Chris Lowrey
PONTIAC Oct. 16, 2019
Pontiac residents will be looking at a crowded ballot when they enter the voting booth on Oct. 21 as the total number of . . .
candidates running for the Pontiac seat now sits at eight with the entry of Shawn Stewart of the Veteran’s Coalition Party of Canada (VCP).
The VCP is relatively new when it comes to the Canadian political landscape. The party was formed on Feb. 1, 2018 by retired warrant officer in the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals, Randy Joy.
Joy is running in the Sydney-Victoria riding in Nova Scotia.
While it’s unclear how many riding feature VCP candidates in this year’s election, the Pontiac is one of them.
The VCP platform has ideas that have been floated by other parties, with some fairly radical ones of its own.
One major plank that the party focusses on is taxation.
“We have crippled new investments into Canada through our taxation policies,” Stewart said in an email.
The VCP intends to cut the GST by 1.25 per cent per year until it is eliminated.
Additionally, the VCP says it will not only cut government spending by 10 per cent, but it will also balance the government’s budget by cutting “overspending, extravagant purchases and unnecessary expenditures.
The VCP also plans to implement a hiring freeze for all civil servants and reduce the pay of Parliamentarians by 20 per cent.
When it comes to the environment, the VCP acknowledges that man made climate change is a problem, but would eliminate all carbon taxes. But it would still push for emissions reductions of 40 per cent below 2015 levels by 2030 and an 80 per cent reduction in emissions by 2050 by mandating fossil fuel producers invest in green energy options.
When it comes to immigration, the VCP takes a hard line. The party wants to implement a two-year moratorium on immigration to “revamp the immigration process.” The party wants to review Canadian refugee policies and says it will “enforce Canada’s existing laws for illegal immigration and deportation.”
