NDP leadership candidate Guy Caron says if elected prime minister he would approve pipeline projects only after the National Energy Board is reformed and First Nations whose lands were involved gave their consent.

Pipeline politics is one of the first issues the new leader of the NDP will have to confront next month, and it’s a tense one. Two NDP premiers, Rachel Notley of Alberta and John Horgan of B.C., stand opposed to one another over it. But Caron told the Star’s editorial board Wednesday he’s no stranger to a challenge.

“I was the least known candidate in the race,” Caron said of the beginning of his campaign. “My goal was to be a competitor, and I’d say I’m exactly where I wanted to be.”

Caron believes that for the party to climb out of its third-place position in Parliament, it needs to win back the seats it gained in Quebec with the 2011 “orange wave” led by the late Jack Layton.

“That, for me, is unavoidable,” said Caron, the only leadership candidate from Quebec.

He argued he’s the only leadership candidate who understands Quebec politics and believes he is bringing forward a plan to “move the party in a different direction” after learning from previous NDP strategies that failed to garner enough support to gain power.

While NDP platforms typically focus on implementing universal programs such as pharmacare and daycare, they’re conspicuously absent from Caron’s platform, which focuses instead on tax reform and basic income.

He called universal programs a “priority” but said he wanted to build his platform around actionable items for the first NDP budget, rather than programs that depend on “lengthy negotiations with the provinces.”

Caron said if he became prime minister he would bring provinces together to discuss best practices on these issues — Quebec, for example, has a universal daycare program in place.

Meanwhile, he said he’s bringing “bold” ideas about tax reform and social safety nets to the table.

He said the tax reforms he proposes would bring in $31 billion in additional federal revenues, an amount he admits is “ambitious,” especially given the backlash the Liberals are getting for their more modest tax proposals.

But Caron said he’ll be able to sell his plan to Canadians because it’s “all about merit.”

He plans to amp up taxes on what he calls “unproductive capital” — such as income from investments and a wealth tax — while bringing more Canadians into the lowest tax bracket for labour income.

“I don’t want to make everybody equal, but I want to use the tax system to level the playing field,” Caron said.

That’s also what Caron hopes to accomplish with his basic income proposal — a unique component of his platform that has also garnered the most opposition from opponents.

The term basic income covers a range of policies that involve the government making guaranteed payments to some, or all, of its constituents. Caron called Canada’s guaranteed income supplement and child-care benefit forms of basic income already in place.

The idea’s detractors on the left, fellow candidate Niki Ashton for one, fear its implementation will pave the way for the dismantling of traditional social supports, including welfare and universal programs.

Caron insists he won’t allow that to happen. He’s proposing that anyone living below the low-income cut-off in their region — including students, Indigenous people and veterans — receive basic income payments in conjunction with existing social programs.

“It won’t work if provinces are using it to off-load their expenditures,” he said, adding he would end the program in provinces that used a federal basic income program in this way.

He cited a Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives estimate that his proposal would cost $30 billion to $35 billion. In the long run, he believes the price tag will be worth it.

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“When you eliminate the stress of the need to survive,” he said, rates of crime, hospitalization and divorce can also be expected to drop.

He said he knows his lofty plans will be met with opposition, but defended them as the right direction for a deflated NDP.

When the NDP was the official Opposition under current leader Tom Mulcair it was widely viewed as a parliamentary success, he said. Caron insists that to get out of that rut the party needs both an ambitious plan and a leader who will unite Canadians — including Quebecers.

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