The following answers to Transition Cornwall+’s four questions are from Gordon Kubanek, Green Party candidate in Stormont-Dundas-Glengarry.
Climate Action – Focused on energy and climate change
Countries around the world have the solutions needed to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and address climate change and many are acting boldly to implement those solutions.
If elected, what actions will you and your party take to scale up efforts and accelerate the necessary changes to address the climate crisis and its effect on the ecosystem, the citizens and the economy?
The Greens will not build more pipelines for 2 reasons: 1. It’s uneconomic and is spending good money after bad, especially when so many countries need to pump more oil to balance their books – as evidenced by the falling price of oil today due to Saudi Arabia increasing its output to balance the government books. It means keeping the tar sands going, which means just increasing the massive environmental damage being done, damage which has an expected cost of close to $200 billion to clean up and for which the companies have put aside almost nothing in liability costs on their books; the total real price of this dirty oil is not being paid. 2. That money is better spent building a trans-Canada electrical grid to share our vast hydro, geothermal, tidal and wind/solar potential. Ontario alone is projected to have an increase of 75% in electrical demand by 2050 and Ontario has no grid tie with Quebec! An added advantage to that is that we can control the price and thus industries and consumers will enjoy price stability as they transition to more efficient technologies like electric cars and heat pumps.
We will stop of the use of toxic chemicals like BPAs, PFAs, stop all single-use plastics that are degrading into micro/nano-plastics now in our blood and brains and soils and water causing increasing damage to our health – including cancers and reducing our ability to reproduce.
We will reduce immigration to a level that is focused on improving the lives of Canadians and not on growing the economy because while it is true that growing the economy in the past did improve our lives that is no longer the case: our life quality and GDP/capita is now going down as our population and economy both grow. This is known as the Third World trap and happens when the population grows faster than our ability to build the necessary infrastructure to support the productivity needed to generate the wealth needed for an advanced economy.
Connected Municipalities – Focused on sustainable transportation
National transportation systems have the potential to contribute to life satisfaction and overall health and wellbeing and reduce our dependence on car travel.
If elected, how will you ensure people of all ages and abilities are provided with safe, accessible, affordable and attractive interconnected public transportation options (rail, bus and air) that coordinate with municipal efforts to increase active modes (e.g., walking, riding a bicycle) and transit all year long?
We will follow France’s lead in banning short flights under 2.5 hours where the train is alternative. We will invest in fast, electric mass transit in all major cities and work with the provinces to develop city planning that reduces the need for long commutes, following the design example in Singapore where urban planning means people can work, play, shop and live all within the same district: this allows for walkable and bikeable communities when we build paths instead of more roads as they have done in Holland.
Natural Protected Areas – Focused on biodiversity
The UN Sustainable Development Goals are a call for action by all countries – poor, rich and middle-income – to promote prosperity while protecting the planet. The goals call for 30% of our land and water areas to be protected spaces.
If elected, how will you ensure we work toward meeting or exceeding the minimum 30% recommended level of protected areas?
Of course we work to meet the UN goals of protecting 30% of our land and water. The Greens will also work with the provinces to mandate that 20% of farmland is covered with forests as Quebec has done with Bill 495. We will create more national parks closer to urban centres, not only in remote Labrador like the Liberals have done. To make the parks accessible we will permanently make them free for everybody under 30 (currently 17) and all families on welfare and people with disabilities.
Responsible Consumption and Production – Focused on reducing waste.
Governments need to implement and enforce policies and regulations that include measures such as setting targets for reducing waste generation, promoting circular economy practices, and supporting sustainable procurement policies.
If elected, what actions would you take to reduce waste of all kinds and promote circular economy practices and what targets would you set?
The Greens will follow Europe’s lead in having a producer pay law wherein the company that produces a product is responsible to pay for its disposal. We will follow the lead of France in having a “right to repair” law wherein all electronic and other machines, such as tractors, can be repaired – that means things like no more gluing of batteries in cell phones. We will eliminate the use of plastics, especially in agriculture and the food industry, because the health impacts of microplastics are clearly becoming the next big killer as smoking once was. Plastic water bottles will be banned. We ban many hundreds of PFAs that our wreaking havoc in our endocrine system and work with companies who sell liquids in plastic or metal cans lined with plastic to switch to class so microplastics do not leach into the liquid and then enter our bodies. To stop the coming disease epidemic from microplastics we include synthetic closing in our producer pay law, as microplastics from washing synthetic materials are the largest source of microplastics caused by individual use, and encourage industry to develop materials that do not degrade into toxic substances that can replace plastic. We will work with the provinces to have their laws be in conformity with each other so this will be, in effect a national law, to replicate Quebec’s Bill 29: An Act to protect consumers against planned obsolescence and to promote the durability, repairability and maintenance of goods. Most important of all, we work for the long-term goal of shifting our economy towards a degrowth model. Degrowth will help us to improve the lives of everyday Canadians without having to continue to grow the economy as we know that this will only result in the destruction of our environment so much that our human made world will be destroyed along with the natural world.
