Liberal Party of Canada Essay Example

Liberal Party of Canada Essay Example Liberal Party of Canada Paper Liberal Party of Canada Paper What does the Liberal Party have to offer to Canadians? In the fall of 2002 Jean Chrà ©tien, Prime Mister and leader of the Liberal Party announced that he was planning to step down. The catch was he was going to step down after he had tidied up Canada. In the Speech of the Throne he set numerous goals, to accomplish before his resignation. His three main goals were to modernize health care, boost funding to the military and ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Chrà ©tien and the Liberals offer an active and positive change and an increase in spending on important issues. Chrà ©tien’s first initiative is to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol calls for a dramatic reduction of smog emissions. All Chrà ©tien is asking for is for Canadians to insulate their homes, change their driving habits and turn off the lights when they leave the room. His suggestion for improvements on cars was to use gasohol which burns more slowly, coolly, and completely. This results in reduced emissions of carbon dioxide and other emissions. Vehicles with a hybrid engine are another alternative; they run half on gas and half on electricity and are self charging. Solar powered houses can even make money for you if you can generate more power than you use. Home owners can switch to halogen or fluorescent light bulbs, turn off their VCRs, use front load washing machines and insulate their windows. As encouragement some provincial governments have issued rewards for home owners who can cut their emissions. Also the federal government is offering compensation to businesses that are hurt the most. These small things will help Canada reduce its emissions. Chrà ©tien has so far been known to cut funding in the military. He has cut a lot of funding and transferred it to other departments. Meanwhile the number of missions has almost tripled. Between 1990 and 2002 Canada’s military has had 79 missions, yet in the 41 years between 1948 and 1989 it only had 24 missions. Currently Canada is spending 12 billion dollars on the military per year. But the military still has out of date equipment, not enough men to operate the equipment safely and poorly funded training. Take Canada’s aging Sea King fleet, it has become a hazard to the people who use them. To fix this mess Chrà ©tien has formed a committee to examine possible places to get the money from and how to spend it. He is also spending 20 percent of the budget to repair aging equipment and he wants to buy new helicopters to replace the Sea Kings by February 2004. Chrà ©tien is expected to make our military a special unit task force instead of an all-purpose unit. Chrà ©tien has renewed his interest in improving Canada’s military and will soon invest more money each year to it. Another department Chrà ©tien plans to spend more on is health care. Health care is really a provincial issue but the Canadian government has stepped in and has helped support the service. The current problem in our health care system is the long line ups and the shortage of nurses and beds. The federal government used to split the funding of health care evenly with the provinces but it has pulled out and currently pays for 16% of the total cost. The provinces, especially Ontario have been pushing for the government to reinvest in health care and once again split the cost 50-50. Chrà ©tien has agreed to invest up to 5 billion dollars in the health care system. Our system is very effective compared to the amount we pay for it. In 1999 we paid half as much money on health care as the United States and we were still ranked 7 spots above them in an assessment of the world’s health care systems. The Americans are even desperate enough to come to Canada just to buy over the counter drugs. Chrà ©tien is against private health care but he is optimistic about home care. Roy Romanow has already expressed his support in home care and agrees it would help the system. Home care is cheap and it is less stressful on the patient. It is cheaper because the government is not paying for food, the family is. It is also beneficial for the patient because they can be around their personnel belongings. In Toronto there are only two companies that provide home care, Chrà ©tien plans to expand the service to all of Toronto and other cities. Another bonus to the home care plan is that it will reduce dependency on the hospitals and reduce line ups. Chrà ©tien will release his final plan in the February budget after consulting Senator Kirby’s and Roy Romanow’s reports. Chrà ©tien and the Liberals offer an active and direct increase in funding to the key problems currently facing Canada. The Liberals have pushed forward in negotiations to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. They plan to ratify it in December and give rewards to home owners and compensation to businesses that are hard hit. They have reinvested in the military and are planning to upgrade outdated equipment and increase the number of soldiers. Chrà ©tien also plans to give an increased amount of money each year to the health care system. He is expected to enlarge the home care system to more areas in Canada’s major cities. This will reduce costs, patients stress and line ups in hospitals. With these changes Chrà ©tien will bring major improvements to Canada.