Politics aside, I want to let Canadians know right now what our country could be under a Green government.
After attending the Global Greens meeting in Brazil this spring, I have a real appreciation of what international cooperation can look like. There are Green Parties in over 90 countries around the world. We have been in coalition governments in Germany, Denmark and Sweden. We have had representatives in Ireland, New Zealand and Australia. I saw the Green Party representatives of Jordan, Israel and Egypt sit together on their break, and it inspired me to believe that a truly global movement could turn this world around.
Green Members of Parliament would work with decent parliamentarians of all stripes. We would create a culture of respect and an ethic of responsibility and accountability within the House of Commons. With just a few MPs, I believe the Green Party can bring about significant change, prompting other parties to move toward implementing the Kelowna accord, bringing in sound environmental economics, creating universal childcare and protecting our public health care.
If the Green Party’s platform went forward starting today, I believe Canadians would quickly see local community-based projects accelerating. We would bring in a national vision for transit, for energy and tourism. We would implement the national water strategy, and all of our policies would work together to achieve the Canada we want. These national strategies would be guidelines with which we could direct investment to small business operators, infrastructure development and other economic stimulus.
Within our first year of government, I believe we could move toward quality child care, including work place care that helps families stay closer together. We could give low-income Canadians better access to mass transit, particularly in rural areas, and implement a health program to pay for the pharmaceutical drugs we need.
Through tax shifting, we could begin to instantly Green our economy, investing in sustainable energy business, protecting our natural resources at home and ensuring that they exist to serve us well into the future. We would immediately shift taxes to alleviate the burden on the unemployed and low-income families. We would give married couples income splitting, a fairer tax policy. We would use our resources and our revenue to help Canadians prosper in a changing climate.
In foreign development, we would start talking to our NATO allies, our UN associates and the powers that be in Afghanistan about the strategic route to a peaceful resolution, focusing on development assistance, defense and diplomacy. We would not leave our men and women to a dangerous and failed mission.
We would commit to investing 0.7% of GDP to international development assistance, as requested by the campaign to Make Poverty History. We would begin the process of giving Canada back its role in peace-keeping and the mission to end the arms race.
We would once again be a voice for social justice and world peace in international negotiations, signing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, renewing our commitment to the Kyoto protocol, seeking nuclear disarmament, signing and implementing the Rotterdam Convention to protect developing countries from hazardous imports.
This would only be the beginning, and there are many more places where we need to affect change in this country right away, from electoral reform to preventative health care to reducing student debt.
I’m talking about vision because that’s what it takes to give people optimism. We need Canadians to take notice of this election campaign and vote for change, vote for the future. We named our policy document Vision Green because our policies all work together as common sense solutions that will help us to be stronger. The vision of the Green Party is for a better world, healthier, greener and more secure. With vision, people can achieve a great deal.
I want to ask all Green supporters and candidates to think about values in this campaign. The values that Canadians have always espoused: honesty, courage and integrity. We look to one another for vision, and we share in a common goal. This election is about nothing less than choosing to create a better world.