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?