Standing up for Canada, for democracy, and for the health and wellbeing of PEI's communities.

The Green Party has released a strong position paper on Protecting Canada, see link below.

Anna wishes to highlight the following priorities:

Creating a strong diplomatic, economic and security front with other like-minded democracies, independent of the US.

Continue to build relationships with leaders in the US who are resisting the Trump administration, to keep open the possibility of renewed trade relationships in a post-Trump era.

We must acknolwedge the deep oil & gas industry fudning of both Canadian Conservative AND US Republican propaganda. Science demands that we stand firm on meeting our climate responsibilties, which require phasing out fossil fuels over 2 decades if we are to give our kids' generation a fighting chance.

Strengthen Canadian-owned supply chains, including local value-added processing for PEI's primary products, agriculture & fisheries. Establish national strategic reserves of key commodities to ensure producers always have a buyer, even through market fluctuations and trade shocks.

Withdraw from the 'Safe Third Country Agreement' with the US and prepare to expand Canada's refugee provisions to include politically-targeted US professionals.

We are all doing what we can to buy Canadian and avoid US products at the grocery store. Canada must cancel the $80 billion F35 fighter jet acquisition from the US (that's $2000 value per Canadian, paid to Lockheed Martin), and secure military production with  European allies.

Anna's primary housing priority is to tackle housing affordability through bold, evidence-based public investment, drawing inspiration from successful post-WWII federal housing investments, and looking at examples of housing policy excellence around the world, for example Vienna and the Netherlands.

Housing experts in Europe recommended aiming for one-third of homes being deeply affordable non-market housing, one-third being rentals with regulations that protect renter rights, and one-third for home ownership. The balance is out of whack in Canada and it drives up prices for everyone. The federal government has an important role to play - we need to double Canada's social housing stock, to catch up to the standards of other G7 nations.

Other priorities include:

• extending HST relief to non-profit builders, like Habitat for Humanity.
• Pushing to end tax exemptions for corporate investors (REITs), which the Parliamentary Budget Office confirms could generate up to $670 million for affordable housing
• Reforming affordable housing criteria, to ensure federal dollars create truly affordable units, recognizing that 'below average' rents are still unaffordable for many.
• Supporting federal backing for 'gentle density' projects like fourplexes and expanding eligibility of funding streams.

As the US backslides into autocracy, we need to defend democracy and human rights in Canada and abroad.

Domestically this includes proportional representation; fighting misinformation and propaganda; championing diversity, inclusion and nonviolence; defending the CBC and local journalism; and maintaining a professional, nonpartisan civil service.

Internationally, we must strengthen Canadian diplomacy and peaceful protective forces, to enable us to push back against apartheid, genocide, and imperial wars of aggression, wherever they occur. Anna has endorsed the Vote Palestine platform at VotePalestine.ca

Anna is a believer in nonviolent resolution to conflicts, both local and international. We must not blindly follow the US into war, but use strategic and independent discernment. With current US leadership, alternatives to the NATO alliance must be reassessed.

The role of the Canadian and allied militaries must always be a principled, restrained and protective use of force, rather than aggression. We must protect and respect our veterans, both abroad and at home. This includes:

• firmly addressing sexual violence and other forms of abuse within the military, and holding perpetrators and permissive leaders accountable
• providing compensation and treatment for harms both physical and mental sustained in the course of service,
• ensuring that Veterans Affairs offices are well resourced and able to provide support, and that military pensions do not leave veterans in poverty.

Canda is defined by our waters, farmland, forests and our climate. Our natural heritage deserves robust protections.

At a time when these protections are under threat, we must act to ensure that proper risk assessments and regulations are in place, so that our children do not pay a long-term cost for short-term development decisions made today.

Anna believes in:

• Ending public handouts to oil and gas companies. These wealthy companies continue to receive subsidies of between $200 and $1000 per Canadian per year, depending on the year. Greens would invest this money in building the clean energy future instead.
• Hold big polluters responsible for the climate damage they cause.
• Creating strict, science-based limits on Canada’s total pollution, and tying federal funding for provinces and municipalities to the results they are able to achieve.
• Make companies prove they have real plans to deal with climate risks.
• Protecting nature and biodiversity through strong regulations.

In the short term, Anna will champion investing in rapid expansions in family medicine residencies, and push government to more rapidly finish the work already begun on recognizing international qualifications, and Canada-wide medical licencing.

Anna will begin advocacy for long term, changes too, including considering comprehensive reforms to the Canada Health Act, in light of global best practices from countries with the strongest healthcare outcomes.

Anna wants to highlight the importance of implementing Universal Pharmacare, to cover all prescription medication. This would be a significant investment that yields long term savings for the public health system: when people can afford the medication they need to manage their conditions, they don't end up in emergency rooms. Prevention is better - for the patient and for the public purse - than cure.

Anna and the Green Party support raising the personal tax-free threshold to $40,000. This would save low-and-middle-income workers $3,675 per year, 4-8 times what the two major parties are offering.

We would pay for it by restoring the tax rate for large corporations to 21%, the level it was prior to Stephen Harper's term as PM. Small and medium business taxes would stay at 9%.

Paying tax is a contribution to our nation's collective good. Our services, our infrastructure, our culture and heritage.

We all go through seasons in our life. When we have high incomes, we should be proud to chip in to that common good. And when we are out of luck financially, we should get a break, and extra support.

Changing the tax-free threshold is a small step we can take for working people. For all, the progressive goal north star is a truly universal Basic Income Guarantee.

Other steps we can take in the short term include raising the seniors' Guaranteed Income Supplement, disability benefits, and caregiver benefits, to above the poverty line.