Currently, the Government of Canada funds education for First Nations students, on average, $2,000 less per student than it does for other Canadian students. First Nations education systems will require stable, predictable, and adequate funding. Three programs are needed that focus on primary/secondary schools, post-secondary education and new school contruction.

On any given month some 120 First Nations communities are under drinking water advisories.

Housing and sustainable planning and building practices also require immediate attention, as there is a demand of an estimated 85,000 new units required to alleviate overcrowding and backlogs.

At least three-quarters of Canadians support a national child-care program and consider the lack of affordable child care to be a serious problem. Fortunately, the solution is clear and powerful: a consistent body of evidence shows that building a public system of early childhood education and care is not just the right thing to do for parents and children, but the smart thing to do for Canada’s economy.

Our cities and communities are on the front lines in a transformation that requires Canadians to fundamentally reconsider how their communities will operate in the future. Funding through this initiative will support environmentally sustainable municipal infrastructure and programs; will be restricted to projects owned and operated by the municipality; will require a high level of transparency and accountability; and will begin January 1st, 2013.

Modernizing communications infrastructure creates jobs and builds communities, especially in rural and remote areas. A 2009 study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture showed that rural counties that embraced broadband adoption at the start of the millennium enjoyed access to more jobs than counties that did not. Their residents also earned more money than their less connected counterparts.

The AFB commits to pay 20% of the costs of a national mid-morning snack program delivering healthy, minimally processed and packaged foods from nearby farms to all elementary and secondary students. This program will be phased in over a three-year period.

The AFB implements a 5-cent-per-litre tax on sugary soft drinks and energy drinks similar to that advocated by Quebec’s Weight Coalition. Canadians consume over 3.5 billion litres of sugar-sweetened beverages per year.

Every year the federal government spends large amounts to subsidize fossil fuels. The oil sands don't need additional government support.

Climate Change is becoming an increasingly pressing issue as successive federal governments fail to take action. It is time for a carbon tax on non-industrial emissions (like gasoline). This program would start July 2013.

One of the challenges with a carbon tax is that it falls most heavily on low income Canadians. This tax credit counters that negative impact.

Until 1995, approximately 10% of Health Canada’s federal health transfers, about $51 per capita, was allocated to what were described as “extended health services”: nursing homes, residential care, home care, and ambulatory (outpatient) services such as physiotherapy.It is time to bring these non-hospital, community-based services fully within the purview of the Canada Health Act, as was initially contemplated when medicare was introduced.

Today provincial governments pay less than 39% of the total drug bill, and consumers pay up to 16% of drug costs out of pocket. We can do better using a single, public system that manages costs through four levers: universal public insurance; a national formulary of essential drugs; independent evidence-based drug evaluation; and bulk purchasing. And one that can save more than $10.7 billion in annual costs for prescription medicines — or an estimated 43% of Canada’s $25.1-billion drug bill. The largest cost reductions would come from evidence-based drug reviews and price negotiations for bulk purchasing.

The AFB invests in long-term/residential care to enable hospitals to move Alternate Level of Care patients currently in acute care beds to a more appropriate setting. This, in turn, will free up hospital resources to reduce unacceptably high occupancy rates and wait times and support the establishment of outpatient rehabilitation clinics.

Too many low, moderate, and middle-income Canadians continue to wait for the promised housing help. Today, a record 1.5 million Canadian households — more than four million women, men, and children — find themselves in “core housing need.” Unlike other developed countries, Canada needs a national housing framework for the quick and orderly flow of funding from governments to the affordable housing sector.

Canada is among the 15 top military spending nations in the world, and the sixth largest military spender among the 28 members of NATO. Our military spending is now higher than it has been in more than 60 years — higher even than it was during the Cold War.

The AFB will increase and enhance Canada’s aid commitments to end global poverty in the world. To achieve this, the AFB will follow the OECD-DAC’s suggestion12 and peg ODA at 0.31% of GNI (DAC donor performance as a whole) until such time as the economy recovers.

As the value of federal transfers diminished in the 1990s, tuition fees skyrocketed from an average of roughly $1,460 in 1990 to over $5,000 in 2010. Lower levels of funding also impair the ability of institutions to hire an adequate number of instructors and support staff, resulting in a reduction in the quality of Canada’s colleges and universities.

Regardless of the poverty measure used, in 2008 over three million Canadians — more than 600,000 of them children — lived in poverty. The Canada Child Tax Benefit directly targets children in poverty.

Temporary bouts of poverty may be overcome, but evidence shows that the depth of poverty is deepening and that its duration lengthening, leaving a scarring legacy on individual lives and communities across the country. Persistent poverty represents a violation of economic and social rights as enshrined in international law, and a squandering of human potential. The GST rebate specifically targets Canadians on low incomes.

Even at the peak of the recession, most unemployed women and younger workers fell through the cracks, and one in three workers who were laid-off and qualified for EI exhausted their benefits before finding a new job. Today there are still almost 1.4 million unemployed workers in Canada and the unemployment rate is forecast to rise back to about 8% though 2012, well above the pre-recession level of 6.0%.

Like other commercial and publicly owned banks, the CDB will leverage its capital into an expanded portfolio in new sector-development initiatives that promote the diversification of Canada’s exports and stimu­late and nurture desirable innovative industries. One division of the new CDB will focus on al­locating capital toward social enterprise, includ­ing micro-credit, community economic develop­ment, and co-operative initiatives.

The federal government needs to act unilaterally to eliminate poverty among elderly Canadian residents by making changes to the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) that are within the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal government.

Introducing a new federal tax rate of 35% for incomes above $250,000 would increase federal tax revenues by $3.5 billion in 2012. This new rate would apply only to incomes over $250,000 for the less than 1% of Canadians who have individual incomes above that amount.

The executive stock option deduction allows Canada’s wealthiest executives to pay half the tax rate on their income that ordinary Canadians pay on their employment income.

Income from investment and speculation is currently taxed at half the rate of employment income: e.g. at a top federal rate of 14.5% versus 29%. The value of this loophole was doubled in 2000 when the inclusion rate was reduced from 75% to 50%, ostensibly to boost investment and productivity. But it has had the opposite effect.

A levy of just 0.a5% on equity transactions through the TSX—at the same rate as the U.K.’s Stamp Duty Reserve Tax—would generate close to $4 billion a year, assuming a 50% reduction in volume.

Federal corporate income tax rates have fallen precipitously since 2006. They contribute to a large deficit and do little to create jobs. This program phases the 21% rate back in over 3 years.

The oil and gas industry is one of the most highly profitable industries in Canada, yet it pays low royalty rates and its corporate in­come tax rates have been declining. With much of the industry now foreign-owned, much of its increased profits simply flow overseas. The financial industry is even more profitable and has benefited from significant government intervention during the financial crisis.

The AFB proposes a minimum inheritance tax of 45% on large estates that are passed on to the heirs of wealthy families on amounts in excess of $5 million. It would apply in a similar way as the Estate Tax in the United States, prior to and integrated with capital gains taxes, and at similar rates that have applied there.

Canadian corporations now hold approximately $160 billion in tax havens. The AFB's 1% witholding tax would make that much more expensive

One in two women in Canada over the age of sixteen will experience violence during her lifetime. Girls are also at high risk of sexual assault both within and outside of the home. According to police-reported data, over half (59%) of sexual assault victims were under the age of eighteen, and 82% of those child sexual assault victims are girls.