LILLEY: Conservative candidates in battle of ideas with actual policy

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Thursday turned out to be a busy day within the Conservative management race when it got here to candidates saying insurance policies. Jean Charest introduced his plan to export Canadian power, Patrick Brown promised to finish predatory lending practices and Pierre Poilievre continued selecting a battle with the Financial institution of Canada.

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At the very least the candidates have been discussing critical points as a substitute of slagging one another.

Charest was the primary out of the gate with an early morning e-mail on his power plan. He promised that if elected he would repeal Invoice C-69 — the no-more-pipelines invoice — and Invoice C-48, the invoice that stops ships hauling oil and gasoline from stopping at Canadian ports off British Columbia’s north coast whereas ships visiting American ports carry on crusing.

“The world wants extra clear, moral Canadian power and Canada must be on the prime of the listing among the many world’s suppliers,” Charest stated.

He promised power corridors inside Canada, an LNG and hydrogen export technique and to take a “cross-partisan” staff of politicians to Washington to push for permitting Keystone XL to be constructed.

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Charest’s plan could be very a lot according to the Conservative mainstream. He continues to face questions on his help for a carbon tax however tried to take care of that earlier this week by promising to scrap Trudeau’s tax on shoppers whereas charging massive industrial emitters, a coverage straight out of Stephen Harper’s playbook.

Whereas Charest was speaking about power, Brown and Poilievre have been speaking finance in very other ways.

Brown promised to crackdown on payday mortgage companies which are sometimes the one banking service many susceptible folks can entry however which he says too usually cost charges which can be far too excessive.

“My authorities will set up a nationwide anti-predatory lending technique to finish the big selection of predatory mortgage practices that Canadians fall prey to, and cap bank card rates of interest. I may also amend the Prison Code to decrease the utmost rate of interest for any mortgage from 60% to 30%,” Brown stated.

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Brown did take a swipe at Poilievre saying that his opponent doesn’t care sufficient concerning the fiscal safety of Canadians claiming he would danger all of it on unstable cryptocurrencies. In the meantime, Poilievre was in Ottawa, speaking about, partly, cryptocurrency.

Standing exterior the Financial institution of Canada headquarters, Poilievre stated that he would ban Canada’s central financial institution from creating their very own digital foreign money to compete with Bitcoin and related personal choices already accessible. Poilievre has been in a battle with the usually boring central financial institution accusing them of printing cash for Justin Trudeau’s profit in the course of the pandemic.

There’s a lot to criticize concerning the Financial institution of Canada however his assault on quantitative easing — basically digital cash creation — is odd contemplating that it was a key instrument utilized by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his late finance minister Jim Flaherty in the course of the 2008 monetary disaster. The central financial institution very effectively might have been too near the Trudeau authorities in serving to them fund their out-of-control spending in the course of the pandemic, which is why Poilievre’s name for the Auditor Normal to conduct an examination is a good suggestion.

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His fixed railing in opposition to the financial institution although is the right-wing populist model of attacking banks that we see when the populist left wing blames all financial woes on rich banksters. It may be good for politics and whipping up votes, nevertheless it’s sketchy coverage.

Conservative Get together members have one job throughout this management marketing campaign: Selecting the candidate with the perfect insurance policies to draw voters and win within the subsequent normal election. On Thursday, three of the highest tier candidates launched critical coverage proposals for voters to think about.

It beats the petty private assaults, it additionally beats what Justin Trudeau has on provide.