Election campaigns in Canada see politicians sticking to questions of bread and butter.

Many of our federal leaders (and future leaders) are political fools, the kind of people who can enthusiastically debate the details of tax reform or infrastructure policy for hours on end.

But during an election campaign, people want to know the basics – jobs, taxes, health care, child care, education and the environment. About 90 percent of all current political debates will focus on these issues.

This leaves many orphan ideas. One exception this year has been the Conservatives’ promise to ban puppy mills – an obvious legal change that I hope will be passed by Parliament regardless of who wins at the polls.

So here are some weird policy ideas that I wish they’d heard.

• Should Canada ban MLMs?

MLM stands for multi-level marketing, and some of the most notorious ones have been in the news lately.

MLMs are much more restricted in Canada than in the United States, where they are often accused of being outright pyramid schemes. Canadians are already protected from the worst excesses of MLM policies.

But should MLMs even be legal in Canada? What is the point of the company in allowing companies to create a completely free sales force – unless they are successful in selling their product? Why can’t MLMs just sell direct online or act as wholesalers?

• Should cats be allowed out?

This is, believe it or not, a serious environmental problem. Cats, whether they are wild, stray, or pampered pets, kill millions of small birds and mammals every year. A neighborhood with all indoor cats would have both more biodiversity and more bird songs.

• Should Canada have more provinces?

It would probably cause constitutional problems (I know, it makes me want to run and scream too), but our current provincial borders are largely based on centuries-old colonial divisions and a bunch of lines drawn by geographers. 19th century British.

Should British Columbia be one province, or do the interior and the north have different needs than the coast and the Lower Mainland? Could Aboriginal land claims be partially resolved through the creation of new provincial governments? Is Ontario Really Too Big?

• Should synthetic fabrics be taxed?

Another strange but real environmental problem – microplastics, which partly come from synthetic fabrics when they pass through the washing machine, enter the marine food chain.

Should Canada encourage the use of natural fibers such as cotton, wool, flax and hemp? We are already cultivating a lot of these, but for other purposes.

• Should we pay students to graduate from high school?

Education is one thing that makes a society stronger – so why not give every high school graduate a check? The federal authorities are in the best position to do this, because it should be a national program to make it truly effective. Encouraging graduation while preparing students for post-secondary education sounds like a great idea.

READ ALSO: Painful truth – The electoral campaign literally rocks

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One step ahead in Langley