Today’s Random Green Party Policy of the Day from Vision Green is from page 44 (as chosen by @donutsnprayers):

“Green Party MPs will:

Establish the design and management principles of a nationally integrated electrical power grid capable of supporting many diverse sources of renewable electrical energy

Develop a transition plan that will transform the existing electrical distribution pattern into a pattern of distributed renewable generation…

Develop peak power production from burning demonstrably sustainable agricultural and forest waste as necessary to meet peak power demands but within the constraints of maintaining soil nutrients.”

Quick Translation: The Green Party will create and support a system that is capable of producing and distributing sustainable electricity to all Canadians.

Won’t it feel good to vote Green?

Today’s Random Green Party Policy of the Day from Vision Green is from page 42 (as chosen by @greendude33):

“Most of today’s housing stock will still be standing by 2040, when we seek an 85% overall reduction in Canada’s carbon emissions, so retrofitting Canada’s existing stock of buildings is critical.

Green Party MPs will:

Develop a national retrofit standard suitable for a post-carbon economy that will reduce energy use in existing buildings by an average of at least 80% below that of 2009 average structures.

Promote the adoption of this high efficiency standard by:
1. Providing revolving federal loans for retrofits to homeowners.
2. Funding a nation-wide program to upgrade all low-income rental housing on a phased year-by-year basis to be completed by 2025, as Germany is doing.
3. Identifying the barriers to sustainable energy retrofits and eliminating them.
4. Providing refundable tax credits for all energy retrofit costs, based on before-and-after EnerGuide or infrared heat tests for residential, commercial, industrial and institutional buildings.
5. Promoting tax-deductible Green Mortgages for home-owner energy retrofit costs.
6. Introducing a national program of energy retrofits to public sector buildings such as universities, schools, museums, and hospitals.
7. Introducing a 100% Accelerated Capital Cost Allowance for all businesses for energy retrofit costs.
8. Providing revolving federal loans for residential or business energy retrofits.

… and a bunch more.

Quick Translation: The Green Party is serious about reducing carbon emissions and saving Canadians money through more efficient buildings. And while we look ahead to 2040, we’ll start right now.

Won’t it feel good to vote Green?

Today’s Random Green Party Policy of the Day from Vision Green is from page 68 (as chosen by a Facebook supporter):

“The Greens will continue to support ‘quality of life’ evaluation methods such as the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) as a means to improve quality of life and protect biodiversity.

The Green Party will also support research into the economics of protecting biodiversity and the development of fiscal tools to limit the negative impact of human activity on the Ecosphere.

Eliminating capital gains on donations of ecologically significant land and more appropriate land-use taxes are key measures to limit demand-side pressures on biodiversity.”

The Green Party believes that as changes are made to Canada’s ‘natural accounts’ through the depletion or addition of fish, trees and soils, these should be reflected in measures of Canada’s worth. We believe in full-cost accounting, which means that there are no externalities. Pollution, exploitation, and illness are all factored in.

Purely economic measurements, such as Gross Domestic Products (GDP), ignore key factors of well-being (as I’ve mentioned before) and the GPC believes we need to account for key social, environmental and long-term economic features in different parts of the country and local communities.

Quick translation: We need to change how we measure economic success.

Won’t it feel good to vote Green?

Last Friday I was on CP24 with Ellen Michelson, the Toronto-Centre Green Party Candidate and Stephen LeDrew. Stephen asked me if the GPC was a one-issue Party and what we’ll be doing to counteract that belief.

Here’s one thing I’m going to do: I’ll be posting a random Green Party of Canada (GPC) policy of the day, hopefully every day. I’ll be using Vision Green, the GPC’s primary policy communication medium. You can access the online version of Vision Green at greenparty.ca.

Today’s Random GPC Policy is from page 11 of Vision Green (as chosen by a Facebook supporter):

“Canadian businesses want two things from their government: predictability and policy coherence. The Green Government will ensure that the rules are clear, the playing field is level and decision making is transparent.

Key societal goals:

- Ensure Canadians have more time for friends, family and community engagement.

- Send the right price signals to the economy. The days of cheap, abundant energy are over. A carbon tax will send that signal and generate the revenue to cut income taxes, allow ‘income splitting’ and reduce the tax burden on small business.

- Eliminate perverse corporate subsidies. No more ‘corporate welfare bums.’ No more unpaid ‘loans’ to government granting agencies.”

Ooh! Clear! Transparent! Coherent! Predictable! These are all things that you should demand from your MP and your government.

Won’t it feel good to vote Green?

Last week, friends, family and Green supporters gathered at the Wellington Gallery in Aurora to help me kick-off my bid to become the Green MP for Newmarket-Aurora.

It was fabulously successful and I am so grateful to everyone who came out to lend their support (both emotional and financial) to our cause.

The local press was present and there was a great article by Sean Pearce in the Era (and possibly the Banner?) yesterday.

The best part of the night, for me, was hearing that I had helped to restore people’s faith in politics and politicians, and that they now saw a tiny bit of light at the end of the tunnel. I couldn’t wish for greater praise than that.

We’ll post the video as soon as it is edited. Until then, here’s the original text of my speech (minus the laughing, crying, and ad libbing!). Hopefully, it resonates with you as well.

“Let me start by thanking you for joining us here tonight. I feel so blessed to be surrounded by wonderful friends, family and supporters. Thank you to Emil for allowing us to use this beautiful space. And thank you to Adriane Carr and Georges Laraque for lending their support to our local group and my Candidacy. I’ve been joking with friends the last few days that this is my ‘coming out’ party. For the last several months I’ve felt like a stealth candidate. I’ve been developing strategy and quietly making connections in the community and learning what issues are important to the people of Newmarket and Aurora. So this is my debut. One of my clients suggested I wear a white dress but I thought that might be going a little too far. I’ll save that for my wedding.

Speaking of which, I have to thank my fiancé Jordon Davidson for his incredible support and ability to help me find balance. Thank you sweetheart.

Tonight I wanted to answer a couple of questions that I frequently get asked.

The first is ‘Why do I support the Green Party?’: I’ll tell you straight out. It’s Green Values. The Green Party is not just Canadian, it is a global network of people who share a common set of values. Social Justice, Ecological Wisdom, Sustainability, Non-violence, Respect for Diversity, and Participatory Democracy. Every decision, every policy that the Greens put forward is based on these six values. It keeps things simple and it makes it easy to answer questions. If I can speak from these values, then my answer will be authentic and true.

The second question is ‘Why am I running?’: The answer is simple. I care about what happens to humanity. I care deeply about what happens to Jordon’s children and my nephew after I am gone. I care about the quality of life that their grandchildren will have. I want them to be able to drink the water, eat the food, and breathe the air. I want that for them. Like you, I care about my family.

And I care about the global family of humanity. I believe that when we throw our trash ‘away’ we are simply making it someone else’s problem.

When we exploit other areas of the globe to feed our consumption, I believe that we are not only harming our global family, but we are harming ourselves.

When we act in anger, or talk about hate, I believe that we harm ourselves a great deal. One of the six Green Party values is non-violence and I believe that we need to look at the harm that we do to ourselves, as well as to others.

That is why I am running. I want people to have something, and someone, to vote for, and not just to vote against.

This has been an exciting year and I have learned a lot about what it means to be the candidate for the Green Party. I have met fantastic people who are working to build community in this area and to get people engaged. And it has been a privilege to help them as much as I could. And I would like to thank them.

The first person is Liz Jefferson. Starting with indignation at the Harper government’s arrogance in proroguing for a third time, Liz has since created a group called Citizens Engaging Democracy that is dedicated to getting us involved. One of the major successes this year was the inauguration of a Fair Vote chapter for York Region.

The second person is Sue McKee. Seeing the changes that are coming and wanting to be proactive, Sue started a Transition Town group for York Region. The goal is to create local, resilient communities and economies so that people can live, learn, work and play in their own community. It is challenging, exciting and fun work and I am grateful to Sue for the work that she has been doing.

A year ago I did not know either of these women and now I don’t like to imagine my life without them. And though I like to think that I would have joined these groups and taken the steps to get involved without being the Candidate, doubt remains in me.

I think that I needed to make a commitment.

I needed to commit to being the Green Candidate and doing the best job that I could.

I needed to commit to building community and reaching out to people in every way that I could.

I needed to commit. And I have. I have committed to being the best Green Party Candidate and serving you as best I can. I have made that commitment. And I want you to hold me to it.

And I want you to make a commitment as well. That is what tonight is about. If we want to build a strong Green presence in Newmarket-Aurora we need your support.

We need your commitment to get involved. To stay involved even when it is hard. Even when you want to turn away from the harm that is being done to our country, to our community and to our families.

I challenge you to stand up and be counted. To engage with democracy in your community and in your country. We need to change the system so that every vote counts, so that every one is represented.

If we had a fair voting system we would have Conservative MPs from Toronto, Liberal MPs from Alberta and a beautiful Green caucus in the House of Commons.

This is our democracy. This is our country. And it is time to commit to taking it back.

Please lend us your support tonight as we work to build the very best campaign that we can. Thank you very much, again, for your support and your faith in me.”

It took me five hours to read the motions, read the discussions, and cast my votes. If you’d like to shorten the process for yourself, and if you trust me, then I am happy to provide you with how I voted, and where I think it is important, my reasons for doing so.

This has been an eye-opening process, I think it is the first time I have ever taken the time to really look at the motions being put forward and by whom. The Green Party is a continually evolving organization, and as with any such process, there are always groups that envision the evolution proceeding in different directions.

I still believe the the GPC is the only place to be, and the only place to put my vote, and I further believe that our exhaustive policy formation process, from the grassroots, gives ordinary members an extraordinary ability to participate in the Party evolution.

I’m sure that I’ve offended just about everyone with at least one of my choices, but in the interests of transparency and accountability I remain willing to be called out on them, and to defend them, or to have my mind changed. I look forward to seeing you at the Convention, on the floor and in the workshops.

If you are not currently a GPC member, and are wondering what on earth I am talking about, you have until July 22nd to become a member, research, and vote on these issues yourself.

Here is the list, starting with Policy Motions:
p02 – Green
p24 – Red
p26 – Green
p27 – Green
p29 – Green
p12 – Red
p13 – Green
p14 – Yellow
p20 – Green
p28 – Green
p15 – Green
p16 – Green
p17 – Yellow
p18 – Yellow
p34 – Yellow
p04 – Green
p08 – Green
p10 – Yellow
p11 – Yellow
p19 – Yellow
p21 – Green
p25 – Red
p31 – Green
p32 – Green
p33 – Yellow
p07 – Green
p09 – Yellow
p22 – Yellow
p23 – Yellow
p30 – Green

Constitution Motions
c01 – Black
c09 – Green
c10 – Black
c11 – Red
c13 – Yellow
c25 – Red
c02 – Green
c03 – Green
c05 – Green
c24 – Yellow
c26 – Yellow
c27 – Yellow
c28 – Green
c12 – Green
c29 – Yellow
c30 – Green

c14 – Green
c15 – Yellow
c16 – Red
c17 – Yellow
c18 – Yellow
c19 – Yellow
c20 – Yellow
c21 – Red
c22 – Red
c23 – Red

To be clear, I have serious issues with this group of Resolutions pertaining to EDAs (c14-c23). Beyond the rather pathetic flaw wherein they refer to EDAs as Riding Associations, and head office as ‘the Party’ (an issue I’ve already taken up with them in the context of their pithy preambles…), these seemingly reasonable motions have the cumulative effect of removing all independence from the EDAs and placing it in the hands of the central office, which, in my experience to date, has been incapable of organizing themselves effectively and should certainly not be put in charge of the entire EDA function as well. As an example, c15 mandates that the selection of candidates will be entirely prescribed by head office, and c16 that every EDA must adopt the Constitution provided by the central Party and that any proposed amendments must be approved by central Party through an undefined process. C14 through c21 would be damaging enough on their own but when combined with c22 and c23, two resolutions which allow central Party to negate the RSA or to completely deregister an EDA for noncompliance, they are unacceptable and need to be defeated. I get that we need to have a reasonable standard of compliance across our EDAs, but these heavy-handed, poorly thought out, and incredibly arrogant motions are not the way to do it. As an example, our EDA could be deregistered if we do not have an ‘acceptable’ Constitution on file with Head Office – with no redress. What if Head Office lost our Constitution? What if we disagreed? What if we simply wanted to keep the Constitution we already have? We would have no choice, and would lose our right to exist, simply because someone (and this is not defined either, by the way) said so. This is incredibly distressing to me.

c04 – Yellow
c07 – Red
c08 – Yellow

Directives
d02 – Black
d11 – Red
d10 – Yellow
d13 – Yellow
d01 – Green
d05 – Red
d09 – Green
d12 – Red
d14 – Red
d03 – Green
d04 – Yellow
d06 – Red
d07 – Green
d08 – Red

I confess, I did a bit of pleading to get Dave to agree to run for the Green Party Federal Council. Looking forward to retirement, after decades as a high school teacher, Dave wondered why he would want to add being a member of Federal Council to his list of advocacy and artistic projects.

Hmm… good question.

In Dave, I saw the opportunity for Ontario EDAs to have a real voice on Council – to be represented by someone who has a ferocious belief in grassroots democracy and the power of a Constitution to either hinder or help an organization in both the short- and long-term.

I knew that Dave loves Constitutions and By-laws, not because of his years of service on the OSSTF Provincial Council, but because he kept asking me questions about our EDA and Federal Constitutions. ‘What do we do in this situation?’ ‘What does this mean?’ ‘Who is responsible for this?’

All great questions. Questions that it had never occurred to me to ask. And definitely questions I did not know how to answer. While I take pride in my ability to balance a love of details with a passion for the big picture, Dave’s focus on Constitutional details blew me away, as did his positive attitude and great ideas for local EDA work.

There are a lot of gaps in our Constitution, gaps that Dave noticed right away, and made proposals to help close.

There also seem to be a lot of people at the Federal level willing to ignore the Constitution and the grassroots nature of the Party while they concentrate power at the centre and present us as a Party of One. Several of the Constitutional amendments proposed cause me a great deal of concern about where the Party is headed and how committed Federal Council is to an impartial, grassroots approach. I do not believe that we have had a truly effective Provincial Councilor in the past. In my years of CEO I can attest that I was never consulted by our Provincial Rep, and received the most minimal support from Provincial Organizers. I would love to see this change, would love to see more focus on supporting local EDAs.

We are more than one candidate, more than Head Office, and waaaay more than a climate change advocacy group and I firmly believe that Dave shares these views and will work hard as Provincial rep to ensure that the Party is guided by a vision rooted locally.

I totally support Dave Kempton in his campaign to become the new Provincial Councilor for Ontario. We desperately need new voices and ideas on Federal Council, and we desperately need the voices of those who have experience outside of the environmental lobby.

It is time for the GPC to grow up and become the federal Party that I know we can be and having Dave on Federal Council would be a great start. You can find out more about him here.

Thanks to Carter for sharing this link with me. Tyler Hamilton at CleanBreak.ca discusses a couple of solar co-ops that are popping up around southern Ontario.

One is Countryside, partnering with ARISE Technologies to start photovoltaic (PV) projects on commercial/industrial rooftops. People who are interested in participating in PV but do not have adequate sites can buy shares in the projects and participate in revenues from the Ontario Power Authority’s (OPA) feed-in tariff program.

Another, on a much smaller scale is the Neighbourhood Unitarian Universalist (NUU) congregation in Toronto installing a PV system on their church roof. Again, they are selling shares.

I think I’ve already mentioned that I have a wee crush on Cathy MacLellan, one of the partners of ARISE (she started it with her husband after they graduated from Waterloo). She is also the Green Party of Canada candidate for K/W and a totally inspiring entrepreneur.

I also happen to love the UUs, my church of choice and one I would love to see in Aurora and/or Newmarket. Social justice is one of their core principles, just as it is for the Green Party.

As for the province’s feed-in tariff program – the Liberals almost got it right. If they can overcome their issues with back-end red tape it could be a really great program and encourage small-scale renewable energy projects all over the province – including here at home.

Anybody feel like starting an energy co-op in Newmarket? Count me in.

I was reading the Tuesday edition of the Era-Banner this morning and enjoying their excellent coverage of the pro-democracy rally on Saturday when I started to notice some interesting facts being tossed about on page 10. ‘Facts’ about session lengths and prorogue frequencies. Stuff like that.

Disagreeing with the numbers, I sat down and wrote a very nice Letter to the Editor setting out my version of the facts.

Unfortunately, I received a note from the Editor, Ted McFadden, that it is their policy to *not* publish letters from political party candidates.

Since I’m the new Green candidate I have no voice – even though I believe my letter was fairly non-partisan.

So there you have it. And now you’ll have my letter, because I’m posting it here. Gotta love the Net.

Dear Editor,

Thank you for the excellent coverage of the pro-democracy rally this past weekend in Newmarket. It was very exciting to be part of the event and an honour to be one of the speakers. John Taylor made what I think is a very important point: that the loss of democracy is always preceded by seemingly minor or technical incursions and silence on the part of the people. So it was with great pride that I joined the other demonstrators.

Contrary to Ms. Brown’s statement, I do not think it was the appropriate time to end the session. There were 37 pieces of the government’s own legislation still in consideration that were killed and their mandate had in no way been fulfilled.

I was a little surprised by what I perceived as inaccurate statements in your article regarding the last session of Parliament and proroguing in general. The last session was only 128 days, not 228, this can easily be confirmed by examining the parliamentary calendar for 2009. As well, the average is not 2 prorogues per year – there have only been 105 prorogues since Confederation. Finally, the average number of sitting days in a session since 1982 when the parliamentary calendar was introduced has been 183, not 128.

If the Conservative government could come up with a viable reason to prorogue Parliament, there would not be an issue, but the cynicism and arrogance with which our current Prime Minister has called not one, but two, prorogues in an attempt to avoid scrutiny is an affront that the people of Canada are not prepared to accept. Thank goodness and thank you again for your coverage.

Sincerely,
Vanessa Long
Newmarket-Aurora Green Candidate

(Here are the sources I used to get my information: You can count the sitting days here: Parliamentary Calendar and the Liberals have an interesting article on session length and the history of prorogation.

I was honoured to give a speech at the pro-democracy rally in Newmarket on Saturday. Thank you to Liz, Neale, and Nick for the awesome job they did with organizing and hosting a peaceful and powerful demonstration.

Here is the video of my first public speech as the Newmarket-Aurora Green Party Candidate (though at a non-partisan event).

Good Afternoon. My name is Vanessa Long.

Thank you so much for coming out on this beautiful Saturday afternoon. To begin, I think it is important to give ourselves a big cheer for proving that we are not merely the ‘chattering elites’ and that though we are definitely Canadian, we are definitely NOT apathetic. So turn to the person next to you and thank them for coming out today. We totally rock.

In the last federal election in Newmarket, just over 60% of eligible voters actually took the time to go and vote. Now, I know that in this political climate it is hard for many of us to find a candidate that we really ‘want’ to vote for, one that we can ‘believe’ in, but to abandon our democratic right to vote is a frightening prospect indeed. And, unfortunately, one that many of those in power are depending upon.

I just wanted to take a quick poll of our crowd here:

How many of you, how many of you that showed up here, for how many of you is this your first political rally.

Mine too.

Okay, this one is a little trickier. For how many of you is this your first political rally in Newmarket-Aurora.

Me too.

And isn’t that gratifying? Isn’t that encouraging?

Because, personally, I don’t believe that there is anything wrong with proroguing parliament – it has been done 105 times since Confederation after all.

But it is the cynicism and, well, you know, the ‘duck and cover’ tactics that have led to the last two prorogues that have got me all riled up.

Prorogues were traditionally called ‘after’ a ruling government had ‘completed’ its legislative agenda. All the bills had been passed and they were ready to give a new throne speech and move on.

But this parliament did not pass the bills that made up their stated agenda. They killed 37 pieces of their own legislation. They can hardly claim that they had finished their mandate.

But I don’t want to focus on what is wrong with our Parliament and our democracy these days. We already know.

I want to focus on what is right.

And what is right is standing right here in front of me.

And standing and cheering and marching and chanting in similar crowds at 50 rallies all across Canada.

We are what is right with our democracy ‘RIGHT NOW’.

To steal another quote, We are the change we have been waiting for. YOU are the change that I have been waiting for.

These rallies demonstrate the power of ONE individual to make a tremendous difference. One person started a Facebook page and ONE person decided that we should have our own rally right here in Newmarket-Aurora.

And you, you are ONE person who said enough is enough and came out to cheer and chant and make you presence known.

We are the change we have been waiting for and I, I am also ONE person. And I tell you now. I am ONE person who is looking forward to the next election campaign when WE get to make our voices heard to those in power. When the ONE becomes the WE and WE get to vote for change.

Thank you again for supporting democracy and accountability and transparency. Let’s keep the pressure up and demand proper governance from those we have entrusted with our beloved country.
Thank you.