Important Issues

Food Security

Eating good, healthy, and local food is good for our bodies and can heal the land we live and play on. We live in a very special place, where fresh, seasonal food is available year-round, yet there are people here who are still malnourished. I want to help change that, and we can tackle the problem of food insecurity on a few different levels.

Our local farmers need more support and more robust infrastructure for distributing their fresh produce, meat, and dairy products, and for storing the hardier items that can carry us through the winter.
We need to give more support to organizations that help get healthy food to all community members.
As individuals, we need to know the foods that are available around us, and how to use them. Healthy forests, lands and oceans offer plenty of healthy, local food, and supporting our local food producers benefits our local economies.
As a society, we need to adjust our priorities when it comes to what we eat and how we eat it. Eating good food grown on healthy land nourishes our bodies, regenerates our soil and increases carbon storage.
Unhealthy food should not be more affordable or accessible than seasonal and healthy choices.

The good news is that a lot of this work is already being done in our electoral district, while we do have to shift gears in the climate emergency, we don’t need to start from scratch.

Climate and Energy

The climate crisis is not a political issue, but a science-based matter of immediate global survival. I will work to ensure Canada meets their obligations according to what the science demands:

Reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 60% below 2005 levels by 2030.
Create a Parliamentary Science Officer as an independent office of Parliament to set real accountability.
Prioritize the needs of the most vulnerable and establish a national climate adaptation fund.
Keep fossil fuels in the ground. Ban fracking, cancel TMX, no new pipelines or extraction projects.
Implement a national electrical grid strategy and massively increase renewable electricity to achieve 100% by 2030.
Stop all public subsidies of fossil fuels.
Stop and redirect efforts supporting small nuclear reactors to focus on cheaper, safer, and currently available renewable options.
Retrofit all residential, commercial, and institutional buildings and implement a more robust building standard encouraging a shift toward net negative usage of energy.
Expand rail and electric bus service.
Establish a national carbon budget.
Pass right to repair legislation to help move towards a circular economy with less waste.

Forestry and Old Growth

In BC, there is only 3% remaining of old growth forests. Under current forest management practices they may be completely gone by 2030. The RCMP’s defiance of court orders with increasingly brutal tactics against those seeking to preserve the remaining old growth at Fairy Creek is exactly the corporate lawlessness we came to Canada to get away from. While forestry is under provincial jurisdiction, there are many things the federal government can do:

Renew the abandoned National Forest Strategy to restore climate-resilient forests as carbon sinks in partnership with Indigenous people.
Use the Endangered Species Act to compel provinces to change forestry practices which threaten endangered and listed plants and animals.
Pass ecocide legislation making it illegal to destroy entire ecosystems like old growth forests.
Promote the ecological health of Canada’s forests by funding preservation and protection.
Hold the RCMP accountable for their actions at Fairy Creek and elsewhere. The RCMP should not be used as a corporate security force, particularly in defiance of court orders. What we are seeing in Fairy Creek is an erosion of democracy and the rule of law in Canada. The officers who are committing the violence at Fairy Creek and their superiors must be held accountable under Canadian law.
Create a Council of Canadian Governments with federal, provincial, municipal, and Indigenous governments at the table working collaboratively to find solutions.
Develop a cooperative logging industry to keep logs in BC from start to finish, similar to a collective model currently operating in Oregon.

Aquaculture

Current policies and practices are leading us to ask the question “who will gut the last salmon?” Climate change is disrupting ocean ecology. We must change our approach to fisheries to give the ocean its best chance to recover and adapt to the changing conditions.

Move all fish farms to closed containment systems based on land by 2025.
Enact the recommendations of the Cohen Commission to improve the health of natural salmon fisheries.
Provide financial support to workers during transition toward fishery policies driven by science instead of politics and trade.
Allow Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) to focus their resources on research and protection by shifting the promotion of aquaculture to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.
Create a wild salmon division with the DFO to improve our understanding of salmon.
Protect independent harvesters and coastal communities through changes to the Fisheries act

Fresh Water

We are in the middle of possibly the worst drought on record. The Green vision for Canada’s water is clear; keep it, conserve it, and protect it.

Enshrine the fundamental right to an ecological heritage that includes breathable air and drinkable water by amending the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Restore the protections of the Navigable Waters Protection Act as prior to 2006.
Establish a Canada Water Fund of $215 million per year for five years to focus on long-term watershed health.
Create legislation to prohibit bulk water exports.
Ensure safe and secure water supplies for all citizens with a focus on First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities.

Economy and Fair Taxation

One of the issues the historic ruling parties of Canada have agreed on for decades is that economic growth takes priority over ecology and social justice. While these parties go to great lengths to protect corporate profits, the average worker sees their cost of living outpace their earnings and extractive industries leaving a wake of environmental devastation. The Green Party represents a truly democratic approach where workers will have agency and the extremely wealthy will not control the lion’s share of political and economic influence. We must work towards an equitable economy where all people are represented fairly.

Tax capital gains as regular income.
Eliminate extreme wealth with progressive taxation.
Increase the federal basic personal amount so that no one below the poverty line pays.
Eliminate poverty by implementing a Guaranteed Livable Income.
Ensure all companies operating in Canada are paying their taxes in Canada – end tax havens.
Increase the corporate tax rate.
Move away from GDP as an indicator of Canada’s well-being to a wellness metric, similar to what is done in New Zealand.
Create a sustainable economy that evolves to be better, not bigger, recognizing the constraints a finite world places on economic growth.
Issue Green Bonds engaging the public to accelerate renewable energy production
Canadian ownership of companies; public ownership of all companies exploiting natural resources in Canada to determine rate of natural resource use.
Support a greater role for producer and consumer cooperatives.

Indigenous Sovereignty

There exist profound inequalities experienced by Indigenous people across the country. Water that is too hazardous to drink, inadequate and culturally insensitive healthcare, missing and murdered women, poor housing stock, and high unemployment rates. For too long, these conditions have been allowed to exist while Canada boasts a strong social safety net for non-Indigenous people. We need to redefine Canada’s relationship with Indigenous people by moving past the existing colonial policies and restoring their agency.

Implement the recommendations found in the report on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
Implement the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s calls to action.
Respect existing treaties, Indigenous control over resource projects, and laws on their traditional land.
Address the overrepresentation of Indigenous children in foster care; Child Services must not be used as a tool for colonial integration.
Repeal the Indian Act in a fully respectful process in which Indigenous peoples are the lead.
Address the disproportionate amount of Indigenous people in the criminal justice system.

Healthcare

The pressure of a global pandemic has exposed some of the weaknesses in Canada’s healthcare system. Before the pandemic, the system was already suffering from longer wait-lists, overcrowded emergency rooms, and an increasing shortage of doctors. Since COVID-19 arrived, many healthcare workers have been pushed to exhaustion from long hours; private long term care proved ill-equipped to care for seniors; and the stresses on the system have only gotten worse. Additionally, pharmacare costs have been skyrocketing and many Canadians are unable to access the care they need.

Universal pharmacare and dental care.
Eliminate and oppose any two-tier health care; extend the national Health Accord.
Take profit out of care, nationalize long term care, ensure universal access and strong national standards.
Address the opioid crisis by treating substance use as a social justice and public health issue. Remove criminal penalties for personal possession and use of all drugs in order to support evidence-based treatment options; establish a safe supply.
Oppose any legislation that would restrict access to abortions.
Ensure high quality of care for Indigenous people.
Achieve better health through prevention, promotion of active living, and healthy diets.
Promote a comprehensive approach to mental health.

Childcare

Canadian families need access to affordable, high-quality childcare as an aspect of early childhood education. Quality affordable childcare yields social and economic returns in the short and long term by supporting women’s workforce participation, strengthening children’s health, and reducing inequality. We can achieve these goals and develop a flexible program that works for Canadians:

Restore and revamp the 2005 agreement reached between federal and provincial governments to achieve a universal access childcare program in Canada.
Create a National Children’s Commissioner, as recommended by UNICEF, to ensure children’s best interests are considered in policy development and that services across the country are better coordinated.
Provide workplace childcare spaces wherever possible to make it easier to access with public transit.
Support parents who choose to stay home with children.

Education

Costs of post-secondary education and training have been rising, creating a wider gap between the rich and poor in Canada. For a growing number of people, that puts education out of reach entirely or leaves them saddled with significant debt. Youth unemployment, low wages, and high costs of living only add to the weight of this debt. In a wealthy country like Canada, everyone should have the right to quality post-secondary education.

Universal access to post-secondary education with no tuition.
Forgiveness of all student debt held by the federal government.
Remove the 2% cap on increases in funding for Indigenous students, and ensure all Indigenous youth have equal access to post-secondary education.

Housing

A crucial part of caring for all Canadians is ensuring they have a safe place to live. The growing cost of housing is leaving many people behind. Housing should not be a private investment to speculate and profit off of; it must be a right for all Canadians.

Appoint a Minister of Housing.
Achieve housing for all through market regulation and public investment in housing.
Tax non-occupied units.
Tax incentives for landlords to offer reasonable rent.
Create a housing strategy to finance cooperatives and non-profit housing.

Media and the CBC

CBC is a vital publicly owned organization. It needs to be fully publicly funded and free of influence from government or private interests. We can support Canadian journalism and storytelling by:

Calling for an independent commission to undertake a comprehensive study of the concentration of media ownership in Canada, and making recommendations on how to diversify media ownership and strengthen the news reporting in Canada.
Taxing foreign-owned media corporations like Netflix, Google, Facebook, and Apple.

Green Party of Canada Vision

Click on the image below to explore in details.