The Green Pary did extremely well in this election even though they didn’t get any of their candidates elected. 4.3% of the vote is nothing to sneeze at, especially when the party gets $1.75 per year for every vote they received (adds up to nearly $1 million). Their support was strongest in BC and Alberta.
Their platform is less kooky than we’ve come to expect from some green parties. There is still the basic environmental concern that drives everything, but their platform emphasizes the common-sense elements of environmentalism. For example, they want to decrease income tax for everyone, but they want to raise gas taxes dramatically. The point is to use taxation to discourage bad things (like burning gasoline) and to encourage good things (like making money). A few other things they want to do:
-correllate immigration numbers to unemployment numbers, so you don’t have large numbers of immigrants arriving when there are no jobs to be had.
-encourage better health by shortening the work week and spending more money on sports and fitness programs (saves tax-payers in the long run because less people need to use the health-care system for couch-potato diseases).
-use monetary incentives to encourage doctors to focus on prevention rather than prescription-writing.
-pay down national debt (there have been surplusses in the last few years but the money always manages to get spent on stuff, especially before the election)
The Sierra Club and Greenpeace both endorsed the NDP, saying their environmental platform was the strongest of all the parties, but then again, the NDP had a much better chance of electing members also.
danrueck
Jul 06 2004
10:07 am
The Green Pary did extremely well in this election even though they didn’t get any of their candidates elected. 4.3% of the vote is nothing to sneeze at, especially when the party gets $1.75 per year for every vote they received (adds up to nearly $1 million). Their support was strongest in BC and Alberta.
Their platform is less kooky than we’ve come to expect from some green parties. There is still the basic environmental concern that drives everything, but their platform emphasizes the common-sense elements of environmentalism. For example, they want to decrease income tax for everyone, but they want to raise gas taxes dramatically. The point is to use taxation to discourage bad things (like burning gasoline) and to encourage good things (like making money). A few other things they want to do:
-correllate immigration numbers to unemployment numbers, so you don’t have large numbers of immigrants arriving when there are no jobs to be had.
-encourage better health by shortening the work week and spending more money on sports and fitness programs (saves tax-payers in the long run because less people need to use the health-care system for couch-potato diseases).
-use monetary incentives to encourage doctors to focus on prevention rather than prescription-writing.
-pay down national debt (there have been surplusses in the last few years but the money always manages to get spent on stuff, especially before the election)
The Sierra Club and Greenpeace both endorsed the NDP, saying their environmental platform was the strongest of all the parties, but then again, the NDP had a much better chance of electing members also.
That’s all I know really. Here’s the website:
www.greenparty.ca