long-term care, which would be applied in separate deals struck with provinces that want to meet them, voluntarily.

It’s not just the Long-term care industry that Singh wants to nationalize and prohibit private Canadian citizens from participating in. Last month the NDP tabled Bill C-213, the “Pharmacare Act” which the liberals, conservatives, and Bloc Quebecois voted against overwhelmingly, an embarrassing moment for the NDP. The bill would have imposed rules on provinces, threatening them with withheld federal funds for healthcare if they do not provide universal pharmaceutical coverage. In response to the bill, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of the Liberal Party had this to say: 

“Unlike the NDP, we will not be imposing, in provincial jurisdiction, rules that are not worked out with them,” he said. “We respect the constitution on this side of the House and we will work hand in glove with the premiers to ensure… pharmacare universally across this country.” 

In addition to this, Jagmeet has pledged a wealth redistribution in the form of up to $20,000 in student loan debt forgiveness for all students with debt who make less than $60,000 a year after graduation, using tax payer’s dollars of course. And on the federal NDP website, they have called upon the federal Liberals to spend $20 billion of taxpayer dollars on a universal child care program (with an exemption for Quebec only).

It almost seems as though on every issue or topic, the NDP response is Nationalization, confiscation, wealth redistribution, and power consolidation up to the executive branch of government, counter to Canada’s constitution. It is almost as if Singh and the NDP have no real plan outside of the belief that more government control will make Canadians better off, a belief proven to be wrong in oil-rich countries like Venezuela.

The NDP has always telegraphed where the Liberal Party will be in a few years, so if the Liberals only seem like a big-government progressive party now, they may very well look more like today’s NDP in not too long, with a separate socialist caucus and heavy nationalization policies in their platform. It wouldn’t be a shock if by the time the Liberals move that much more to the left if the NDP will have become a fully socialist party.