Victoria-Beacon Hill's candidates' promises on Jobs, the Economy, and Affordability

Agriculture

BC Liberals

Implement a Trespass Act to protect farmers' properties.
Implement reforms to the Agricultural Land Commission to allow farming and ranching families to earn supplemental income on their farms and lease secondary residences.
Ensure access to water for crops and livestock.

BC NDP

Create a Regenerative Agricultural Network to make farming sustainable and create agricultural jobs.
Expand the Grow, Feed and Buy BC programmes with new worker training, land acquisition supports, and new processing hubs.

BC Greens

Establish a long-term food sustainability strategy to decrease reliance on import supply chains.
Make food production & food security part of the Agricultural Land Commision's mandate.
Create a publicly owned agricultural land bank available to lease by new farmers.

Incentivize agro-ecological farming practices.

Support small-scale farms to adopt new technologies to reduce carbon emissions.

Identify options to make farming a more attractive and sustainable endeavour:

- Ensuring that farmers have access to local processing facilities and that they share in the returns from processing.

- Enabling the growing of high value crops, such as cannabis, to supplement farm income.

Provide $10 million per year to fund research and establish regional agricultural bureaus to provide expertise and support to local farmers to apply innovations on-farm and adapt to a changing climate.

Restrict and regulate foreign ownership of ALR land.

— From The BC Greens' Plan for a More Equitable and Sustainable BC.

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Car insurance

BC Liberals

Open up the automobile insurance market to private insurance vendors.
Give all new drivers credit for up to four years of driving experience when they demonstrate safe driving habits.

BC NDP

Move ICBC to a new enhanced care model to reduce premiums by an average of 20% while increasing care available for people who are seriously injured in accidents.
Provide COVID-19 premium rebates to BC drivers from any surplus ICBC delivers during the pandemic.

We don't have any BC Greens policies on Car insurance.

Employment standards

We don't have any BC Liberals policies on Employment standards.

BC NDP

Develop employment standards targeted to precarious and gig economy workers.
Strengthen employment rights with employment standards inspections and by hiring more case workers to help resolve employment standards complaints.

BC Greens

Establish a task force to advise on modernizing employment standards and reducing inequality.

The task force will include representatives of the technology sector, business, workers, and economists.

The task force will recommend ways to modernize our employment standards to adapt to the changing nature of work and technology, and assess jurisdiction and advise on strategies for working with the federal government to ensure that multinational companies are paying their fair share of taxes in BC.

The terms of reference will include considering profit-sharing as a means to ensure businesses who are profitable are paying their workers a living wage, and that workers benefit from the profits that are too often only accrued at the top of an organization.

— From The BC Greens' Plan for a More Equitable and Sustainable BC.

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Film and TV production

We don't have any BC Liberals policies on Film and TV production.

BC NDP

Re-establish the government-film sector task force to recommend the size and term of a new visual effects tax credit based on production costs.

We don't have any BC Greens policies on Film and TV production.

Financial assistance

BC Liberals

Eliminate the PST for one year, then set it to 3% after that.

BC NDP

Give families with a household income under $125,000 annually a one-time direct deposit of $1,000.
Give single people earning less than $62,000 annually a one-time direct deposit of $500.

A one-time $1,000 direct deposit to families whose household income is under $125,000 annually — with a sliding scale up to $175,000.

A one-time $500 direct deposit to single people earning less than $62,000 annually — with a sliding scale up to $87,000.

— From Working for You.

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BC Greens

Begin a transition towards basic income by increasing income support levels.
Make the $300 crisis supplement permanent.
Eliminate the asset test.
Reduce clawbacks on earned income.
Establish a 1-year period so those on income assistance can earn extra income without clawbacks.

Food security

We don't have any BC Liberals policies on Food security.

BC NDP

Increase support of food banks and develop partnerships with grocery stores and not-for-profits to develop discounted food market, food recovery, and redistribution programmes.

BC Greens

Recognize income and regional disparities in food insecurity across BC and work to enhance access to high quality, healthy food for low-income British Columbians, including developing systems for First Nations that honour Indigenous knowledge and values.

Infrastructure investment

BC Liberals

Invest an additional $8 billion in infrastructure improvements over 3 years.

BC NDP

Invest an additional 1% of GDP — approx $3B/year — to build new schools, hospitals, child care spaces, roads, transit, and more, creating an expected 18,000 new jobs each year.

[...] wherever possible, we will attach our Community Benefits Agreement (CBAs) to projects launched through the Recovery Investment Fund. Through CBAs, we're providing good jobs, fair wages, and skills training to qualified local workers — particularly those who have traditionally been under-represented in the workforce.

— From Working for You.

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BC Greens

Partner with local governments with cost shared funding for bike lanes, trails, parks, community spaces, and pedestrian-only streets.

Precarious & gig workers

We don't have any BC Liberals policies on Precarious & gig workers.

BC NDP

Develop a precarious work and gig worker economy strategy focused on employment standards & union rights.
Develop a government-backed collective benefit fund for independent contractors, self-employed, & part-time workers.
Expand access to a voluntary pooled-capital pension plan.

We don't have any BC Greens policies on Precarious & gig workers.

Restauraunts & hospitality

BC Liberals

Cap online food delivery charges at 15%.
Provide a loan guarantee programme for tourism and hospitality businesses.
Allow liquor delivery with takeout.
Wholesale pricing from any liquor store.
Streamline approval of patio and outdoor dining.

BC NDP

Permanently authorize the expansion of service areas, such as patios.
Permanently allow retauraunts and pubs to purchase beer, wine, and spirits at wholesale cost instead of liquor store retail prices.
Permanently allow liquor delivery with takeout.

BC Greens

Make the expanded patio programme permanent.

Single parent employment

BC Liberals

Expand the provincial Single Parent Employment Initiative to train and support single parents as they seek employment.

We don't have any BC NDP policies on Single parent employment.

We don't have any BC Greens policies on Single parent employment.

Small businesses

BC Liberals

Eliminate the 2% small business income tax.
Implement a short-term commercial-rent relief plan that flows relief directly to tenants and supports small businesses unable to access current relief programmes.
Provide support for PPE from WorkSafeBC surpluses.

Provide full disclosure of the basis for WorkSafeBC premiums.

Conduct a full review of property taxes to ensure small businesses can survive.

— From Restore Confidence. Rebuild BC.

Implement split assessments on property taxes.

Appoint a non-partisan panel to help dramatically reduce the red tape burden on small businesses, by reviewing regulatory requirements and costs, and providing recommendations on the best steps to fuel economic recovery.

— From Restore Confidence. Rebuild BC.

Help small businesses prepare for online business and commerce, to be able to market their products and services to the world.

Address skilled labour shortages throughout BC.

— From Restore Confidence. Rebuild BC.

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BC NDP

Expand the RevUp programme to connect small business owners with mentors.
Expand BC's Export Navigator programme to help local businesses find and access new global markets.

BC Greens

Allocate $300 million to create a 6-month rent subsidy programme for small businesses.
Cover 25% of rental costs for small businesses limited to $50,000/month rent costs.

Sustainable jobs

We don't have any BC Liberals policies on Sustainable jobs.

We don't have any BC NDP policies on Sustainable jobs.

BC Greens

Establish a $500 million fund to support sustainable jobs.
Develop a clean jobs programme.
Implement a just transition programme for workers in the oil and gas sector and other industries in transition.

Develop a clean jobs program focused on enhancing BC's natural assets, tree planting, conservation, remediating environmental liabilities, as well as climate adaptation and improving community resilience to climate change.

— From The BC Greens' Plan for a More Equitable and Sustainable BC.

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Tech & Innovation

BC Liberals

Expand measures to increase access to capital and investment for the tech sector and new start-ups.
Ensure a competitive business environment.

BC NDP

Make targeted investments in high-potential, innovative businesses based in BC.
Introduce a First Patent Program to provide eligible businesses with a rebate on expenses that lead to obtaining their first patent.
Create 2,000 new tech-relevant spaces in public post-secondary.

We'll create 2,000 new tech-relevant spaces in public post-secondary institutions, provide start-ups with more ISI grants to hire new grads - with a priority on placements for women, Indigenous people, transitioning workers and others - and expand scholarships for people using online courses for necessary skill upgrades.

— From Working for You.

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BC Greens

Establish a $1B strategic investment fund to support innovation, with an emphasis on a 0-carbon economy.
Partner in innovation clusters in areas where BC has strategic advantage.

Tourism

BC Liberals

Provide a loan guarantee programme for tourism and hospitality businesses.
Implement an aggressive agenda to rebuild and expand BC's tourism sector.
Develop and grow regional tourism hubs across BC.

BC NDP

Act on ideas from the Tourism Task Force when they come out.

BC Greens

Retool the provincial grant programme to focus on small tourism operators, and work with the industry to establish criteria.
Work with not-for-profit tourism, cultural facilities, & attractions to develop a separate granting programme.

Work with the federal government to establish a repayable loan program for the hospitality sector and for tourism operators that exceed the criteria for the small tourism operator grant program.

— From The BC Greens' Plan for a More Equitable and Sustainable BC.

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