Subject: The NDP Plan: A More Participatory Economy, A Green Economy

From: [email-masked] (MARY OLIN)
Date: 12 Mar 1993 19:58 PST

A MORE PARTICIPATORY ECONOMY
     To achieve a smarter economy, we have to make it easier for people
to participate in decision-making affecting their workplaces; we have to
give them more chances to try out their own ideas; and more tools to
improve their chances of succeeding. 
     Most Canadians work for companies in the private sector.  In a
smarter economy, the the energy, ideas and initiative of all working
people must be tapped to achieve best possible results.  Our plan
includes measures that empower workers in their workplaces, enabling
them to contribute all they can. 
     An increasing number of Canadians are earning their living in the
"third sector": working together in co-operatives and community
development enterprises which exist for service instead of profit. 
Co-ops and community development enterprise are effective ways for
individuals and communities to take a direct hand in their own
development.  We want to encourage these kinds of enterprises. 
     Our plan includes working with labour and business to design new
ground rules that make it easier for working people in businesses under
federal jurisdiction to participate in unions.  We will work for closer
and equal labour-management partnerships in all of our economic
initiatives.  And we will encourage provincial and territorial
governments to introduce similar reforms in their jurisdictions. 
     Many studies prove that the best labour-management partnerships and
highest productivity are in unionized workplaces.  In "Trade Unions in
the Production Process" by Charles Brown and James Medoff, for example,
the authors estimate that unionized firms in the United States have
productivity rates almost 20 percent higher than unorganized companies
in a well-managed firm, workers embrace and contribute to technological
change and new work organization when they have a say in developing
them, backed up by the fundamental security that comes with the right to
to collective bargaining. 
     Canada's higher rate of unionization offers us an important
potential competitive advantage over the United States by opening the
door to involved, participating workers.  We should work to realize that
advantage. 
     Under our plan, we will implement a framework for national economic
consultation with labour and the business community on federal fiscal
and monetary policy. 
     Our plan includes new legislation to facilitate employee ownership. 
     We will introduce an Employee Share Purchase Plan.  This plan will
help employees to buy a controlling interest in their workplace through
tax incentives, when they choose to do so and when the firm is a viable
concern.  It will also provide a structured and fair procedure for
creating employee share purchase plans. 
     Agreement by the parties involved--including employees, management,
shareholders, and government--will be required for each employee buyout. 
Plans will have to show long-term employment prospects and the potential
to improve the financial viability of the company.  The federal
government will offer a 50 percent tax deduction for an employee's
contribution of up to $10,000 annually, or 10 percent of annual salary. 
Support will be offered for employee training related to share
ownership, and for plan development. 
     Federal tax revenue foregone through this plan will be roughly
balanced by the savings to the government in income support and other
adjustment costs that would have been incurred if viable firms were
instead permitted to close. 
     Canada's large and growing co-operative sector needs support. 
Under our plan the federal government will ensure co-operatives have
access to the same tax benefits as corporations do, and will offer
extension services to co-ops through an upgraded federal Co-operatives
and Community Economic Development Secretariat, within the Department of
Industry, Science and Technology. 
     In 1990, according to the federal Co-operatives Secretariat
"Resource File", there were 4,480 non-finanacial co-ops in Canada, with
3.4 million members, $15.9 billion in revenues, and $8.8 billion in
assets.  There were also 2,737 caisse populaires and credit unions with
9.3 million members, or one in three Canadians.  They controlled assets
wowrth $72.2 billion, including loans of $55.3 billion.  Ten
co-operative insurance and trust companies reported assets of over $40.4
billion. 
     Co-operatives offer Canadians an important and proven alternative
way to organize their work lives.  Co-ops are a form of business
incorporated for service rather than for profit.  They are a flexible
instrument that can meet many economic, social and cultural needs.  They
are owned by members and users and are controlled by them on the basis
of one member one vote, typically working through an elected board and a
professional staff. 
     The National Investment Fund will be a new source of investment for
Canadian co-ops.  We will expand and enrich the services provided by the
federal Co-operatives Secretariat to help improve management skills,
marketing, promotion, education, and research within co-operatives.  And
we will eliminate federal tax, regulatory and purchasing policies that
hold co-ops back. 
     Under our plan, similar services will be provided to community
economic development organizations. 
     Community Development Corporations are a more recently developed
instrument that permit citizens to take direct charge of rebuilding
their own communities. 
     Aboriginal Canadians have widely employed this form of development,
resulting in highly successful ventures like the Kitsaki Development
Corporation in La Ronge, Saskatchewan.  New Dawn Enterprises in Cape
Breton has helped launch a spreading network of firms and facilities,
ranging from a housing development to homecare sevices for the elderly. 
In Cambridge, Ontario, the Community Opportunities Development
Association provides employment support services and has helped many
unemployed people launch successful micro-enterprises.  The City of
Montreal is providing core funding for a network of community
development corporations targeting similar services at the city's
economically-disadvantaged neighbourhoods. 
     The National Investment Fund will look for partnerships with
community development corporations.  We will support community
development with extension services delivered through an upgraded
Co-operatives Secretariat.  And we will ensure community development
enterprise has a fair chance at government contracts and suffers no tax
disincentive. 
     The New Democratic Party continues to support the aboriginal
peoples' inherent right to self-government, and we believe that one of
the ways this can best be achieved is through aboriginal-controlled
economic development. 
     Under our plan, the Canadian Aboriginal Economic Development
Strategy will be reorganized to become an aboriginal-controlled source
of investment capital. 

EMPLOYMENT IN A GREEN ECONOMY
     Canada must act decisively to integrate environmental concerns into
the way we do business.  Our present approach to the economy is not
sustainable.  Environmentally friendly economic policies promote
efficiency and innovation and generate jobs. 
     Canadians have long understood the need for environmental reform. 
And Canadians know that our country and the rest of the world must move
to a more sustainable approach to our environment.  Good environmental
policies make economic sense, save jobs and create jobs. 
     Economies and firms who have moved towards sustainable
environmental policies have improved both their economic performance and
their levels of employment.  The amount of energy and primary materials
used per unit of gross domestic product are lowest in the world's most
competitive economies. 
     Between 1973 and 1987, Japan reduced the amount of energy required
to produce its gross domestic product by 30 percent, and now boasts the
world's most energy-efficient economy.  In the process, a number of
Japanese firms have developed cutting-edge green technologies and are
well positioned to serve a growing world market.  Firms like Sanyo have
been investing heavily in solar energy, environmentally safe
refrigeration and pollution-free energy fuel cells. 
     Germany has some of the world's tightest regulations in stationary
air pollution control.  Not coincidentally, German companies hold a wide
lead in patenting and exporting air pollution and other environmental
technologies.  The State of California has triggered a great deal of
innovation in the automotive industry by phasing in unprecendentedly
tough emissions standards, and by requiring vendors to meet sales
targets for "zero-emission" vehicles like electrically-powered cars. 
      In contrast, the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe are among
the most wasteful, polluting and energy-intensive economies in the
world, and are correspondingly uncompetitive. 
     Here in Canada, "green industries" represent important economic
potential.  It is estimated that environmentally-related enterprise is
already worth $7 billion to $10 billion a year and employs 150,000
people. 
     Sustainable environmental strategies affect the bottom lines of
firms-- positively.  The Sheraton Centre Hotel in Toronto saved $1.2
million per year between 1984 and 1989 through energy efficiencies. 
Low-flow showerheads alone save $58,800 per year.  Quaker Oats Co.  of
Canada in Peterborough, Ontario cut its waste generation byb 75 percent,
saving $976,000 a year.  Northern Telecom invested $1 million to develop
a more efficient CFC-free method of cleaning circuit boards, resulting
in savings of $50 million by the year 2000. 
     Under our plan, the federal government will introduce a
comprehensive environmental policy.  Here are three examples:
     Under our plan, the National Investment Fund will invest in
innovative, commercially-viable Canadian firms engaged in developing and
marketing green technologies. 
     The federal government will invest in environmental research and
development through our increased commitments to the National Research
Council and the National Sciences and Engineering Council. 
     Canada still has a chance to become a world leader in developing
new technologies that promote better environmental management and
clean-up.  Some examples include the manufacture of goods from recycled
materials, air and water pollution control and monitoring equipment,
energy conservation technologies, and site clean-up technologies. 
     Also under our plan the National Infrastructure Program will put a
high priority on investment in improved sewage treatment facilities. 
     One third of Canadian communities dump raw sewage into lakes,
rivers and oceans.  In other communities existing treatment facilities
are breaking down.  Investment in sewage systems will reduce water
pollution. 
     Energy, Mines and Resources Canada will expand and improve its
Efficiency and Alternative Energy Program to better promote energy
efficiency and the use of alternatives. 
     Energy efficiency and conservation reduces energy costs, increases
competitiveness, generates jobs and reduces harmful emissions.  More and
more utilities are recognising that it is more cost-effective and more
environmentally friendly to encourage consumers to be more efficient
than to build new generating facilities: "negawatts" instead of
"megawatts".  Ontario Hydro and B.C.  Hydro have committed substantial
resources to energy conservation measures. 
      Under our plan, we will provide project grants for energy audits
of businesses and homes, firms adopting co-generation, development and
marketing of efficient equipment like heat recovery ventilators, and
energy efficient windows, light bulbs and reflectors; set minimum energy
efficiency standards; extend the R-2000 program for new homes to
retrofit housing.  Under our plan the federal government will commit
$250 million a year to this upgraded Efficiency and Alternative Energy
Program. 
      Environmental concerns about air pollution and global warming are
creating new economic opportunities in the research and development of
energy alternatives. 
     The National Research Council and the National Sciences and
Engineering Council will channel R&D investment to developing energy
alternatives such as hydrogen fuel cells, biomass fuels, and solar wind
energy.