Ontario elections: student issues at a glance

Your Kitchener-Waterloo riding candidates:

Jamie Burton – Liberal
Stacey Danckert – Green party
Catherine Fife – NDP
Tracey Weiler – Progressive Conservative

---

Platform points

Post-secondary Education

NDP plans to:

• Freeze post-secondary tuition at their 2014 levels
• Make provincial student loans interest-free

Liberals plan to:

• Continue the 30% off tuition grant
• Provide funding to build new campuses
• Provide $500 million over 10 years for maintenance

PCs plan to:

• Encourage students to attend colleges rather than universities
• Make it simpler to transfer from college to university and vice-versa
• Put a stronger focus on science, technology, engineering, business and math

 

Environment

NDP plans to:

• Create a fund to give loans to families for solar panel installation

Liberals plan to:

• Continue to invest in clean green energy
• Expand forestry by planting one million trees
  

Green party plans to:

• Reduce pollution through energy conservation
• Protect farmland and drinking water

 

Living

NDP plans to:

• Reduce hydro costs by merging four agencies, capping hydro CEO salaries and direct trading
• Take HST off home hydro bills
• Bring better public transportation through a fund of $29 million over 10 years
• Prioritize all-day two-way Go train service between Kitchener and Toronto
• Reduce auto insurance by 15%
• Have municipalities enforce building standards and maintenance rules for landlords
• Invest in communities to build bike lanes and expand current cycling infrastructure

Liberals plan to:

• Lower auto insurance rates by 15%
• Lower electricity rates through a program for lower-income families
• Expand all-day two-way Go train service
• Invest in the LRT expansion to Cambridge

PCs plan to:

• Bring down energy costs
• Lower income taxes

Green party plans to:

• Invest in new and existing transit infrastructure
• Cut home energy costs through providing grants to homeowners for conservation

 

Jobs

NDP plans to:

• Create the Job Creation Tax Credit to encourage small businesses to offer more jobs
• Establish an emerging industry fund for job growth in high-tech and creative sectors

Liberals plan to:

• Establish 10-year, $2.5-billion jobs and prosperity fund
• Extend the youth jobs strategy by adding $38 million to the youth employment fund
• Increase number of apprenticeships

PCs plan to:

• Increase opportunities in the skilled trades
• Create jobs in rural and northern areas

Green party plans to:

• Create the social innovation foundation to provide grants, loans and mentorship to young entrepreneurs

 

Health Care

NDP plans to:

• Open 24-hour family health clinics
• Hire more nurse practitioners to treat ER patients more quickly

Liberals plan to:

• Expand and renew existing hospitals and invest in new hospitals

PCs plan to:

• Prioritize mental health care

 

 

Editor’s note: these are not points of the entire platforms, just main issues we believe students would be interested in. To get more information, read the platforms in their entirety.