NDP would hike corporate taxes, put money in child care and cities
Vancouver Sun
Doug Ward
October 2, 2008

The New Democratic Party released a British Columbia platform Wednesday that it hopes will help win over voters in competitive three-way ridings in Metro Vancouver.

The NDP proposes to increase the corporate tax rate to 2006 levels and use the money to fund more child care, urban transit and programs for resource-dependent communities.

"I think the platform really shows how much (NDP leader) Jack Layton really understands B.C.," said Libby Davies, the NDP incumbent in Vancouver East.

"It hits on the issues that are really on people's minds: child care, health care and job losses."

The NDP's B.C.-specific package promises to create 15,000 new child-care spaces in the first year, and 22,000 in four years.

The centre-left party would invest the equivalent of one cent of the GST into cities and communities, providing more money for affordable housing, roads and highways, transit and improved border crossings.

…. Davies said the NDP has emerged as the main alternative to the Conservatives in B.C. -- not the Liberals….