Answers from the CAP

1)What are you doing personally to engage young voters?

Personally I am making a direct plea to young people whenever I have opportunity to reach them such as via a Much Music interview in Toronto on or about May 26 or 27 , week one of election campaign. I explain that it is their future that is being squandered by the older generation in power, and that the youth have to become involved to protect that future, their own destiny , their own interest, and in particular to address the issue of the common good. It is the very young adults, even boys who go to war to die.
Accordingly, the youth has to realize if the older generation is prepared to sacrifice youth to war, the older generation has to accept the vigor and idealism of youth in shaping the future and taking back the present in the interest of humankind.

2)What is your stance on same-sex marriage & adoption?

CAP has not yet had the opportunity to formulate a position on these issues .

Same-sex marriage: My personal view is that I agree with former Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau that the state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation. Having said that, the same sex community wanted and obtained through our Canadian constitution the legal right to marry.
So it is beyond and much more than a bedroom issue. It is the law.If two people want that sanction, then they should have it. Some opposite sex people might be more comfortable if the language was not “marriage” but some other meaningful term . I think a community is more healthy and hospitable if its people are fulfilled and happy. If “marriage” brings that to people of whatever sex, then I think that can only be good for the overall health and well-being of the larger community.

Frankly, although marriage is a very deep felt concern for many individuals , same sex or opposite sex, in my view , in the scheme of the horrendous issues facing our nation’s survival and capacity to make any decision in our interest, this issue must not be allowed to divert our attention from the sources and control of power that imprison us all.

Adoption: An ideal world would ensure ever child could be born into this world to be wanted and loved with a future of security and care and opportunity. The streets of Canada are increasingly populated with “unwanted” youth living on the streets, condemned to prostitution, drugs, violence, and poverty. Far better that a child born to this world can go to a same sex home or to a single parent home than to be condemned to no home , probable criminality and possible jail. The ideal father, mother, child relationship is a wonderful structure, but it has no guarantee of being the perfect nurturing mechanism and home either. So let’s give children love and security, whatever the source.

Any adult, single person or couple, same sex or opposite sex, who choose to give birth or to adopt only to fulfill their own person-hood without full attention to the responsibilities and lifetime role of parenthood needs to take a closer look at their motives, and probable consequences.
The issue is the impact on and future for the child, not the parent.

3) Highlight 2 or 3 ways you will work to decrease the barriers to post-secondary education? (class-size, funding, debt, accessibility, etc)?
The answer is very simple. CAP advocates unrestricted access to all levels of education including post secondary education to rich and poor alike.We can deliver on this promise because we have the will and determination to “choose” to fund education. It is a lie that there is insufficient money in Canada to fund education. There exists in Canada a statutory instrument called the Bank of Canada which enables the government to fund all programs it wants. All government needs to do is choose to use it. This is not a dream or fabrication. The Bank exists. It came into existence in
19 precisely to rescue a failing economy. It was used since the forties through the seventies. During the war, once the decision was made to use the Bank of Canada, suddenly there was money to produce armaments, and to pay salaries. Jobs were created. After the war, houses, schools, hospitals,and public buildings went up. Roads, public transit, and city infrastructure were built. It was used to fund schools, medicare, hospitalization, unemployment insurance, public service pensions, Canada pension, to build and fund universities and to fund student access to higher education. I grew up through the time of the use of the Bank of Canada. I am what I am today as a direct result of the choice of earlier governments to use the Bank of Canada. Without its use I would never have been able to become a teacher or a lawyer, both of which professions I have practiced .

During the seventies the decision was made by governments to reduce the use of the Bank of Canada and return more and more to the pre WW11 practice to use private banks for its funding. We had to pay interest on the money so banks could profit. It is the interest paid to private banks on the borrowed money that has been the killer.In the sixties we were up to about 50 % use from the Bank of Canada with a nominal interest rate which interest came back to government as dividends. (The citizens of Canada are all shareholders of the Bank of Canada.) Now government only uses about 5% from Bank of Canada.

A simple analogy: If you owned a grocery store in Vancouver and could get your groceries free, would you go to Burnaby to get your groceries in a different store and pay for them? Another analogy: Have you ever heard of a private bank going to another private bank to borrow money? (No. Banks come to our government to bail them out when they get into trouble. That is another whole story that is the truth about where our money goes- to the banks rather that to the people.

It is a matter of choice. CAP chooses to use the mechanism to feed the people , not the banks.

4) What is your position on moving beyond NAFTA toward ‘deep integration’ with the US?

Absolutely opposed. Deep integration is the end of Canada.

5) What is your position on implementing the recommendations of the Romanow commission on health care?
Implement all of them

6)What do you feel is the most pressing issue for residents of the Vancouver-Quadra riding?

Money. It is important not to be conned any longer that “There is no money”. The increased slashing of spending and deep tax cuts recommended by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce is a move to the dismantling of a vital Canada . The weakening will facilitate the deep integration planned by the Liberals and the Conservatives. The comfortable Canadians of Quadra are not being served by the integration process unless they choose to lose Canada.

7)Once in office, how will you make yourself available on an ongoing basis to the needs of your constituents?

I would be in the riding and available when not in Ottawa. There would be a constituency office. I would be available by telephone from Ottawa.

8) Please identify one aspect of one of your opponents’ platforms explain 1 or 2 ways how your position is the better alternative.

The conservatives want to slash spending and grant big tax cuts. To do this will impoverish Canadians.CAP would eliminate the GST. We can do this by putting an end to the exponential growth in interest compounding on interest debt arising from government borrowing from chartered banks.A GST tax cut would benefit all Canadians, but especially those who need it most. There is no need to slash spending if government used the Bank of Canada to get its money rather than borrowing it from the chartered banks who charge interest. Borrowing from the chartered banks is debt slavery.
The sooner all Canadians have the opportunity to inform themselves of the intended role and capabilities of the Bank of Canada , the better off all Canadians will be.

9) How do you think Canada should proceed with regards to the Kyoto Protocols?

Canada should do no less than fulfill the demands of the Kyoto protocol.
However, the Protocol is short on addressing the impact of environmental loss.Canada should lead in research and funding for alternate energy sources.Climate change is already affecting our livelihood, especially that of farming. Canada should implement immediately those available alternatives that exist already such as the harnessing of energy from waves as developed in Vancouver but which no government in Canada will use.

If not through Kyoto (too harsh or not enough), how to do you think Canada should move towards decreasing the nation’s ecological footprint?

Canada must put extraordinary funding into massive public transit programs to get people out of their vehicles so far as possible. This is achievable if we have the will to defy the chartered banks and choose instead to serve the people by using our own Bank of Canada.

10) Do you support a larger, smaller or same size military, and what is the primary purpose for your support?

The point of Canada’s military must be for peacekeeping purposes around the world. It has been emasculated for the purpose of deeper integration.
The excuse for the deployment of US military on Canadian soil will be that our military is inadequate. It will then be said that our military must be supplanted by US domination and control. CAP says our military must not be used to complement the aggression of the US around the world. Our military must be adequately funded to enable effective peacekeeping and to provide an adequate living for the men and women in the service. It is a disgrace that some service people have had to go to welfare to attain a livable condition.

Our military must not be used to participate in the US Missile Defence System.That system is one of aggression, not defence.

Yours truly,

Connie Fogal, Leader Canadian Action Party