B.C. Election Day Closing: Which Party's Greenest?
Advance voting for the British Columbia provincial elections starts in three days (Wednesday 6 May). General Election Day is on 12 May, 2009. There's also a referendum on changing to a fairer voting system the BC Single Transferable Vote or BC-STV (vote yes).
Two of the key issues for many voters are the economy and the environment.
I don't think they are separate issues as I said in a response to an article by Matt Burrows in The Straight:
NDP opposition to the carbon tax lost it any credibility as a party of the environment. According to a report in the Globe and Mail, the NDP's cap-and-trade alternative would apply to a third of emissions and be the weakest climate policy in Canada. Cap-and-trade has also been an abject failure in Europe thus far.
The Green Party is proposing a $50 p/tonne tax on emissions. The Liberal Party's current carbon tax is only $10 p/tonne (rising $5 a year to $30 p/tonne by 2012). That's the difference between a carbon tax that will actually have an impact and a carbon tax that is little more than green window dressing.
That's fairly par for the course for the B.C. Liberal Party. It's pursued economic growth whatever the environmental cost, coating policies with a green veneer.
To wit: massive highway expansion (Gateway Project, BC Rail sell-off) and development of provincial parks (run-of-river projects, parcelling off more protected land).
By a process of elimination, that leaves only one B.C. political party for the environment.
And probably good for the economy too. The new economy will be a green economy and there's riches (material and otherwise) to be reaped if we adapt to the new reality.
Of course, the Greens will not be forming the next BC government. It will be a cause for celebration if leader Jane Sterk (Esquimalt Royal Roads) and deputy leader Damian Kettlewell (Vancouver False-Creek) get elected.
BC's first Green Party MLAs.
Maybe it's not such an outlandish idea.
With Sterk appearing in the televised leaders' debates she now has added profile that might give her the momentum to go all the way.
Meanwhile, here in Vancouver, Kettlewell has been campaigning resourcefully and with energy - getting local media coverage and appears to have run an effective campaign. His opposition candidates are helping: the NDP candidate dropped out after an embarrassing Facebook incident and NDP and Liberal candidates have been no-shows at candidates debates.
Even under the current election system, a Green vote need not be a "wasted vote" this time.