Friday, February 19, 2010

On universal messages

I haven't yet commented on the NDP's policy proposals for the upcoming session of Parliament, in part because they should be relatively familiar and in part because I'd figured there would be at least a few more public fireworks between the federal parties to respond to. But I'll take a moment to highlight one aspect of the NDP's demands which seems to have been removed by the media filter.

Most coverage I've seen has included "pensions" as an NDP priority without putting into context the difference between the various parties. But while everybody's talking about pensions in at least some sense, there's a rather important distinction in what it is that each party wants to do.

As I've noted before, the Cons' main idea of pension reform seems to involve attacking public-sector retirement incomes to bring civil servants down to the same level of insecurity as many other Canadians, while the Libs' consists of a voluntary investment system which doesn't do anything for anybody already facing poverty in retirement. Which means that the key takeaway from the NDP's message isn't merely the concept of some change in the general area of pensions, but the phrase "ensuring retirement security for everyone".

Of course, there's exactly zero reason to expect that the Cons will actually meet the NDP's terms on that point. But that's all the more reason to make it clear that the NDP's vision goes beyond minor tinkering - lest the Cons try to pretend they've done something substantial while actually doing nothing of the sort. And for the longer term, it'll be to the advantage of both the NDP as a party and the cause of social justice to emphasize the values behind the NDP's ideas which aren't shared by its competitors.

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