What are the key issues locally in this campaign?
From 1996 to 2006 the total population of Leeds-Grenville grew by 3,000. The number of fifty-and-older residents grew by 8,000 and the group twenty-to-fifty lost 4000. Leeds-Grenville is aging. We have to provide jobs in the county to attract the young. That’s why the Green Party is for local, sustainable agriculture to begin with, so that people can live in the area. Otherwise everyone is just commuting.
When I look at a 40 year-old I don’t see him or her having as secure a future as my generation had. I really believe that I am of the last generation of Canadians to have a better life than their parents. We seem to have lost our social conscience.
I can remember when the Progressive Conservatives stood for fiscal responsibility, and responsible expenditures for the common good such as education, hospitals, health care, infrastructure. Universally accessible programs benefitted everybody. Harper’s “boutique tax relief” such as the $500 for children’s arts programs, it’s blatant bribery to a targeted group and doesn’t benefit those who couldn’t afford the $500 in the first place. The break for volunteer fire fighters, on the other hand, makes sense.
A local issue?
While there was a groundswell of objections to the closure of the prison farms at Joyceville and in Pittsburgh Township, the Harper Government went ahead and closed them anyway and disbanded a world-class milking herd that had been developed over forty years by Agriculture Canada. That was a very valuable herd, and they put it up for auction. That was our money going down the tubes.
I have read about the Ottawa consensus on big items such as the war in Afghanistan, the economic stimulus package during the recession, and support for Alberta and the oil sands. What’s wrong with this approach to government?
We’re supposed to be a free market economy, but we’re not. Why are we subsidizing big oil? Why are we cutting corporate taxes to banks? Come on. None of them are looking at poverty. They’re not programmed for Canadians. Harper’s an economist and the bailouts and the oil sands support are keeping him popular with the business community.
Adam Smith, the father of modern capitalism, would be shocked by the greed ethic of Canada’s business/government coalition.
So what are the old gray men in Ottawa missing?
-Conrad Black rifled the pensions of Dominion store employees. Then came the Nortel pension fiasco. Where was the legislation to protect those pensions?
-We’re going to be facing serious mental health problems as boomers grow older and face dementia and we have no plan to deal with it. Look at the demographics. 1966 was the highest number of births in Canada. They’re growing old and we’re not doing any planning for a known health crisis. Instead they’re planning prisons for criminals who don’t exist.
-My problem with all of these guys is that they’re not looking at what is out there, the concerns which are out there. They’re living in a fantasy world of jets and megaprisons.
-There are 34 cities in Canada needing infrastructure expenditures for sewage, Ottawa amongst them. Getting water from upstream is no longer a viable policy.
-We have the highest cost of telecommunications worldwide. Everyone uses cell phones but they cost way too much.
The G8/G20 extravaganza last summer. Any comment?
The police in Egypt treated their protesters better than the police treated our protesters in downtown Toronto.
When we last spoke you were keen on proportional representation.
The countries which have no form of proportional representation are Britain, The United States, and Canada. What I hear as a candidate is that a vote doesn’t count unless it is for one of the major parties. Proportional representation provides the mechanism for all votes to count.
Canada has slipped in engaging the electorate in exercising their right to vote.
By world standards, Canada is a conservative backwater because the first-past-the-post system automatically renders invalid about sixty percent of the votes.
We have people elected who are not there representing the majority of the electorate; they are representing only their own group.
In Canada you can be elected with twenty percent of the vote. The other guys can get 80% of the vote, but if your 20% is the biggest chunk, the other 80% don’t count.
Thus our government doesn’t reflect a consensus of Canadians, and that’s why the Parliament has been so dysfunctional.
Carbon tax?
We have to start somewhere. We are definitely experiencing global warming. This area has four more growing days now than forty years ago. Over 100 years our growing season will increase by thirty days.
Your campaign signs went up quickly in prominent locations in Brockville.
That’s because my campaign manager, eighteen-year-old Matt Casselman, had us well prepared. He did a great job of driving the stakes and posting the signs.
NDP candidate Steve Armstrong passed away since the last campaign. Steve will be missed from the local scene for his humour and sincerity.
Westport grocer Neil Kudrinko has earned the Green Party nomination to run in the March 4th by-election to replace Leeds-Grenville MPP Bob Runciman.
Property values in Westport are higher than in Smiths Falls. What’s going on in North Leeds?
Let’s face it. North Leeds is a great place to live. An increasing number of retirees look to the area around Westport, so increased demand has driven up the value of property.
As a business owner what concerns me about rising market values is the increased assessment which can lead to higher property taxes.
We need to ensure that people who have lived in the community all their lives don’t suddenly find themselves unable to afford their homes. We need also to be careful not to penalize owners for making improvements to the energy efficiency and comfort of their homes.
For example, in order to reduce the environmental impact of our grocery store we have recently spent a half million renovating and retrofitting to reduce the carbon footprint of our business by 26%. This was a long-term investment in local jobs and our ability to service the community. A tax increase because of the improvements would hurt.
We shouldn’t penalize businesses and homeowners through property taxes for making good decisions.
Mr. Harper and Mr. McGuinty have jointly created the 13% Harmonized Sales Tax. Its implementation weighs heavily on voters’ minds. What’s your take on this tax reform?
Quebec and the Maritimes have the HST now. Under its rules businesses can claim exemptions on investments on equipment and supplies that we can’t in Ontario. Ontario Farmers are exempt from the 8% PST but other businesses are not. This puts Ontario businesses at an 8% disadvantage right off the top, so the business community in general is very excited about the HST because it will reduce in some cases their cost of operation.
However, as a small business owner I don’t think the HST will create day-to-day savings that we will be able to pass along to the consumer.
For most people in Ontario the greater concern is the extra 8% on their heating oil bills and services from electricians and contractors. The Green Party position on the HST is that it cedes the province’s power of taxation and puts it into the control of the federal government. We feel as a party that is too important a role to leave up to another level of government.
What are the implications down the road? If we are so tightly integrated with the federal government that we have no leeway, we won’t be able to make changes in how we collect sales taxes without the approval of Ottawa.
Mr. McGuinty’s 50 Million Trees Program sponsors the planting of trees on privately owned land in Ontario. From your perspective as a candidate to represent Leeds-Grenville in the Legislature, what do you think of the plan?
We need to make reforestation of marginal land a priority in this province, but we need to avoid monoculture, the planting of a single species in a field, because we need the mix.
You’ll soon hear more about ALUS, or the Alternative Land Use Services Program in Norfolk County. This new program compensates farmers for taking marginal land out of production so that it can be replanted to extend the Carolinian forest in the area to widen woodlots and improve setbacks along river banks to create natural filtration systems.
It’s important that we make landowners partners in the process, and that we get the mix right.
Should there be a bounty on coyotes?
I like to eat wild game and I help my friends cut up their deer, but I wouldn’t personally go out and participate in a cull of a species I couldn’t eat. The coyote population is currently high, but nature has an interesting way of keeping itself in balance. We’ve all been concerned about fishers over the last few years. The coyote population will correct itself. There’d have to be a lot of science behind a large-scale cull of the coyote population. We shouldn’t leave this one to anecdotal evidence. That said, we must recognize and keep in mind the need for farmers to protect their livestock from predators.
What issues do you see emerging in Leeds-Grenville over the next ten years?
A continuing issue is energy costs and other costs of operating businesses in small towns. We need to make sure that we as a community — that includes municipalities, businesses, and home owners — are making the investments that are going to ensure that we can compete with larger centers in years to come.
All too often a small business ends up subject to regulations that were originally intended for big corporations. We need smart regulations that will differentiate between the two and not unnecessarily penalize small operators who were never the intended target of a regulation like the Nutrient Management Act. Take the example of Forfar Dairy. It had to stop cheese production because it could not comply with the Nutrient Act. And yet the true target of that regulation was not the small producer, but the large industrial scale producer like Parmalat or Kraft. The loss of Forfar cheese production has resulted in one less source of production for local dairy farmers.
The problem with the McGuinty Government’s approach to regulation is that it is focused solely on standardization. It fails to take into account the needs of individual producers.
An interview with Mary Slade, Leeds-Grenville Green Party candidate
October 26, 2009
Why is the Green Party important?
Neither the Liberals nor the CPC have a real vision for where they want to go. The NDP do, but it’s a very narrow vision. I’ve been a Green Party supporter for a long time. Many of our ideas have been tried in Europe and around the world. The North American model of big business is unsustainable. Everybody has the jargon, but they’re just using it to win debates. It doesn’t translate into meaningful action.
Kim Sytsma is a director of the Ontario Cattleman’s Association. Kim claims that the car industry is 2.1% of the GDP of Ontario while the cattle industry means 1.4% of the GDP for Ontario economy, and yet no one is helping the beef or pork farmers. It’s fascinating that whenever the price of crude oil changes it is reflected immediately at the pumps, but when wholesale beef prices crashed during the mad cow scare, there was no change to beef prices in the stores.
Last election’s Green Shift Plan looked like a good policy, badly sold. Now your party has relabeled it and made it part of your platform.
While there were some communications issues associated with the campaign, the Green Shift Plan was basically sound. It should be. Dion and the Liberals stole it from us.
Why are you running as a candidate?
Over thirty years my husband and I have noticed a decline in the vibrancy of the area. Our young people aren’t staying. Those trying to create small businesses are strangled by government.
The cheese operation at Upper Canada Village was forced to close because it didn’t meet modern requirements. You don’t know that there’s anything wrong there, but the big business model doesn’t allow for traditional methods of production.
I know of local people involved in a small business promotion program, a federally funded, provincial government effort to help small business startups. October 9th of this year a letter came from Toronto which abruptly cut the program. It said they are putting money into the colleges for retraining adults and that was it.
So what’s wrong with the big business model?
Why bail out GM and Chrysler? They have already proven that they are not running companies worth investing in. We’re throwing bad money after bad. It’s a short-term solution to a problem we have known for years and years. We’re maintaining jobs in failing industries and not looking to jobs that provide a viable and sustainable future for Canadians.
Factory farms? I’m against them because they’re dependent upon herbicides, pesticides and antibiotics and are not good for the environment. They are ripe for contamination and economic blips and transportation complications. Small and local is tasty and beautiful.
So what do you think of food in Canada today?
We should produce as much food for our own population as we can. For one, we have a fairly good regulatory system within the country but we’ve had some catastrophes from things coming across the border. For another, we have a problem with obesity right now, and fresh fruit, vegetables and meat all taste good, even if you don’t like brussels spouts. I’m not about to legislate the Doritos-and-Pepsi lunch out of existence, but good food’s not as available as it used to be because of the distances people have to travel to get it and of course the distance the food has to travel, as well.
The papers are full of the locavore movement.
We’re just going back to our roots. It’s a fad which isn’t going to pass. Food is a necessity. You are what you eat. If you want to stay healthy, eat well.
What are your goals for the next six months, and how do you plan to achieve them?
To promote the Green Party from Gananoque to Kemptville, from Cardinal to Westport, and give voters an alternative to the other, more traditional parties.
So the Green Party is a fad?
Oh come on! It’s been a long time coming and it’s not going away. Food sustainability and water quality are ongoing issues. Carbon emissions are a world-wide problem. Social issues like child care, early childhood education and pensions are not going away.
A Green Party proposal is for the elimination of income tax for individuals who earn less than $20,000 per year.
Where is the Green Party on the political spectrum?
It is neither right nor left wing. It is for people and sustainability. It is pro-business where business is good for the country. It is pro-people because people are our future.
So is a vote for you a vote for a Stephen Harper majority?
No. A vote for me is a vote to have a representative in Ottawa to espouse policies which are not simply short-term solutions to problems created by falling polling numbers.
What we really need is proportional representation. It’s a fantastic idea because the first-past-the-post-system we have now does not allow a voice for new ideas in parliament.
Instead we have bad ideas like the current wave of stimulus spending which has simply given Stephen Harper a bottomless war chest with which to play politics. That’s not good government. It’s the Conservatives becoming the Liberals, throwing away money.
Harper broke promises to veterans and their families. His flip-flops on clear and open government, income trusts, and four-year terms show that this man is not a conservative.
the Walnut Diary 