NDP proposes 'head to toe' expansion of health care ahead of federal election

For the second time in a week, a Canadian politician raised the legacy of former Saskatchewan premier Tommy Douglas to boost their own policies.

Saturday marked the 75th anniversary of the election that first saw Douglas put into Saskatchewan government in 1944, and forming the first social democratic government elected in North America.

Last week, Ontario Premier Doug Ford was lectured by Douglas's grandson, Canadian actor Kiefer Sutherland, on Twitter for invoking his fiscal legacy to justify the Ford government's cost-cutting financial measures for political gains. "I knew Tommy Douglas and you Sir, are no Tommy Douglas," Sutherland wrote.

On Sunday, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh also invoked Douglas and his legacy as the father of universal health care in Canada in unveiling his party's 2019 election platform centred on a dramatic "head to toe" expansion of health care that would cover drugs, mental and dental health, vision and hearing.

"Seventy-five years ago yesterday, Tommy Douglas was elected the premier of Saskatchewan, where he led a movement that gave us medicare and, ever since, being Canadian means doctor visits, hospital care — without having to worry about how to pay for it. That was a powerful dream, but we know that dream is not complete. We can take it further," Singh told a crowd of supporters gathered for the biannual Ontario NDP convention in Hamilton, Ont., on Sunday morning, receiving a standing ovation from his former colleagues at Queen's Park.

"It's time for the party that brought medicare to Canada to take another major step forward," he said.

If elected as prime minister, Singh said his first act in office would be to declare "a public health emergency."

The release of Singh's platform makes the NDP the first Canadian federal party to unveil an election platform before the October vote.

The 109-page document called "A New Deal for People" (and shortened to NDP) proposes a "historic expansion" in medicare by implementing universal pharmacare next year that will also include dental care, vision care, mental health care and hearing care over the next decade. Singh said part, if not all, of the plan will be financed by imposing a one-per-cent tax on the wealth of Canada's richest earners (those with a net worth higher than $20 million). The new health-care plan aims to save families who already have an insurance plan $550 a year.

"We call it a new deal for people — a new deal, because this is the kind of vision no government in Ottawa has ever proposed to Canadians," Singh said at the convention. "This is our road map of the possible.

"To bring these commitments forward we need to be daring, we need to have imagination and it means we need to have the courage to dream," Singh told the audience. "The courage to, not only dream of a better future, but the courage to make that dream a reality. Like our friend, Tommy said, 'Dream no little dreams.'"

Here's a list of everything the NDP is proposing to do if elected to government:

• Drug decriminalization

• The creation of 500,000 more affordable housing units over 10 years

• Spending at least $1 billion each year to improve child care starting in 2020

• Enacting all recommendations of the missing and murdered Indigenous inquiry

• A new one-per-cent wealth tax on those with a net worth of more than $20 million

• A rollback on corporate tax cuts brought in by previous governments to 2010 levels, increasing to 18 per cent from 15 per cent

• A "long-term goal" to provide free tuition for post-secondary education across the country, which would begin by removing interest charges on federal student loans and shifting toward nonrepayable grants

• Ban unpaid internships

• Lowering the qualifying threshold of employment insurance to ensure no recipients have to live on less than $1,200 per month

• Require companies to spend at least one per cent of payroll on employee training each year

• Cap cellphone bills

• Create a new "fair gasoline prices watchdog"

• Strengthen the federal government's protections for airline passengers

• Introducing a $15 federal minimum wage

• An action plan to prevent suicide

• A $15-billion environment plan

• Federal incentives for zero-emissions automobiles

• Revitalizing industries like forestry, fisheries and agriculture

• Facilitate net carbon-free electricity by 2030

• Ban single-use plastics

• Launch a basic income pilot project