In the upcoming federal election, cross-Canada polling suggests the Green Party has a legitimate shot at doubling or tripling their presence in Parliament (they had two seats in the last House of Commons). Since their inception, many Canadians have thought of the Greens as a one-issue party. Their platform includes promises such as reducing Canada's emissions, converting to electric cars and boosting environmental protection.
But the party also calls for Canada to accept climate refugees, rely more on domestic Canadian oil production versus imports, decriminalize all drugs, and promises free post-secondary education.
In an interview with ElliotLakeToday, Algoma-Manitoulin-Kapuskasing (A-M-K) Green Party candidate Max Chapman outlined why he's running as a first-time candidate in the October federal election.
Climate has become one of the 'hot issues' in this campaign. On the renewable energy grid, Chapman said, "That's completely possible if we stop subsidizing fossil fuel production and fossil.fuel transportation and, instead, put that money into projects like expanding the electricity grid, and building renewable energy."
"And those projects at the same time can create more jobs than we can create in the long term in the fossil fuel industry, like our proposal of retrofitting 100 percent of buildings in Canada to be energy efficient by 2024. That will create 4,000,000 jobs nationwide, just that project,” he added.
As to whether his Green Party is 'left' or 'right' of centre in.the traditional sense of of the political spectrum, Chapman said it's hard to categorize them that way. In his words, "Policies like pharmacare, guaranteed liveable income and investing in affordable housing – these things are proven to work, regardless of whether they're left or right."
"It's proven to improve the lives of people and to be achievable and good for Canadians. As Greens, we are the fiscally responsible party,” he added. "We believe in fiscal responsibility, which is why we plan to balance the budget by 2025."
On immigration, Chapman said, "We think Canada has a strong system for vetting people and making sure people are able to immigrate into Canada. What we'd like to see is better efforts so that once people are in Canada, we provide them with tools go integrate into the multi-cultural fabric of our country.”
"But at the same time on the question of refugees, and that whole area of immigration, we would want to start looking at other cases, where we will have to start accepting environmental refugees, fleeing from catastrophic environmental events in other countries."
On healthcare, even though it's primarily a provincial responsibility, Chapman said the Greens would like to sit down with the provinces and rmove away from GDP health transfers and towards transfers based on real healthcare needs in the province.
Chapman said, "We want to expand medicare to include a pharmacare for everyone program, and free dental care for low income Canadians. We want to create a bulk purchasing agency for pharmaceuticals so we can lower the price by purchasing them through a crown corporation."
On the north, as a longtime resident of Manitoulin, Chapman said it's necessary to get a seat at the table. He said, "It's time that all the urban centres don't get to dominate the conversation all the time, and we began to understand the people living up here."
"They need jobs, they need services. The Green Party wants to reinvest in public transportation, like the Northlander. And we want to expand services Canada Post is offering to include high speed internet banking and electrical vehicle charging, so that rural communities aren't being left behind,” he continued.
Chapman is also stressing the importance of reconciliation with Canada's Indigenous People. He noted, "We've made some progress under the Liberals. But still we see the government taking survivors of residential schools to court."
"We see them fighting tooth and nail over every little inquiry or case. We need to reevaluate what we want reconciliation to be. Do we want it to be this awful long process where we fight each other every step of the way? Or do we want it to be a collaborative, inclusive process that heals the divides that have existed between the Canadian government and the Indigenous People for centuries?"
He concluded, "So that would be a big issue that we need to discuss as the election campaign goes on."
With the campaign going into it's second half, A-M-K Green Party candidate Max Chapman is in a five-way race in the giant riding with Conservative Dave Williamson, PPC representative Dave Delisle, incumbent New Democrat Carol Hughes, and Liberal Heather Wilson.
Voting day is Oct. 21.
