Jack Layton On Abrogating NAFTA And Reforming Our Monetary System

Jack Layton on the Question of Reforming the Bank of Canada: "Absolutely. We have in our possession, but we've squandered it under Mulroney and Martin, the capacity to have some impact on the way our economy unfolds. Take a look at the high dollar right now. The Bank of Canada should be using its influence to keep the dollar lower." (my camera shut off at this point) Jack Layton pointing out how critical climate change is: “There are species on this planet that are succumbing to climate change now. And we are going to be one of those species one of these days if we don’t get our act together.” Jack Layton on accusations that the NDP is fiscally irresponsible: “That's a false accusation... If you look at parties in government in Canada, it’s very interesting. The NDP, when in government, has the best record of any political party in terms of running balanced budgets or better. Better than the Liberals. The Liberals, 80% of the time they are in power, run deficits in the last generation, the last 25 years. The Tories, when they’re in power, run deficits, I think, 65% of the time. The NDP, when we have been in power, 58% of the time. So we have the best record. Our current provincial governments have the best record across the country, with the exception of Alberta, which has a special situation. We have a policy of balanced budgets each and every year. That’s the world I come from – municipal government, where you have to balance budgets.” Jack on the US's Unilateralist foreign policy: “There’s another super power and that’s the people of the world speaking out together and raising the pressure on governments around the world.” Jack on the US's seemingly illogical decision to go ahead with Missile Defense: “There’s a huge lobby for spending on the contracts to produce these missile systems. It’s exactly what Eisenhower warned us against. The President, also a Republican, said ‘Watch out. This military industrial complex will always create new fears which then you have to respond to by buying their products.’ And the US has gotten into a huge deficit. And that is driving up the Canadian dollar. And that is forcing Canadian workers out of work. So this policy actually has a concrete economic impact on the daily lives of Canadians. So we have to work against it. If we put Canadian flags on those missiles, even if it’s just figuratively, we are signing our own death warrants.” Jack Layton on Education: “We support there being a national post-secondary education act that puts the funding for post-secondary education into an envelope so that it can’t be raided by the provinces. That’s number one… Secondly, our main focus is on tuition fees and on replacing loan programs and these roll-of-the dice scholarship programs with grant programs based on peoples’ needs. Anything that moves in that direction, we will support.” “The countries that are going to pull away from us, and already are, are the ones that provide virtually free university education. Because, they understand that you want to remove every barrier to young people having all the educational capabilities that they can get. And that way, you have a labour force that’s able to respond to what’s unfolding as people go through lots of change.”