Tuesday October 1, 2024 | VICTORIA, BC
BC ELECTION CAMPAIGN DAY 11 of 28
Political news & analysis by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
Your 28-day voter’s guide for BC Election 2024
On this first day of October, the BC Green Party has delivered a significant policy platform into the public domain of the 43rd BC provincial general election race.
This is Day 11 in Week 2 of the 28-day BC provincial election campaign.
Overall, the BC Greens are challenging the economic model of measuring government success by GDP (an economic measure of growth). “We don’t know if money is contributing to the well-being of communities and nature, and is it delivering good governance,” said Furstenau today.
“We need a new view for BC that is rooted in well-being,” she said.
Doing things differently, for people:
With the BC Greens there are four key planks of how a government should serve its population:
- Thriving people
- Resilient communities
- A flourishing natural world
- Society and governance
The platform is based on a vision that BC Green Party Leader Sonia Furstenau has held since first becoming politically-sensitized many years ago. It has to do with well-being.
Today the BC Greens introduced their roadmap for a healthier, happier British Columbia which in many cases involves ‘doing things differently’.
“The well-being framework that actually measures how it’s spending its money and how it measures its outcomes for the people of BC,” said Furstenau this morning during her platform announcement at Swan’s Pub in downtown Victoria.
“The way governments operate should not be the same as the way corporations operate,” says Furstenau.
She noted today that countries with women leaders recognize that it’s not enough to measure only GDP. Wars and disasters increase GDP. Countries like New Zealand, Scotland and now Germany have well-being models for measuring economic success.
The next BC government “not be measuring only GDP and how much is being spent, but whether outcomes are being achieved: well-being of people, communities, nature and good governance”, said Furstenau today.
Choosing your next MLAs:
Unlike what resembles a two-party system that is polarized in political viewpoints (such as in the United States), Furstenau believes that voters and residents of BC are better served with a government that works “on behalf of you”.
“Raise your expectations, expect better,” says Furstenau who may be afraid to vote for who they would like to be their representative in the next BC Legislative Assembly.
She articulated last week that she feels Elections BC delivers fair, well-organized and reliable election delivery systems.
69 BC Green candidates:
There will be 93 MLAs in the BC Legislative Assembly after the October 19, 2024 election (they will actually sit for their first session starting in February 2025).
That’s up from 87 MLAs who served during 2020-2024.
For this election there are 93 BC NDP candidates, 93 BC Conservative candidates, and 69 BC Green candidates. [See: 28-day campaign itinerary (all parties) | BC Election 2024 News & Features]
Here in the Greater Victoria area the BC Green candidates are:
- Rob Botterell – Saanich North and the Islands
- Erin Cassels – Langford-Highlands
- Camille Currie – Esquimalt-Colwood
- David Evans -Juan de Fuca-Malahat
- Sonia Furstenau – Victoria-Beacon Hill
- Lisa Gunderson – Oak Bay-Gordon Head
- Ned Taylor – Saanich South
- Christina Winter – Victoria-Swan Lake
“The voters will decide, who they want as representatives after October 19,” said Furstenau today. “It’s important for people to look closely at the people they want to be their representatives. Who will be your voice and your advocate and representing you for the next four years.”
People should not be voting based on “the amount of fear and anxiety they feel”. There’s an “anxiety because they feel they can’t vote for the people that they want,” said Furstenau today.
An government and a knowledge-based society is meant to serve people and society, she said, not just those who fare best in the economic structure.
Costed platform includes tax components:
“The platform is costed and we do take that seriously,” said Furstenau today.
Tax measures would include people earning over $350,000 paying more of a marginal tax rate and that corporations making over $1 billion tax year pay more tax.
There would be “certainty and clarity” around regulations.
First full platform:
Furstenau was pleased to say that the BC Greens are the first party to release their full platform. “Green supporters love policy,” said Furstenau, herself a teacher and self-described ‘historian’.
Today she called for ‘alternative politics’ in BC, for which she wants to lead by example. She hopes to one day see proportional representation as the voting system in BC, instead of first-past-the-post (the latter having been essentially designed for a two-party system based on the ruling class as was the case in Britain when the parliamentary system was first developed).
Voters should be asking of their political leaders: “Tell us what your vision is, how you intend to solve the problems that British Columbians are having to endure… expect them to take the work seriously, that’s what I’m doing today.”
The framework unveiled today is “the province that we could have”, said Furstenau with emotional delivery about the vision for the province that she designed with her BC Green caucus. She noted the work of Katie Reid, Rose Williams, Emily Bishop and Liz Lilly.
There were 100 meetings, 17 books read, and dozens and dozens of articles explored as party of coming up with the BC Green platform.
“The work that went into this is enormous and phenomenal,” said Furstenau today.
Not a majority government:
The BC Green Party leader hopes there is not a majority government after the October 19 election.
“We are a small and mighty team of Greens with a large and mighty platform,” said Furstenau today.
The BC Greens have policy insights in spades. They are likely to be able to achieve at least some of these socioeconomic and health-care advancements over the next four years, with thoughtful legislation that when science-based and timely will likely get legislative support in committees and from both sides of the house.
She has during this campaign noted how a lot of good policy got developed during 2017-2020 when cooperation was required among parties in order to pass legislation, with only two BC Green MLAs in the house (Furstenau together with Adam Olsen).
She compares that to a heavy-handed approach by the BC NDP as a majority government during 2020-2024.
“The orientation will be how we make sure that people are served by government, especially for people who are struggling the very most,” said Furstenau about the BC Green MLAs in the next BC Legislative Assembly.
Some of the key platform ideas of the BC Greens — if legislated or reflected in regulations or programs — could make a real difference for people in their everyday lives.
A political party should have “courage and bravery”, she said, to look beyond a 1-year or 4-year cycle. “Imagine the province we could be in 10 or 20 years, if we orient ourselves in a different way.”
Poverty and housing:
“Orienting our work not toward partisan ideologies and bickering, but solving the crises. I am astonished by the lack of urgency,” she said, noting that homelessness, for example “is not a normal thing”.
BC currently has “a system that insists that people live in deep poverty – they are in a place of survival”.
“Until we start voting for what we want, we’re going to keep getting what we don’t want.” It’s time to stop focusing on “short term one-off non-solutions to enormous challenges and crises that we face”.
Housing solutions cannot depend on the private market to be solved, where profit is the key motive. That is what keeps pushing up housing prices and rents.
“Wealth has moved into fewer and fewer hands,” which has led to deepening poverty.
This has been going on for about 40 years now thanks to globalization of economies and fast-moving action through digitization and Internet-based communications. Those who could afford to jump onto that bandwagon have fared well, and most others have been left behind. When interest rates were cranked up fast after the pandemic, there was a notable breaking-point for already struggling households and under-financed small businesses.
“We thrive in connection to our families, neighbours and wider community. When everybody is thriving, all of us benefit from that,” said Furstenau today in her impassioned way.
The BC Greens will want to see vacancy control and to make an historic investment in non-market housing that is protected from forces of enormous wealth and capital. People just want to live in the communities where they grew up and work and raise families.
Fixing health-care:
In BC today, about one-fifth of the population does not have a family doctor (the gateway to medical care).
“Access health-care when you need it is just not happening,” said BC Green leader Sonia Furstenau, mentioning the Dogwood Model that the BC Greens announced on September 9 as part of the solution through community-based care.
Furstenau wants to see a government that is “oriented toward the well-being and health of their communities”, with long views and horizons.
BC Greens would streamline healthcare administration, reduce bureaucracy, and do a thorough review of the Health authorities.
Climate change is now:
“Climate change is a ‘now’ problem”, she remarked on how fast things have changed.
“The natural systems need to be healthy so we can be healthy — clean air, water and healthy food.”
But clearly the BC Greens are well beyond being a party ‘just’ about the environment. Today they introduced a new vision to take BC forward in fresh and necessary directions.
===== RELATED:
- Victoria Swan-Lake residents explore top issues with NDP & Green candidates (September 25, 2024)
- Camille Currie on why she’d be the right MLA for Esquimalt-Colwood (September 21, 2024)
- BC Greens campaign kickoff in Victoria Sept 21 (September 21, 2024)
- Greens support Juan de Fuca-Malahat candidate David Evans at fundraiser in Metchosin (September 11, 2024)
- BC Greens pitch smart economy & robust safety net to Chamber of Commerce audience (September 10, 2024)
- Christina Winter running for BC Greens in Victoria-Swan Lake (August 31, 2024)
- Rob Botterell set to fill Olsen’s shoes in Saanich North & the Islands (August 11, 2024)
- NEWS SECTIONS: BC NDP | BC GREENS | BC PROVINCIAL ELECTION 2024 | POLITICS | LIVING WITH CLIMATE CHANGE
- CAMPAIGN ITINERARIES & FEATURE ARTICLES: Your 28-day voter’s guide for BC Election 2024