Se eC Eee

4 Features

Nomeber 9, 2005 + Over the Edge

‘We've Lost the War’

INTERVIEW BY BELINDA LI

TRANSCRIBED BY ANDREW KURJATA

Adriane Carr Tours Northern British Columbia

The Green Party of British Col-
umbia has been gaining a high profile
lately. This past summer, they had elec-
toral candidates in every riding in BC,
released a full budget, and participated
in the leader's debate, moving beyond
specialty politics into the wider polit-
ical arena. Though they failed to have
any of their candidates get elected, they
ate maintaining a high profile, as party
leader Adriane Carr embarks on a tour
of northern BC to investigate the pine
beetle crisis. After stops in Smithers
and Burns Lake, she came to Prince
George, where she sat down with
Belinda Li to talk about tuition fees,”
marijuana, the teacher's strike, electoral
reform, young voter apathy, and the fu-
ture of the Green Party.

Belinda Li: What is the
Green Party’s stance on
the Mountain Pine Beetle?

Adriane Carr: It’s obviously of cat-
astrophic proportions, and what we're
looking at is how does the government
deploy resources so that we can, as
much as possible, sustain communities.
I’ve learned that there are some healthy
steps. We've lost the war in the green
attack. I mean, we're now talking about
how to handle the huge volumes of red
attack and the dead standing, or the
grey attack as they call it, and it’s clear...
that the fire hazard goes down once
the needles have dropped. So, a lot of

’ the fears that you had to get all that

wood out there because it’s always a

fire hazard, but what they're learning is
that once the needles drop the ground
water, the water table comes up, and it's
a wetter condition and they can be left
standing for longer than they earlier
predicted.-

The second thing I’ve learned is that
in some of the pine forests... there are
healthy understores of other species,
spruce and fir... and so those are the
stands that they should not be cutting
right now. The problem is, we dont
know where those stands are. There
isn't enough work done, so this is very
much firming up in my mind that I'll be
calling on the federal government and
the provincial government to deploy re-
sources and hire the scientists that are
needed to identify where those stands
are that have a healthy understore of
‘other species that will be able to carry
communities through the midterm and

longterm in harvesting.

B:Whatis the Green Party’s
plan for going through on
these actions?

A: We play a strong role, even though
were unelected at the current time.
Green parties, of course, are elected in
30 countries or more around the world,
mostly getting elected where there's a
fair voting system, and, in the future;
I am hoping for a change in the voting
system. We have been working to sup-
port a change in the voting system and
passed a resolution at the AGM [An-
nual General Meeting] we held this past

BELINDA DLi
Adriane Carr, the leader of the B.C. Green Party, visited UNBC to meet with students and investigate the mountain
pint beetle crisis,

weekend in Kelowna, with unanimous
support to back the campaign for the
next referendum on single transferrable
vote. So, we'll be working with people
around then and beforehand to try and
show that there is possible boundaries
on the STV riding, Meanwhile, [we
have] 9.2 percent of the vote, which is
at the top of all Green parties, planet-
wide, :

[This] is a significant percentage of
vote, so both the NDP and the Liber-
als, the opposition and government, are
looking to the Green Party and what
we're saying because they know that we
have impact on the voters and would
like to try and garner some of those
voters, so they are adopting some of
what we say. So that's a very important
role that we play, in affecting the policy
of other parties, because we are strong
enough... there are three top parties in
BC, we are one of them, we came third
in 72 ridings out of 77, and second in
one, so we are a very significant player,
and I intend to keep raising issues and
informing the public and the other pol-
itical parties. I have met with Gordon
Campbell and Carole James and have
meetings lined up in the future to keep
making suggestions for them to pick up
in their platforms.

“We ignore the
health of our en-
vironment, we pay
the price.’

- Adriane Carr

B: Some people have ac-
cussed the Green Party of
splitting the vote with the
NDP, which allowed the
Liberals to get elected.
What is your reaction t

this?

A: My reaction is that the NDP real-
ly worked hard in this last election to
win back every single voter who would
possibly vote NDP and I think they've
solidified a very big amount of votes...

-so, those who voted Green really aren't

interested in voting for the NDP, nor
are they interessted in voting for the
Liberals. We have a solid core support
at 9.2 percent: that’s significant. Those
are people who dont see the NDP or
the Liberals offering the solutions and
the kind of politicis that they want, and
around the world Green parties play
an important role in the political spec-
trum that none of the other parties,
Liberal, NDP, none of them, pays suf-
ficient attention to the need to balance
the environment, people, and econom-
ics. You cant put one above the others,
because if you do, you end up having
problems, in the short or the long term.
Most people get that around economics
and people. Look at the current labour
disputes going on in the province, you
know, when you disregard the rights
and interests of people you end up with
a crisis that really hurts everyone. The
same with the environment. We ignore
the health of our environment, we pay
the price, Our kids do, with rising can-
cer rates, with rising asthma rates and
allergies. So it's really important that
we put those three and balance [them].
The Green Party is the only party that
thinks long term and [makes] sure that
the development path is truly sustain-
able.

B: What is the Green
Party’s stance on the teach-

er’s strike? [ed. note: at the time
of this interview, the teacher’s were
still in the midst of-taking job ac-
tion]

A: We have supported the teachers
right from the beginning. I stood in the
picket line on day one of the job action
and I believe... that the province, the
BC Liberals, are in the wrong. First of
all, by legislating in 2002 the act which
took away teacher's rights to bargain
for their working conditions, they. [the
Liberals] actually went against the
constitution. They've been criticized
internationally by the United Nations
for that. Bill 12 is another, in my mind,
illegal act. It's an act which is imposing
a contract and taking away the right
to bargain, and those are fundamen-
tal rights that are a part of Canadian
society and enshrined in our constitu-
tion. So the Liberals are in the wrong.
When people say, “Well gee, aren't
the teacher's breaking the law?” I say,
“There are unjust laws,’ and the Green
Party stands with teachers against un-

just laws, to make the law right, We are
asking the Liberals to repeal Bill 12,
to restore the right of teachers to bar-
gain their working conditions, which
include classroom and learning condi-
tions: class size, class composition... not
only is that important in terms of civil
rights, it's important in terms of what's
best for our children and eduation.

B: What is your stance on
rising tuition fees for post-
secondary education?

A: The Green Party is the only polit-
ical party that believes, in the long term,
that we should have free post-second-

ary education, as they do in a number

of countries around the world. If Costa
Rica and Mexico can do [it], let alone
countries like Denmark, we can, too.
We area rich enough society, and so we
believe that the tuition fees have now
reached a point where it is a barrier for
students who want to go on to be able
to pursue post-secondary education.
That's wrong. We are a richer society,
we are a better off society, when we of-
fer and are able to support young people
{and anyone else] who wants to get that
extra education. [They] should be able
to get it. So we would start by rolling
back some of the increases, becaiisé you
cant do it all at once, it's a big project,
it's about $9 million, that's a lot, so we
believe the reduction in fees should be
phased in. We also believe that you
cant do that without the government
simultaneously offering education in-
stitutions a means of support, because
it's not good enough to just reduce fees
and then decrease the quality of educa-
tion by not funding the insitution. So,
it's a big bite of the budget, but we be-
lieve that it's the best investment that
the government can make in the future
of the province and our youth.

B: What can be done to
provide that funding?

A: In this election for the first time,
{we] costed out our platform in a
budget, so we did provide a budget to
the media and the public and we rec-
ognized that to raise funds. To raise
more revenue is needed when you talk
about taking away some of the current
revenue: student fees are part of that
current revenue, so even if you roll back
fees and need to find $50 million, it's a
lot of money, in the short term. So, how
we would raise funds that's different
from the other parties is we would tax
gambling revenues which are not cur-
rently taxed in BC... and that hopefully
will not only provide revenue; but be a
deterrent to people who would tax win-
nings of a hundred dollars or more...
we would tax winnings, not every ticket
people buy.

We would tax pollution. In a way it’s
like tax shifting: if you're going to do
something bad, tax it and try and make
it so costly that it adds to the incentives
to stop doing it. So we would tax pol-
lution and toxins. We would tax junk