NDP leadership candidate Harry Lali says his party is united and ready to stand behind its chosen new leader.
He hopes, of course, that will be him.
Lali was in Williams Lake on Thursday — during a northern swing of his leadership campaign.
Lali’s goals are many. One is to bring certain institutions and services — like health care and B.C. Hydro — back into the public domain. Another is to redistribute the tax burden so that corporations “pay a fair share.”
Lali says the whole idea of tax breaks to lure corporations and jobs to the province is “trickle-down voodoo economics” that have failed. What’s happened instead is the “mortgaging of the future of the province with very little social benefit out of it.”
“It concerns me when the province gets more revenue from gambling than corporate tax,” he said.
Resource industries must be protected and value-added opportunities explored in the forestry sector for example, Lali says, adding B.C. Hydro should develop its own renewable and clean energy projects rather than rely on private industry to provide power-generation to the province.
Providing more subsidies to agriculture and protecting the industry during trade negotiations between countries is another of Lali’s concerns.
Lali does not support the HST; if it’s defeated, rather than returning to the PST/GST model, he endorses public consultation on a new taxation model.
“It needs to be fair and in consultation. The people need to have a say as they were denied a say during the provincial election.”
He’s a proponent of Elections B.C.’s involvement in the election of party leaders, given the inconsistencies that have occurred during both parties’ leadership campaigns.
“There needs to be a bill in the legislature that empowers Elections B.C. to deal with membership,” he says.
Lali will freeze post-secondary tuition at its current level, reinstate the provincial student grant program and encourage the federal government to provide more funding for education.
To encourage the youth vote, Lali suggests lowering the voting age to 17 or Grade 12, whichever comes first.
He wants to decentralize provincial ministries and return them to the areas in rural B.C. from where they were moved.
Lali would call a public inquiry into the selling of B.C. Rail and thinks its time proponents of Prosperity mine move on.
“There are a set of rules and we live with that,” he says.
“That bus has passed; the federal government made a ruling on that.”
