Family matters

With family issues taking centre stage this election campaign among all federal political party platforms, The Chronicle asked some local West Island-area candidates their take on what they would do for families if elected.

"People generally, I think, without exception, are worried about their income taxes," said Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal incumbent for Lac St. Louis.

Scarpaleggia promised income taxes would go down under a Liberal government thanks to the Green Shift program, the Liberal carbon tax that would tax "oil companies and all the big polluters" and shift that income toward the pockets of families.

He shot down criticism the plan was nothing more than another tax grab, what the Conservative Party has been calling it ever since it was unveiled during the summer. "One new tax, one new deficit," Prime Minister Stephen Harper called it during a rally speech at Ile Perrot Community Centre in Vaudreuil-Soulanges last week.

"He's dropping in the polls," Scarpaleggia contended, adding people were calling him out on it.

Meanwhile, neighbouring Pierrefonds-Dollard's Conservative Party candidate Pierre-Olivier Brunelle, who also put a large emphasis on returns to families, highlighted the $100 a month cheque for families for children under the age of six started under Harper's government.

Though the Liberal Party claims it would not abolish the monthly cheque, Brunelle had harsh words to say about that at a three-candidate debate last Wednesday. "I don't know how you're going to do it," he told his Liberal opponent Bernard Patry, without running into a deficit.

The NDP's Lac St. Louis candidate, Dan Quinn, said middle-class families are currently facing a strong squeeze. "Middle class families are not as well off as they were 20, or even 30 years ago," he said. "Most people in the West Island fall into this category."

His party does not advocate tax cuts, but believes the key to solving several problems plaguing the middle class is better funding. For example, last week the NDP unveiled a $200 million a year plan to train more health care professionals, including 1,200 new doctors and 6,000 new nurses a year.

"Often people look at the promises the NDP makes and ask 'where are they gonna get the money?' " Quinn said. He answered his own question by stating the NDP would stop what it calls $50 billion a year in tax cuts to large corporations under the Conservative government.

Quinn's Green Party rival, Peter Graham, spoke on a similar tune. "If we want a top health care or education system, we first need a culture that values nurses and teachers," he said. "Past governments have undermined these goals and as usual an ounce of prevention would have been worth a pound of cure."

"Green Party policies are designed to build communities, institutions, and social capital," he said.

Quinn, whose official bio states he has worked as a high school teacher, said he has noticed classroom sizes getting bigger and bigger, with many schools unequipped to accommodate both special needs kids and burgeoning student numbers.

Brunelle placed an emphasis on crime, insisting Conservatives are tougher on it than any other party. "I always make the link between crime and family," he told The Chronicle. He pointed to the party's promise of mandatory minimum sentences for violent gun-crimes as an example.