Canadian Green Party Platform

by Green Party

1. Replace GST and reduce income taxes in favour of resource taxes, a carbon tax, emission taxes, and disposal taxes.

- This revenue neutral proposal will conserve resources, increase employment and reduce pollution. Almost 50% of gross wages is taxed away by income tax and consumption taxes. People would be less expensive to employ if income taxes and sales taxes were lower. Industries would respond by becoming resource-efficient and by hiring more people to perform value-added production.

2. Cancel the $4.4-billion attack helicopter program.

- These helicopters are designed to defend Europe against the Soviet Union. Since the cold war is over they are no longer necessary. Much different and less expensive equipment is required for peacekeeping and search and rescue. Recently the military has cut funding to our peacekeeping operations.

3. Adopt methods of sustainable fishers, sustainable forestry and sustainable agriculture.

- 42,000 jobs have been unnecessarily lost in the east coast fisheries due to ecologically irresponsible harvesting. Factory trawlers and unsustainable inshore fishing have decimated the resource. Sustainable fishing requires much lower quotas (if and when the cod stocks recover) and more careful monitoring.

- All remaining old growth (like Clayoquot Sound) should be preserved. Clearcut forestry should be replaced with ecologically sensitive selective cutting. Value-added production should occur in logging communities rather than exporting raw logs and wood fibre. Greens advocate programs and legislation to encourage paper and wood product recycling.

- Most food items consumed in Canada have travelled 2000km, are invariably poisoned by pesticides and are often produced under exploitative labour conditions. A Green government would support local, organically grown, in-season food production that is not based on a meat- or dairy-centred diet.

4. Legislate closed-loop cycles for industrial wastes and products.

- Technologies now exist which, if implemented, would no longer requiring polluting industrial wastes to be released into the air, water or soil. Government assistance and legislation should ensure that such technological improvements are made. - Greens propose legislation ensuring that products made in Canada or imported should be fully repairable, reusable or recyclable. Virtually nothing should be landfilled or incinerated.

5. Promote community economic development (CED) to keep production socially and ecologically responsible, to keep jobs local and to keep profits in the community.

- the Free Trade Agreement and NAFTA increase product globalization, cultural and lifestyle homogenization, and the global division of labour (loss of local expertise). Wealth, power and control are concentrated in fewer and fewer hands thus disempowering communities and bioregions. Democratic control over production and resources is increasingly lost resulting in accepting the lowest common denominators in environmental and labour standards.

Green Party of Canada 1993 Federal Election Coordinating Committee Box 3901, Ottawa K1Y 4M5 (613) 237-4768

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The Greens are rooted in the Civil Rights, Feminist and Peace movements of the 1960s and 70s, and the Nuclear Disarmament, anti-Toxics and Deep Ecology movements of the 1980s. The first Green Party in North America was formed in British Columbia in 1983. Similar parties have existed in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, since the 1970s and have elected representatives to local,regional, and national legislatures. No Green candidate has yet been elected to a provincial legislature in Canada, or to the House of Commons, but the emerging Green constituency caused other parties to examine the links between their environmental policies and the economy more seriously. Greens have always emphasised a multifaceted approach to social justice and ecology.

Green work includes building sustainable community-based economies, lobbying legislators, staging demonstrations and running for office.

The Green vision includes a responsibility to create both a healthy environment and a healthy society, both of which are fundamentally interrelated. The following is the party's 10 key values, and should be reflected in all Green policies and activities.

<<<10 Key Values of the Canadians Greens>>>

1.***Ecological Wisdom*** The Earth sustains all life forms. Whatever we do to the web of life, we do to ourselves.

The worldwide growth of poverty and injustice is unacceptable. All must be able to fulfil their potential regardless of gender, race, citizenship or sexual preferences.

3.***Grassroots Democracy*** The powerless suffer the most form resource exhaustion and toxic pollution. All citizens must be able to directly participate in the environmental, economic and political decisions which affect their lives.

4.***Nonviolence*** Violence is a morally wrong and ultimately self-defeating way to resolve disputes. We must work to end war forever.

5.***Decentralisation*** Power and responsibility must be returned to local communities

values and lifestyles.

6.***Community-Based Economics*** The economy must provide for people within the natural limits or the earth rather than people providing for the economy. Local self-reliance to the greatest practical extent is the best way to achieve this goal.

7.***Feminism*** The ethics of cooperation and understanding must replace the values of domination and control.

8.***Respect for Diversity*** We honour the biological diversity of the Earth and the cultural, sexual and spiritual diversity of the Earth's people.

9.***Personal and Global Responsibility*** Global sustainability and international justice is based on

the Earth.

10.***Future Focus/Sustainability*** Like the Iroquois Indians, we must seek a society which looks after the needs of the seventh generation as much as our own.

Posted by:

Green Party of Canada
Box 3901 Ottawa, K1Y 4M5
1313 Woodward Ave
(613) 238-7730
Fax (613) 232-3081