Christian Democrats working for:

• For decades values related to home, religion and home country have signified to Finns diligence, honesty, respect towards work and human value, taking care of one’s family and joint responsibility. The same values are still valid and stand the test of time, states party chairperson Päivi Räsänen.
  
• Home, religion and home country signify concrete things. The political discussion about a gender-neutral marriage and the position of the teaching of religion tightens up in the elections, in which their destiny is resolved.
• Also our home country is in great danger because of the problems in the euro district. The growing indebtedness of public finance has to be stopped in a way that promotes welfare and social justice, Päivi Räsänen emphasizes.

Cleaner politics
The parliamentary elections to be held in spring 2011 are value elections. Political ferment gnawing the authority of a representative democracy has been topical during the present electoral period, mainly due to the vagueness in financing political campaigns. The keys to change the present political culture are in the voting booths. Honesty and openness are required in decision making.

The financing of elections has to be transparent from every perspective. Let’s use indicators that measure welfare in a broader sense to bring up the consequences of political choices in relation to people’s welfare.

Enterprise to be turned into entrepreneurship
The employment prerequisites of the enterprises in the metropolitan area are improved in such a way that enterprises employ a million citizens in the end of the next electoral period. This requires decreasing additional costs from the salary of the first outside employee for a temporary time.
Simultaneously grey economy can be decreased.

The social security of an entrepreneur has to be improved. The problems of an entrepreneur working by himself/herself are disentangled in order to boost the willingness to take entrepreneurial action. The unemployment benefit given both to the family of an entrepreneur and to a fractional interest holder of an enterprise has to be developed.

A shorty is no sweet work
Municipal employers have to have more responsibility for short-term employees and for substitute employees.
More effective measures are taken to ease especially the employment situation of the young and the long-term unemployed. We require strengthened employment measures to guarantee that the only or both provider/s of a family will not be unemployed.

The improvement of the reconciliation of employment and social security is of principal importance. The turn-offs pertaining to receiving a job are dismantled, so that receiving a job is always worthwhile. The competitiveness of permanent and full-time employment is improved.

It’s sick to save from healthiness
We want:

• Health care to correspond occupational health care for everyone
• Enough personnel and let’s get rid of the queues for treatment
• Reasonableness to payments with a coherent and low roof for payments
• A new law for the health care of senior citizens to guarantee a health care system the human life is worthy of
• Prevention as a central principle to social welfare
• A breadwinner allowance to the provider in a family with children
• A quick employment for a single-parent and an increase in alimony
• More responsibility to the authorities in guidance of benefits

Elderly people don´t have time to wait
Transfer to pension should be flexible and the prospects of continuing in working life more supportive. The tax rate on earned income for those who continue working after their age allows them to retire should be lowered.

The average age of retirement can be raised by increasing the amount of accumulated pension if one decides to continue in working life between the ages of 63 and 68.

In order to secure high quality health care for elderly people at home, in institutional care or at old people’s home, a new elderly people health care legislation is needed immediately. This legislation should secure the rights of elderly people to a permanent home together with ones spouse during final years of life. The responsibility of arranging services to elderly people should be maintained at municipality level.

The quality on institutional care and the treatment of outpatients for the elderly population can be improved by educating and hiring sufficient amount of Finnish or Swedish speaking personnel. Knowledge of geriatrics should be strengthened at all levels of health care and social welfare education. The care for close relatives and private care should be improved as complementing services on the side of public health services and social services.

Marriage is between a man and a woman
As a basis for our legislation we want to preserve the Christian conception of a marriage. Marriage law must still contain a relationship between one man and one woman.

Human value is more important than market value
The respect of human life is a right of every person and also an obligation to fellow human beings. Christian Democrats believe that every person, regardless of his/her talents, characteristics and productivity, have been created unique and equal. Because of this human value is not relative, but always absolute and entire.

In our policy, Christian Democrats want to emphasize that human value is always of higher importance than market value.

Cherishing human value is the salient task of political actors. A salient instrument to accomplish it has been formulated with the international Declaration of Human Rights: the principle that every person is entitled to the human rights.

Hands off from religious education
We want to maintain the current model of religious education according to a pupil's own religion. Understanding one's own religion and contemplating one's personal religious identity is a starting point for understanding other religions and views.

Work works for integration
Work is the starting point for integration to the Finnish society. Therefore, proper conditions for employment of immigrants should be provided. An unreasonably big number of immigrants in Finland do not have a job; the emphasis should be laid on employing them. Their employment contributes to our resources to support those in need.
An important part of integration is to tell the immigrants the principles of the Finnish society, and to consider the cultural habits that might contradict with the Finnish legislation. Where cultural differences appear in things such as the rights of women and girls or gender equality in our country, they are to be discussed both with women, girls, men and boys.

Waste water regulation to be flushed
The regulation on waste water prominently influences people's life in the sparsely populated areas. Moreover, the economic consequences of the regulation are also significant. Therefore, the current regulation should be repealed and replaced with a new set of more relevant legislation on handling waste water.

In Sweden a two-stage system is used; stricter protection only applies to the estates with a straight connection to the drainage basin. This could be used as an example when creating new legislation in Finland.

Tradition conserves nature
We must return to the culture of old ecological traditions, modest life style, lasting goods and frugality.

The diversity of the nature should be secured. Currently many species of animals and plants are on the verge of extinction. Now is the last chance to save the diversity of the nature on land and on the seas. That is why we strongly support studies to be conducted on the diversity of forest and sea environment as well as we support conservation and financing measures that will help to maintain life in the nature.

Defence is a matter of everyone
Compulsory military service is the best and the most cost effective way to organise defence in a large sparsely populated country. It is vital that the Finnish Defence Forces are provided with all the necessary means in order to maintain the safety and the functionality of the Defence Forces. The decentralisation of the units that give training for military service, regional cadres and depots to different parts of the country is a decision with significant effects to regional policy.

Member states are responsible for their own economies
Finland is not to take responsibility for the debts of the EU member states that have not managed their economy in a proper way, or for the risks of the international financial institutions. They are not to be paid by Finland through any means or arrangements, such as common bonds or interventions by European Central Bank to buy the bonds of the member states.